Access to this collection is generously supported by Arcadia funds. View of a wooden house destroyed by the flood following the failure of the Saint Francis Dam; only the roof is left, lying on the ground. A damaged house sits behind it. Three people walk on the dirt road next to the houses. 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: Saint Francis Dam
Type
image
Format
b&w nitrate negative
Identifier
uclamss_1429_1839 ark:/21198/zz002dcqct
Language
No linguistic content
Subject
Flood damage--California--Santa Clara River Valley Dwellings--California--Santa Clara River Valley Saint Francis Dam Failure, Calif., 1928
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