Site of the ruined Power Plant No. 2, two and a half miles down stream from the location of the failed Saint Francis Dam, San Francisquito Canyon (Calif.), 1928

Title: Site of the ruined Power Plant No. 2, two and a half miles down stream from the location of the failed Saint Francis Dam, San Francisquito Canyon (Calif.), 1928
Date Created: [March 1928]
Date: 1928-03
Language: No linguistic content
Collection: Harry French Blaney Papers, 1919-1970

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.
Downward view into San Francisquito Canyon towards the site of the ruined Power Plant No. 2, two and a half miles down stream from the location of the failed Saint Francis Dam. Two penstocks leading to the power house are visible on the right. The transmitter tower is on the left. Three rows of tents are on the canyon floor.
Caption: Text from negative sleeve: St. Francis Dam and Santa Clara Valley. St. Francis Dam Flood Area. [In an envelope from the:] United States Department of Agriculture, Soil Conservation Service, Bureau of Agricultural Engineering, Division of Irrigation, Official Business.

Genre: Black-and-white photographs
cellulose nitrate film
Location: San Francisquito Canyon (Calif.)
Longitude: 34.508780
Latitude: -118.536129
Resource type: still image
Subjects: Saint Francis Dam Failure, Calif., 1928
Dam failures--California--San Francisquito Canyon
Power plants--California--San Francisquito Canyon

Repository: University of California, Los Angeles. Library. Department of Special Collections
ARK: ark:/21198/zz002jk8tm
Manifest url

Rights statement: copyrighted
Rights contact: UCLA Charles E. Young Research Library Department of Special Collections, A1713 Young Research Library, Box 951575, Los Angeles, CA 90095-1575. E-mail: spec-coll@library.ucla.edu. Phone: (310)825-4988
Funding Note: Access to this collection is generously supported by Arcadia funds.