Charles Mallory Hatfield was an American "rainmaker".
13 Facts About Charles Hatfield
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Charles Hatfield's family moved to Southern California in the 1880s.
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Charles Hatfield's attempt was apparently successful, so the ranchers paid him $100.
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Contemporary weather bureau reports described the rain as a small part of a storm that was already coming but Charles Hatfield's supporters disregarded this.
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Charles Hatfield promised Los Angeles 18 inches of rain, apparently succeeded, and collected a fee of $1000.
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In 1906 Charles Hatfield was invited to the Yukon Territory, where he agreed to create rain for the water-dependent mines of the Klondike goldfields.
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The Klondike contract was for $10,000, but after unsuccessful efforts, Charles Hatfield slipped away, collecting only $1,100 for expenses.
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Burt Lancaster 8.
In 1915 the San Diego city council, pressured by the San Diego Wide Awake Improvement Club, approached Charles Hatfield to produce rain to fill the Morena Dam reservoir.
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Charles Hatfield offered to produce rain for free, then charge $1,000 per inch for between forty and fifty inches and free again over fifty inches.
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Charles Hatfield tried to settle for $4000 and then sued the council.
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The suit continued until 1938 when two courts decided that the rain was an act of God, which absolved him of any wrongdoing, but meant Charles Hatfield did not get his fee.
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Charles Hatfield died January 12,1958 and took his chemical formula with him to his grave in the Forest Lawn Memorial Park Cemetery in Glendale, California.
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Charles Hatfield's story inspired the 1956 Burt Lancaster film The Rainmaker, based on the play of the same name.