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.
View of 2 nurses and a Red Cross volunteer aiding 3 young children and a baby in a clinic that was set up to care for people who survived the flood following the failure of the Saint Francis Dam. The nurses and volunteers are in a large room, seated on beds tending the children and infant. The room is divided into section s by curtains and there are 2 cribs in the background.
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.
View of several men drinking cups of coffee in front of the wooden railing of a porch. The men are probably relief workers or geologists and civil engineers who came to the Santa Clara River Valley in the days following the failure of the Saint Francis Dam and resulting flood. On the porch behind the railing are 5 Red Cross workers.
