Image / Workers on a destroyed railroad bridge after the collapse of the Saint …

Workers on a destroyed railroad bridge after the collapse of the Saint Francis Dam, Santa Clara River Valley (Calif.), 1928

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Title: Workers on a destroyed railroad bridge after the collapse of the Saint Francis Dam, Santa Clara River Valley (Calif.), 1928
Date Created and/or Issued: 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 Charles E. Young Research Library Department of Special Collections, A1713 Young Research Library, Box 951575, Los Angeles, CA 90095-1575. E-mail: 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_G1259
ark:/21198/zz0002nzx5
Language: No linguistic content
Subject: Dam failures--California--San Francisquito Canyon
Railroad bridges--California--Santa Clara River Valley
Construction workers--California--Santa Clara River Valley
Saint Francis Dam Failure, Calif., 1928
Floods--California--Santa Clara River Valley
Source: Los Angeles Times Photographic Collection
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