WEBVTT - Thirst Trap 0:00:04.080 --> 0:00:07.440 Welcome to Aaron Manke's Cabinet of Curiosities, a production of 0:00:07.480 --> 0:00:14.440 iHeartRadio and Grimm and Mild. Our world is full of 0:00:14.480 --> 0:00:18.440 the unexplainable, and if history is an open book, all 0:00:18.480 --> 0:00:22.159 of these amazing tales are right there on display, just 0:00:22.200 --> 0:00:28.840 waiting for us to explore. Welcome to the Cabinet of Curiosities. 0:00:36.240 --> 0:00:39.400 On Christmas Eve of two thousand and nine, Gurgile Barkie 0:00:39.479 --> 0:00:41.720 was looking desperately for a way to keep his three 0:00:41.840 --> 0:00:45.040 year old daughter entertained. There was lots of work to 0:00:45.080 --> 0:00:48.640 do to ensure a magical Christmas morning, and Barkie was 0:00:48.680 --> 0:00:52.239 eager to get his daughter to settle down. Like many families, 0:00:52.320 --> 0:00:55.720 Barkie's household had run through all the usual Christmas movies. 0:00:56.160 --> 0:00:59.880 Barkie flipped across dozens of television channels, all playing this 0:01:00.080 --> 0:01:03.240 same three holiday films, until he finally came across one 0:01:03.280 --> 0:01:07.319 plane something different. One channel had just begun playing the 0:01:07.400 --> 0:01:11.280 nineteen ninety nine movie Stuart Little. Not very festive, but 0:01:11.319 --> 0:01:14.120 at least it was something Barkie's daughter hadn't seen, and 0:01:14.360 --> 0:01:16.400 just as he was about to return to his Christmas 0:01:16.440 --> 0:01:19.560 morning preparations, his daughter asked him to sit and watch 0:01:19.560 --> 0:01:23.039 it with her. Barkie fought off a groan fine he 0:01:23.080 --> 0:01:25.920 would watch this ten year old movie featuring a talking 0:01:26.000 --> 0:01:28.839 mouse instead of attending to his growing to do list. 0:01:29.240 --> 0:01:30.920 It was Christmas, after all. 0:01:31.600 --> 0:01:33.960 When Barkiy agreed to spend this time with his daughter, 0:01:34.280 --> 0:01:35.760 he had no way of knowing that he would be 0:01:35.840 --> 0:01:38.319 rewarded with the best Christmas gift he could have ever 0:01:38.400 --> 0:01:41.639 asked for, not quality family time, though we can assume 0:01:41.680 --> 0:01:44.800 he was grateful for that as well. No, Barkie's reward 0:01:44.880 --> 0:01:47.960 came in the form of Stuart Little's living room, specifically 0:01:48.240 --> 0:01:51.960 one painting on the living room's far wall. Barkie leapt 0:01:52.000 --> 0:01:54.680 from his seat. He dove for the remote before remembering 0:01:54.760 --> 0:01:56.760 that the movie was playing on cable and he had 0:01:56.760 --> 0:01:59.400 no way to pause or rewind it. For a moment, 0:01:59.520 --> 0:02:03.120 he was rush and then the painting appeared again on screen, 0:02:03.520 --> 0:02:07.880 and again and again. You see, gurgilely, Barkie wasn't just 0:02:07.920 --> 0:02:11.360 an exhausted dad trying to make Christmas magical for his family. 0:02:11.639 --> 0:02:15.400 He was also a researcher for the Hungarian National Gallery 0:02:15.639 --> 0:02:18.560 and an expert in the paintings of Robert Barney, a 0:02:18.680 --> 0:02:22.440 Hungarian expressionist painter from the early twentieth century who was 0:02:22.520 --> 0:02:25.720 famous for several works, but most notably for Sleeping Lady 0:02:25.800 --> 0:02:29.400 with Black Vaz, and that particular work, Sleeping Lady with 0:02:29.440 --> 0:02:32.720 Black Vaz, depicted Baroney's second wife in repose. 