Speaker 1: Welcome to Aaron Manke's Cabinet of Curiosities, a production of
Speaker 1: iHeartRadio and Grimm and Mild. Our world is full of
Speaker 1: the unexplainable, and if history is an open book, all
Speaker 1: of these amazing tales are right there on display, just
Speaker 1: waiting for us to explore. Welcome to the Cabinet of Curiosities.
Speaker 1: On Christmas Eve of two thousand and nine, Gurgile Barkie
Speaker 1: was looking desperately for a way to keep his three
Speaker 1: year old daughter entertained. There was lots of work to
Speaker 1: do to ensure a magical Christmas morning, and Barkie was
Speaker 1: eager to get his daughter to settle down. Like many families,
Speaker 1: Barkie's household had run through all the usual Christmas movies.
Speaker 1: Barkie flipped across dozens of television channels, all playing this
Speaker 1: same three holiday films, until he finally came across one
Speaker 1: plane something different. One channel had just begun playing the
Speaker 1: nineteen ninety nine movie Stuart Little. Not very festive, but
Speaker 1: at least it was something Barkie's daughter hadn't seen, and
Speaker 1: just as he was about to return to his Christmas
Speaker 1: morning preparations, his daughter asked him to sit and watch
Speaker 1: it with her. Barkie fought off a groan fine he
Speaker 1: would watch this ten year old movie featuring a talking
Speaker 1: mouse instead of attending to his growing to do list.
Speaker 2: It was Christmas, after all.
Speaker 1: When Barkiy agreed to spend this time with his daughter,
Speaker 1: he had no way of knowing that he would be
Speaker 1: rewarded with the best Christmas gift he could have ever
Speaker 1: asked for, not quality family time, though we can assume
Speaker 1: he was grateful for that as well. No, Barkie's reward
Speaker 1: came in the form of Stuart Little's living room, specifically
Speaker 1: one painting on the living room's far wall. Barkie leapt
Speaker 1: from his seat. He dove for the remote before remembering
Speaker 1: that the movie was playing on cable and he had
Speaker 1: no way to pause or rewind it. For a moment,
Speaker 1: he was rush and then the painting appeared again on screen,
Speaker 1: and again and again. You see, gurgilely, Barkie wasn't just
Speaker 1: an exhausted dad trying to make Christmas magical for his family.
Speaker 1: He was also a researcher for the Hungarian National Gallery
Speaker 1: and an expert in the paintings of Robert Barney, a
Speaker 1: Hungarian expressionist painter from the early twentieth century who was
Speaker 1: famous for several works, but most notably for Sleeping Lady
Speaker 1: with Black Vaz, and that particular work, Sleeping Lady with
Speaker 1: Black Vaz, depicted Baroney's second wife in repose.
Speaker 2: He had completed the.
Speaker 1: Painting around nineteen twenty five, and records show that it
Speaker 1: was sold in nineteen twenty eight. Since then, the painting
Speaker 1: had been lost to time. Researchers, including Barkie, suspected that
Speaker 1: this was due to the political upheaval in Hungary during
Speaker 1: the period. The buyer and their family may have purchased
Speaker 1: the painting and then left Europe shortly afterwards.
Speaker 2: The question then.
Speaker 1: Became, how did a painting last see in nineteen twenty
Speaker 1: eight wind up on the set of Stuart Little Before
Speaker 1: the movie had ended, Barkie got right to work. He
Speaker 1: bombarded the production staff of the movie with emails and
Speaker 1: voicemails asking how and where they had found the painting.
Speaker 1: It was the best Christmas present for an art historian,
Speaker 1: Barkie said, and then nothing. For two long years, his
Speaker 1: requests for information went unanswered. Doubt crept in. Could the
Speaker 1: painting that he saw in Stuart Little have been just
Speaker 1: a replica. Barkie watched the film over and over to
Speaker 1: be sure, and came to the conclusion that it must
Speaker 1: be the real thing. After all, barony was no worldwide phenomenon,
Speaker 1: and the painting was not well known outside of Hungary. Finally,
Speaker 1: he received an email from the assistant set director of
Speaker 1: the movie. She had purchased the painting at an antique
Speaker 1: shop in Pasadena. She told him the set team felt
Speaker 1: that it fit the elegant esthetic of Stuart Little's house,
Speaker 1: and when the movie wrapped, she had asked to take
Speaker 1: it home, and the painting had hung in her Washington,
Speaker 1: d c. Bedroom ever since. She invited Barkie to come
Speaker 1: in person and confers firm the identity of the painting.
Speaker 1: Within a few months, he flew from Hungary to Washington
Speaker 1: and met up with this assistant set director near the
Speaker 1: National Mall. As soon as he laid eyes on the painting,
Speaker 1: he was sure it was the real thing. There's only
Speaker 1: one thing left to check, he told the woman. Barkie
Speaker 1: strode to a nearby hot dog vendor and asked to
Speaker 1: borrow a screwdriver.
Speaker 2: The vendor was happy to oblige.
Speaker 1: Barkie then unscrewed the protective backing from the antique frame
Speaker 1: and ran his eyes over the underside of the canvas,
Speaker 1: and there it was. In the lower corner was the
Speaker 1: stamped date nineteen twenty eight, the last time it was exhibited.
