by Alan M. Paterson (Author) A history of the development of the Central California Irrigation District. Canals are common in many parts of the American West; they have become such an unremarkable part of the everyday scene that they usually pass unnoticed. That is no doubt true for the seemingly nondescript earthen canal on the western outskirts of Los Banos crossed every day by thousands of travelers on State Highway 152. But this is no ordinary canal, it was the first big canal in California, built across the treeless, unpopulated plains west of the San Joaquin River by a small army of men and horses in the hot summer of 1871. It was the creation of San Francisco investors, speculators really, who founded the San Joaquin & Kings River Canal & Irrigation Company with sweeping visions of the state's future.