Access to this collection is generously supported by Arcadia funds. Four civil engineers and/or geologists (probably), in the area of the failed Saint Francis Dam examine an engineering drawing shortly after the dam failed. A steep canyon wall is visible behind the group. The collapse of the Saint Francis Dam prompted the creation of over a dozen separate investigations into the cause of failure. Almost all of these comprised investigative panels of prominent engineers and geologists. 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_1920 ark:/21198/zz002dct55
Language
No linguistic content
Subject
Geologists--California--San Francisquito Canyon Engineering drawings Civil engineers--California--San Francisquito Canyon Saint Francis Dam Failure, Calif., 1928 Governmental investigations--California
Source
OpenUCLA Collections Los Angeles Times Photographic Collection
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