William Mulholland and 4 other men on the east bank of the St. Francis Reservoir, San Francisquito Canyon, circa 1926-1928

Item Overview

Title

William Mulholland and 4 other men on the east bank of the St. Francis Reservoir, San Francisquito Canyon, circa 1926-1928

Date Created

[between 1928-1928]

Date

1926/1928

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.
William Mulholland, Superintendent of the Bureau of Water Works and Supply of Los Angeles, pointing towards something in the distance. Mulholland is with 4 other men on the east bank of the St. Francis Reservoir with the top of the St. Francis Dam visible behind them at some time between the completion of the dam, in 1926, and its failure and collapse on March 12 1928.

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

Names

Mulholland, William, 1855-1935

Location

San Francisquito Canyon (Calif.)

Longitude

34.541631

Latitude

-118.495445

Resource type

still image

Subjects

Saint Francis Reservoir (San Francisquito Canyon, Calif.)
Saint Francis Dam (Calif.)
Saint Francis Dam Failure, Calif., 1928