0:02:33.080 --> 0:02:33.840 He had completed the. 0:02:33.840 --> 0:02:36.760 Painting around nineteen twenty five, and records show that it 0:02:36.800 --> 0:02:39.840 was sold in nineteen twenty eight. Since then, the painting 0:02:40.080 --> 0:02:44.400 had been lost to time. Researchers, including Barkie, suspected that 0:02:44.480 --> 0:02:47.520 this was due to the political upheaval in Hungary during 0:02:47.560 --> 0:02:50.720 the period. The buyer and their family may have purchased 0:02:50.760 --> 0:02:53.519 the painting and then left Europe shortly afterwards. 0:02:53.840 --> 0:02:54.680 The question then. 0:02:54.600 --> 0:02:57.920 Became, how did a painting last see in nineteen twenty 0:02:58.000 --> 0:03:01.959 eight wind up on the set of Stuart Little Before 0:03:02.000 --> 0:03:04.880 the movie had ended, Barkie got right to work. He 0:03:05.000 --> 0:03:07.880 bombarded the production staff of the movie with emails and 0:03:07.960 --> 0:03:11.040 voicemails asking how and where they had found the painting. 0:03:11.400 --> 0:03:14.359 It was the best Christmas present for an art historian, 0:03:14.440 --> 0:03:19.520 Barkie said, and then nothing. For two long years, his 0:03:19.639 --> 0:03:23.920 requests for information went unanswered. Doubt crept in. Could the 0:03:23.960 --> 0:03:26.600 painting that he saw in Stuart Little have been just 0:03:26.639 --> 0:03:29.800 a replica. Barkie watched the film over and over to 0:03:29.840 --> 0:03:32.200 be sure, and came to the conclusion that it must 0:03:32.240 --> 0:03:35.760 be the real thing. After all, barony was no worldwide phenomenon, 0:03:35.800 --> 0:03:39.440 and the painting was not well known outside of Hungary. Finally, 0:03:39.480 --> 0:03:42.080 he received an email from the assistant set director of 0:03:42.120 --> 0:03:45.119 the movie. She had purchased the painting at an antique 0:03:45.120 --> 0:03:48.160 shop in Pasadena. She told him the set team felt 0:03:48.160 --> 0:03:50.840 that it fit the elegant esthetic of Stuart Little's house, 0:03:51.120 --> 0:03:53.119 and when the movie wrapped, she had asked to take 0:03:53.120 --> 0:03:55.520 it home, and the painting had hung in her Washington, 0:03:55.600 --> 0:03:59.000 d c. Bedroom ever since. She invited Barkie to come 0:03:59.040 --> 0:04:01.720 in person and confers firm the identity of the painting. 0:04:02.080 --> 0:04:04.920 Within a few months, he flew from Hungary to Washington 0:04:05.160 --> 0:04:07.520 and met up with this assistant set director near the 0:04:07.600 --> 0:04:10.920 National Mall. As soon as he laid eyes on the painting, 0:04:11.280 --> 0:04:13.880 he was sure it was the real thing. There's only 0:04:13.960 --> 0:04:16.560 one thing left to check, he told the woman. Barkie 0:04:16.600 --> 0:04:19.080 strode to a nearby hot dog vendor and asked to 0:04:19.120 --> 0:04:20.160 borrow a screwdriver. 0:04:20.520 --> 0:04:22.440 The vendor was happy to oblige. 0:04:22.880 --> 0:04:26.359 Barkie then unscrewed the protective backing from the antique frame 0:04:26.560 --> 0:04:29.520 and ran his eyes over the underside of the canvas, 0:04:29.600 --> 0:04:32.240 and there it was. In the lower corner was the 0:04:32.279 --> 0:04:36.440 stamped date nineteen twenty eight, the last time it was exhibited. 0:04:36.480 --> 0:04:40.480 Before the painting was purchased, the lost painting had been found. 0:04:41.279 --> 0:04:44.120 The assistant set director sold the painting about a year 0:04:44.200 --> 0:04:47.320 later to a private collector for two hundred and eighty 0:04:47.360 --> 0:04:51.120 five thousand dollars. For his part, Barkie gained fame and 0:04:51.160 --> 0:04:54.599 notoriety in the art historian community, and even published a 0:04:54.640 --> 0:04:57.160 book about Barony's works, including the. 0:04:57.160 --> 0:04:58.640 Story of his discovery. 0:04:59.120 --> 0:05:02.040 Barkie says getting to help solve the mystery is reward 0:05:02.200 --> 0:05:05.279 enough for him, but he added, with a twinkle in 0:05:05.360 --> 0:05:22.279 his eye, I do watch movies very differently now. In 0:05:22.320 --> 0:05:25.120 the early morning hours of May twenty first of nineteen 0:05:25.200 --> 0:05:29.080 twenty four, just outside the small town of Lone Pine, California, 0:05:29.400 --> 0:05:33.719 a sudden explosion lit up the desert night. When police arrived, 0:05:33.720 --> 0:05:36.000 they found that the blast had blown a massive hole 0:05:36.080 --> 0:05:39.000 in the Los Angeles Aqueduct, which carried water from the 0:05:39.000 --> 0:05:41.719 farmland of Owens Valley all the way to the city 0:05:41.760 --> 0:05:45.640 of Los Angeles, two hundred miles away. Southern California was 0:05:45.680 --> 0:05:47.680 in the middle of a long drought, and thanks to 0:05:47.720 --> 0:05:50.960 this act of vandalism, millions of gallons of precious water 0:05:51.040 --> 0:05:55.400 had already spilled out onto the sand. The police reckoned 0:05:55.400 --> 0:05:57.560 that it would have taken at least five hundred pounds 0:05:57.560 --> 0:06:00.279 of dynamite to cut through the iron and conquer creed 0:06:00.320 --> 0:06:02.760 of the aqueduct, which meant that they had a major 0:06:02.839 --> 0:06:06.680 criminal plots on their hands. Immediately, the LA Mayor put 0:06:06.720 --> 0:06:09.719 up a ten thousand dollars reward for information leading to 0:06:09.760 --> 0:06:12.800 the suspects in the bombing, and detectives were sent into 0:06:12.839 --> 0:06:15.720 nearby towns to investigate. But even though it seemed like 0:06:15.760 --> 0:06:19.000 everyone in Owens Valley knew exactly who was responsible for 0:06:19.040 --> 0:06:22.279 the blast, nobody would say a peep to them. The 0:06:22.320 --> 0:06:26.080 bombers were heroes. The residents of Owens Valley had been 0:06:26.160 --> 0:06:28.880 unhappy about the aqueduct from the beginning. It had been 0:06:28.880 --> 0:06:31.479 built more than a decade prior to help the booming 0:06:31.520 --> 0:06:34.719 city of Los Angeles keep up with its growing water demand. 0:06:35.080 --> 0:06:37.760 By so much of their local water supply being siphoned 0:06:37.760 --> 0:06:40.279 off and sent to the city, the farmers and ranchers 0:06:40.320 --> 0:06:44.240 in Owens Valley were struggling. Land dried up crops, wilted 0:06:44.480 --> 0:06:49.200 farmers lost their profits, and the local economy began to fail. Finally, 0:06:49.240 --> 0:06:51.760 the people of Owens Valley had decided that enough was 0:06:51.960 --> 0:06:55.200 enough and it was time to fight back, and amazingly, 0:06:55.240 --> 0:06:58.120 that bombing outside Loan Pine was just the beginning of 0:06:58.160 --> 0:07:02.400 