"Time, industry, hard work, patience and a large number of donkeys and mules will overcome all difficulties."

– Padre Johann Jakob Baegert

Father Baegert was a German Jesuit priest stationed in Baja California in the mid 1700s. Large numbers of mules were used to move the huge sections of pipe needed to build the Los Angeles Aqueduct beginning in 1904. The cement plant at Monolith (now called Lehigh Southwest) was built by the Los Angeles Dept. of Water and Power to supply cement for the aqueduct.