Prologue: An echo of dynamite ; Implausible city -- A thirsty place -- Alternate realities -- Stories in light and shadow -- On location -- "A river now is here" -- The birth of an industry -- Water and celluloid -- Epic times -- One million souls to save -- A drinking problem -- Scandals in Bohemia -- "Jesus, Jesus all the day long" -- Thunder in the valley -- A sound proposition -- The missing saint -- A silent twilight -- A perfect disaster -- Epilogue: World city

"The story of the metropolis that never should have been and the visionaries who dreamed it into reality. Little more than a century ago, the southern coast of California--bone-dry, harborless, isolated by deserts and mountain ranges--seemed destined to remain scrappy farmland. Then, as if overnight, one of the world's iconic cities emerged. At the heart of Los Angeles's meteoric rise were three flawed visionaries: William Mulholland, an immigrant ditchdigger turned self-taught engineer, who designed the massive aqueduct that would make urban life there possible; D.W. Griffith, who transformed the motion picture from a vaudeville-house novelty into a cornerstone of American culture and gave L.A. its signature industry; and Aimee Semple McPherson, a charismatic evangelist who founded a religion and cemented the city's identity as a center for spiritual exploration. All were masters of their craft, but also illusionists of a kind. The images they conjured up--of a blossoming city in the desert, of a factory of celluloid dream-works, of a community of seekers attaining personal salvation under the California sun--were like mirages liable to evaporate on closer inspection. To realize these dreams, all three would have to pay a steep price in a crescendo of hubris, scandal, and catastrophic failure of design that threatened to topple each of their personal empires. Yet when the dust settled, the mirage that was LA remained. Spanning the years from 1900 to 1930, The Mirage Factory is the enthralling tale of an improbable city and the people who willed it into existence by pushing the limits of human engineering and imagination."--Dust jacket