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 in a photo spread titled, "Pictures Tell Story of Air Liner's Crash in Mountains East of Newhall," Los Angeles Times, 13 Jan. 1937: 20
Mrs. Gladys Carter is being held in custody for the murder of 20-year-old Frances Walker after fatally shooting Miss Walker and critically wounding herself with a bullet wound to the chest.
Two men look in windows of a cabin in Placerita Canyon, Newhall. The cabin was the residence of Gladys and Archie Carter lived, with a boarder, Frances Walker. Ms. Walker was accidentally shot by Ms. Carter.
Bodies of about ten flood victims enshrouded in sheets and resting on inclined wooden boards in an improvised morgue in Newhall. Four men and one woman stand at the end of the room. Another man is kneeling down at the foot of one of the dead.
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.