what became known as the Kel Water Wars. A few 0:07:02.400 --> 0:07:05.520 months later, dozens of Owens Valley residents drove out to 0:07:05.520 --> 0:07:09.240 that same area and commandeered the aqueduct by force. They 0:07:09.320 --> 0:07:12.160 opened the spillway gates and let the water flow out, 0:07:12.240 --> 0:07:14.640 threatening to let it keep spilling until the City of 0:07:14.680 --> 0:07:17.880 Los Angeles came out to settle their grievances, and they 0:07:17.880 --> 0:07:20.840 stayed there for days, resisting the sheriff's orders to leave, 0:07:21.120 --> 0:07:23.800 until the city of La agreed to negotiate with them. 0:07:24.400 --> 0:07:26.880 Over the next few years, there were more and more 0:07:26.920 --> 0:07:30.360 bombings and acts of sabotage. The Los Angeles Water Department 0:07:30.400 --> 0:07:33.600 had to hire armed guards with machine guns to protect 0:07:33.600 --> 0:07:37.200 the aqueduct twenty four to seven. The battles continued until 0:07:37.280 --> 0:07:40.400 nineteen twenty seven, when the main bank in Owens Valley 0:07:40.480 --> 0:07:43.720 suddenly went belly up. The bank's co owners, Wilfred and 0:07:43.840 --> 0:07:46.640 Mark Watterson, and I know the last names. Ironed is 0:07:46.680 --> 0:07:49.440 not lost on me, had been helping to organize and 0:07:49.520 --> 0:07:53.280 fund the rebellion, and without them, the resistance collapsed. The 0:07:53.560 --> 0:07:57.080 Waterson brothers were charged with thirty six counts of embezzlement 0:07:57.160 --> 0:07:59.720 and grand theft, and during their trial they admitted that 0:07:59.720 --> 0:08:02.280 they had stolen money from the bank to fund the 0:08:02.320 --> 0:08:04.160 water wars against Los Angeles. 0:08:04.680 --> 0:08:06.200 The brothers were both. 0:08:05.960 --> 0:08:08.680 Sentenced to ten years in prison, making them the only 0:08:08.720 --> 0:08:11.080 people who ever faced criminal charges. 0:08:11.120 --> 0:08:12.160 For the water Wars. 0:08:12.800 --> 0:08:14.640 It was a hard fought battle, but in the end, 0:08:14.680 --> 0:08:17.200 Owens Valley was no match for the bustling city of 0:08:17.240 --> 0:08:20.480 Los Angeles. The city kept buying up land and water, 0:08:20.560 --> 0:08:23.000 and by the next year, the once green landscape of 0:08:23.040 --> 0:08:26.400 Owens Valley had completely turned to sand. The farmers and 0:08:26.480 --> 0:08:28.680 ranchers who lived in the area were forced to sell 0:08:28.720 --> 0:08:33.120 their land and move away, and meanwhile, Los Angeles kept 0:08:33.240 --> 0:08:36.400 growing and city officials kept doing whatever it took to 0:08:36.440 --> 0:08:41.319 survive and thrive in the barren deserts of southern California. 0:08:44.880 --> 0:08:47.560 I hope you've enjoyed today's guided tour of the Cabinet 0:08:47.559 --> 0:08:51.440 of Curiosities. Subscribe for free on Apple Podcasts, or learn 0:08:51.520 --> 0:08:55.880 more about the show by visiting Curiosities podcast dot com. 0:08:56.120 --> 0:08:59.640 The show was created by me Aaron Mankey in partnership 0:08:59.679 --> 0:09:03.000 with how Stuff Works. I make another award winning show 0:09:03.120 --> 0:09:07.160 called Lore, which is a podcast, book series, and television show, 0:09:07.440 --> 0:09:10.240 and you can learn all about it over at Theworldoflore 0:09:10.440 --> 0:09:14.200 dot com. And until next time, stay curious.