Speaker 1: Before the painting was purchased, the lost painting had been found.
Speaker 1: The assistant set director sold the painting about a year
Speaker 1: later to a private collector for two hundred and eighty
Speaker 1: five thousand dollars. For his part, Barkie gained fame and
Speaker 1: notoriety in the art historian community, and even published a
Speaker 1: book about Barony's works, including the.
Speaker 2: Story of his discovery.
Speaker 1: Barkie says getting to help solve the mystery is reward
Speaker 1: enough for him, but he added, with a twinkle in
Speaker 1: his eye, I do watch movies very differently now. In
Speaker 1: the early morning hours of May twenty first of nineteen
Speaker 1: twenty four, just outside the small town of Lone Pine, California,
Speaker 1: a sudden explosion lit up the desert night. When police arrived,
Speaker 1: they found that the blast had blown a massive hole
Speaker 1: in the Los Angeles Aqueduct, which carried water from the
Speaker 1: farmland of Owens Valley all the way to the city
Speaker 1: of Los Angeles, two hundred miles away. Southern California was
Speaker 1: in the middle of a long drought, and thanks to
Speaker 1: this act of vandalism, millions of gallons of precious water
Speaker 1: had already spilled out onto the sand. The police reckoned
Speaker 1: that it would have taken at least five hundred pounds
Speaker 1: of dynamite to cut through the iron and conquer creed
Speaker 1: of the aqueduct, which meant that they had a major
Speaker 1: criminal plots on their hands. Immediately, the LA Mayor put
Speaker 1: up a ten thousand dollars reward for information leading to
Speaker 1: the suspects in the bombing, and detectives were sent into
Speaker 1: nearby towns to investigate. But even though it seemed like
Speaker 1: everyone in Owens Valley knew exactly who was responsible for
Speaker 1: the blast, nobody would say a peep to them. The
Speaker 1: bombers were heroes. The residents of Owens Valley had been
Speaker 1: unhappy about the aqueduct from the beginning. It had been
Speaker 1: built more than a decade prior to help the booming
Speaker 1: city of Los Angeles keep up with its growing water demand.
Speaker 1: By so much of their local water supply being siphoned
Speaker 1: off and sent to the city, the farmers and ranchers
Speaker 1: in Owens Valley were struggling. Land dried up crops, wilted
Speaker 1: farmers lost their profits, and the local economy began to fail. Finally,
Speaker 1: the people of Owens Valley had decided that enough was
Speaker 1: enough and it was time to fight back, and amazingly,
Speaker 1: that bombing outside Loan Pine was just the beginning of
Speaker 1: what became known as the Kel Water Wars. A few
Speaker 1: months later, dozens of Owens Valley residents drove out to
Speaker 1: that same area and commandeered the aqueduct by force. They
Speaker 1: opened the spillway gates and let the water flow out,
Speaker 1: threatening to let it keep spilling until the City of
Speaker 1: Los Angeles came out to settle their grievances, and they
Speaker 1: stayed there for days, resisting the sheriff's orders to leave,
Speaker 1: until the city of La agreed to negotiate with them.
Speaker 1: Over the next few years, there were more and more
Speaker 1: bombings and acts of sabotage. The Los Angeles Water Department
Speaker 1: had to hire armed guards with machine guns to protect
Speaker 1: the aqueduct twenty four to seven. The battles continued until
Speaker 1: nineteen twenty seven, when the main bank in Owens Valley
Speaker 1: suddenly went belly up. The bank's co owners, Wilfred and
Speaker 1: Mark Watterson, and I know the last names. Ironed is
Speaker 1: not lost on me, had been helping to organize and
Speaker 1: fund the rebellion, and without them, the resistance collapsed. The
Speaker 1: Waterson brothers were charged with thirty six counts of embezzlement
Speaker 1: and grand theft, and during their trial they admitted that
Speaker 1: they had stolen money from the bank to fund the
Speaker 1: water wars against Los Angeles.
Speaker 2: The brothers were both.
Speaker 1: Sentenced to ten years in prison, making them the only
Speaker 1: people who ever faced criminal charges.
Speaker 2: For the water Wars.
Speaker 1: It was a hard fought battle, but in the end,
Speaker 1: Owens Valley was no match for the bustling city of
Speaker 1: Los Angeles. The city kept buying up land and water,
Speaker 1: and by the next year, the once green landscape of
Speaker 1: Owens Valley had completely turned to sand. The farmers and
Speaker 1: ranchers who lived in the area were forced to sell
Speaker 1: their land and move away, and meanwhile, Los Angeles kept
Speaker 1: growing and city officials kept doing whatever it took to
Speaker 1: survive and thrive in the barren deserts of southern California.
Speaker 1: I hope you've enjoyed today's guided tour of the Cabinet
Speaker 1: of Curiosities. Subscribe for free on Apple Podcasts, or learn
Speaker 1: more about the show by visiting Curiosities podcast dot com.
Speaker 1: The show was created by me Aaron Mankey in partnership
Speaker 1: with how Stuff Works. I make another award winning show
Speaker 1: called Lore, which is a podcast, book series, and television show,
Speaker 1: and you can learn all about it over at Theworldoflore
Speaker 1: dot com. And until next time, stay curious.