Flooded area with homes surrounded by water following the failure of the Saint Francis Dam, Santa Paula (Calif.), 1928

Item Overview

Title

Flooded area with homes surrounded by water following the failure of the Saint Francis Dam, Santa Paula (Calif.), 1928

Date Created

March 13, 1928

Date

1928-03-13

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.
This photograph appears on a photo page with the title: "Rebuilding of Shattered Dam Depends on Reports to be Made by Engineering Force." Los Angeles Times, 14 Mar. 1928: 3.

Caption

Text from newspaper caption: Scenes of destruction and horror followed in the wake of the death-dealing collapse of the St. Francis Dam in San Francisquito Canyon yesterday. In the Santa Paula and Saticoy regions the water continued its wild course with the results shown above as caught by Times photographers. (1) Flooded area at Santa Paula with homes completely surrounded by lake flood water.
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 Paula (Calif.)

Resource type

still image

Subjects

Dwellings--California--Santa Paula
Flood damage--California--Santa Paula
Saint Francis Dam Failure, Calif., 1928