Workmen clearing flood debris following the failure of the Saint Francis Dam and the resulting flood, Santa Clara River Valley (Calif.), 1928

Item Overview

Title

Workmen clearing flood debris following the failure of the Saint Francis Dam and the resulting flood, Santa Clara River Valley (Calif.), 1928

Date Created

March 1928

Date

1928-03

Publisher

Los Angeles Times

Language

No linguistic content

Collection

Los Angeles Times Photographic Collection

Notes

Description

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.
View of 2 workmen in the cab of a power shovel with a clamshell bucket clearing flood debris in the form of trees. Smoke behind the pile of tree trunks and branches indicates that they are burning the debris.

Caption

Text from negative sleeve: Saint Francis Dam

Physical Description

Extent

1 photograph

Medium

b&w nitrate negative

Keywords

Genre

cellulose nitrate film
news photographs

Location

Santa Clara River Valley (Calif.)

Resource type

still image

Subjects

Saint Francis Dam Failure, Calif., 1928
Disaster relief--California--Santa Clara River Valley
Power shovels--California--Santa Clara River Valley