Disaster recovery workers seated on a pickup truck after the failure of the Saint Francis Dam and resulting flood, Santa Clara River Valley (Calif.), 1928
Access to this collection is generously supported by Arcadia funds. Group portrait of about 24 disaster recovery workers seated on and standing next to a pickup truck after the failure of the Saint Francis Dam and resulting flood. The workers appear to be in a park with large trees shading wooden picnic tables with attached benches. A plank spanning a truck fender and picnic table and tools on the ground suggest that the men are engaged in construction or repair work. A painted sign in the door of the truck reads "...ople's...[Lum]ber Co. ...nta Paula." Santa Paula was one of the communities in the path of the flood. Beyond the park there is a metal rail fence, a street and a building across the street. 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_1953 ark:/21198/zz002dcv9q
Language
No linguistic content
Subject
Saint Francis Dam Failure, Calif., 1928 Disaster relief--California--Santa Clara River Valley
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