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. Downwards view into San Francisquito Canyon towards the location of the failed Saint Francis Dam. On left of the photograph is the edge of the remaining central section of the dam, with the open area where the dam wall failed and fell apart in the center and the remaining wing wall of the dam dike on the ridge beyond. Eleven men wearing suits stand on the canyon floor below. They might be among the group of geologists and civil engineers who inspected the dam site in the days following the failure of the dam and resulting cataclysmic flood. Text from negative sleeve: Saint Francis Dam
Type
image
Format
b&w nitrate negative
Identifier
uclamss_1429_1889 ark:/21198/zz002dcs3n
Language
No linguistic content
Subject
Saint Francis Dam Failure, Calif., 1928 Saint Francis Dam (Calif.) Flood damage--California--San Francisquito Canyon
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