The creation of Lake Cachuma took almost 20 years. The Santa Barbara County Board of Supervisors commissioned a report early in 1938 regarding the “utilization of water resources.” This report, completed the following year, called for a new dam “between the mouth of Santa Cruz Creek and Cachuma Creek” on the Santa Ynez River. The report further stated that “the future of Santa Barbara County depends upon the prompt execution” of the proposal.
What followed was almost 10 years of political wrangling. Two powerful local figures, Thomas Storke, publisher of the Santa Barbara News-Press, and County Supervisor Charles Leo Preisker, joined forces to push for the new dam. The South Coast’s increasingly serious water problem was the pair’s most important ally. By the fall of 1947, all of Southern California was in the grip of a serious drought. Estimates held that if there was no significant rainfall in the near future, Gibraltar would go dry by April 1948. The Cachuma site for a new dam was formally approved in December 1947.
Still, the City Council imposed water rationing early in 1948. Daily usage dropped from 7 million gallons to close to the consumption target of 2.5 million a day. It was not until the State Legislature passed an emergency appropriations bill of over $300,000 for the raising of Gibraltar Dam, however, that the short-term crisis was alleviated.