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Tent village set up after the flooding caused by the collapse of the Saint Francis Dam, Santa Clara River Valley (Calif.), 1928

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Title: Tent village set up after the flooding caused by the collapse of the Saint Francis Dam, Santa Clara River Valley (Calif.), 1928
Date Created and/or Issued: March 1928
1928-03
Publication Information: Los Angeles Times
Contributing Institution: UCLA, Library Special Collections, Charles E. Young Research Library
Collection: Los Angeles Times Photographic Archives
Rights Information: US
UCLA Library Special Collections, A1713 Charles E. Young Research Library, Box 951575, Los Angeles, CA 90095-1575. Email: spec-coll@library.ucla.edu. Phone: (310) 825-4988
Description: The St. Francis Dam was a 200-foot high concrete gravity-arch dam built between 1924 and 1926 in St. Francisquito Canyon (near present-day Castaic and Santa Clarita). The dam collapsed on March 12, 1928 at two and a half minutes before midnight. The resulting flood killed more than 600 residents plus an unknown number of itinerant farm workers camped in San Francisquito Canyon, making it the 2nd greatest loss of life in California after the 1906 San Francisco earthquake. It is considered the worst American civil engineering failure in the 20th century.
Text from negative sleeve: Dam, Saint Francis.
Type: image
Format: b&w glass negative
Identifier: uclamss_1429_b3701_G1281
ark:/21198/z18w967c
Language: No linguistic content
Subject: Saint Francis Dam Failure, Calif., 1928
Disaster relief--California--Santa Clara River Valley
Source: Los Angeles Times Photographic Collection

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