Thanks to the careful
note-taking of photographer Lee
Passmore, we know what's happening in
this shot and when, although we
probably could have figured this one
out on our own. I assume that's NOT
Earl perched on the bluff at left with
a camera. If you're not sure why the
Sweetwater Dam burst you need to read
up on the San
Diego Flood of 1916. (Photo courtesy
of San Diego History Center)
My father-in-law, Harry
Achenbach, was a teenager living
on his parent's Otay lemon
ranch when the dam broke. His
family was warned that the dam might
break so great-grandpa loaded everyone
on the buckboard and went to safety
over-looking the valley. When all the
women folk were safely on the hill,
great-grandpa said that Grandpa
Achenbach could go back down and
salvage some things, but he better
hurry. Grandpa quickly went down
to the old farm but
he panicked. It was getting dark
and the dam might break at any moment.
He looked around and thought, "What
should I save?" He decided to save a
chicken! He returned to the top
of the hill just before dark -- and
just in time to hear the wall of water
tear away everything in the valley.
When great-grandpa and grandpa went
back into the valley they could not
even find one lemon tree, and they
could not locate where the house had
stood. Everything was gone. Trees,
roots and all, the house, the barn,
the fertile valley soil -- everything
had been washed into the sea. In
the 1960s he would look wistfully at
my grandmother's clock and, with great
regret, would say "We had a clock just
like that. I could have saved that
clock, but instead I grabbed a
chicken!" Jeannine Berger
Passenheim ’60
