Skip to main content

Image / Seven coffins containing victims of St. Francis Dam failure lying in large ...

Have a question about this item?

Item information. View source record on contributor's website.

Title
Seven coffins containing victims of St. Francis Dam failure lying in large grave surrounded by people in Santa Clara Valley (Calif.), 1928
Date Created and/or Issued
March 1928
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) 825-4210
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.
Type
Image
Format
b&w glass negative
Identifier
uclalat_1429_b3701_G1256
ark:/21198/zz0002nzwn
Language
No linguistic content
Subject
Saint Francis Dam Failure, Calif., 1928
Dam failures--California--San Francisquito Canyon
Funeral rites & ceremonies--California--Santa Clara River Valley
Coffins
Disaster victims--California--Santa Clara River Valley
Disaster
Source
Los Angeles Times Photographic Collection

About the collections in Calisphere

Learn more about the collections in Calisphere. View our statement on digital primary resources.

Copyright, permissions, and use

If you're wondering about permissions and what you can do with this item, a good starting point is the "rights information" on this page. See our terms of use for more tips.

Share your story

Has Calisphere helped you advance your research, complete a project, or find something meaningful? We'd love to hear about it; please send us a message.

Explore related content on Calisphere: