Geologists and civil engineers (probably) investigating the failure of the Saint Francis Dam, San Francisquito Canyon (Calif.), 1928

Item Overview

Title

Geologists and civil engineers (probably) investigating the failure of the Saint Francis Dam, San Francisquito Canyon (Calif.), 1928

Date Created

1928

Publisher

Los Angeles Times

Language

No linguistic content

Collection

Los Angeles Times Photographic Collection
OpenUCLA Collections

Notes

Description

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.
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 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.

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

Subjects

Governmental investigations--California
Engineering drawings
Civil engineers--California--San Francisquito Canyon
Geologists--California--San Francisquito Canyon
Saint Francis Dam Failure, Calif., 1928

Location

San Francisquito Canyon (Calif.)

Longitude

34.533441

Latitude

-118.526030

Resource type

still image