Access to this collection is generously supported by Arcadia funds. 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. Tents were set up in several locations in the Santa Clara River Valley to house the displaced flood survivors and the relief workers who came to aid the survivors and rebuild the devastated communities. Group portrait of a frightened little girl, standing with her hands clasped in front of her, next to another girl who looks at her with her mouth open in concern, who grasps the hand of a toddler girl next to her, who grasps the hand of a taller girl next to her (head not in photograph frame), and a smaller toddler girl (half in the photograph frame). The group is in front of a row of tents in a relief camp for people who were displaced by the flood following the failure of the Saint Francis Dam.. Text from negative sleeve: Saint Francis Dam
Type
Image
Format
b&w nitrate negative
Identifier
uclamss_1429_1875 ark:/21198/zz002dcrmx
Language
No linguistic content
Subject
Disaster relief--California--Santa Clara River Valley Saint Francis Dam Failure, Calif., 1928 Disaster victims--California--Santa Clara River Valley
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