The Santa Monica Charity League, of Cunningham, Wallington, and Michel are members, held its annual cocktail party at the Santa Monica Swimming Club on December 16, 1938.
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.
Hayward Thompson successfully drove for five hours and thirteen minutes, a total of 100 miles, through congested traffic all while completely blindfolded. The affair was his 333rd exhibition and the longest since his sixty mile drive in Miami.
W. H. Bowers and Olive Orr Brugen-Schmidt Bowers, married three just months, seated together at a court proceeding. Olive Bowers was accused of plotting with Elmer M. Archer to poison her husband. The plot was discovered when their conversations were overheard on a 2-party telephone line.
Irvin Taplin, seated, and L.E. Lampton, standing, both with right hands raised, with Harry Hunt, standing, looking on, at desk with pens, papers, books, and sign reading TAPLIN
Painting of King Gustav V, in military uniform with sword, printed as a plate in a book and photographed from open book on mat or carpet. Caption under plate reads: H. M. King Gustaf V of Sweden (In the Swedish Chamber of Commerce of the U.S.A.)
View of plant debris and a muddy agricultural field with evenly spaced plantings beyond in the path of the flood caused by the failure of the Saint Francis Dam. A straight, elevated area in the background may be a road.
Edward E. Sweeney (left) , former land and tax agent for the Southern California Gas Company, most likely when he was on trial for embezzlement, forgery, and grand theft. He is walking with two unidentified men. Reported in "BRIBERY MADE THEFT DEFENSE: E. E. Sweeney Says Money Went to Officials Missing $190,000 Purchased Favors, Court Told Gas Company Head Denied ex-Employee's Charges," Los Angeles Times, 16 Aug. 1928: A1.
Louise Peete was convicted on Feb. 5, 1921 of first-degree murder in the death of Jacob Denton. She served 18 years in San Quentin before being released. In 1945 she was convicted of a second murder, this time of Margaret Logan, a wealthy woman who had supported Peete while she was in prison. For the second murder she was given the death penalty, and in 1947 became the second woman to be executed in California.
Three men stand in Harry Chandler's Baja California ranch, the California-Mexico Land and Cattle Company (C & M Ranch). The courtyard's landscaping includes a variety of desert plants.
Dr. John L. Rice, Health Commissioner of New York City (appointed 1933) and Hugh S. Cumming, Surgeon-General of the United States Health Service (retired 1936), standing out doors with trees behind them.
An investigator in a clothes closet holds a magnifying glass and a flashlight to examine something on a wall. He is probably in the home of murder victim Mabel Monahan.
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.