Hydroelectric generators at Power House no. 2, 1.5 miles downstream from the location of the failed Saint Francis Dam, San Francisquito Canyon (Calif.), 1928

Title: Hydroelectric generators at Power House no. 2, 1.5 miles downstream from the location of the failed Saint Francis Dam, San Francisquito Canyon (Calif.), 1928
Date Created: March 1928
Date: 1928-03
Publisher: Los Angeles Times
Language: No linguistic content
Collection: Los Angeles Times Photographic Collection

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.
View from a ridge towards 2 hydroelectric generators on canyon floor that were formerly inside Power House No. 2. A jet of water rises from between the generators. The generators are still attached to the concrete foundation of the power house; the power house was washed away in the flood following the failure of the Saint Francis Dam. Three men are visible near the generators, and 4 other men are walking next to a fallen concrete pier on the right. A tent is in the lower right corner.
Caption: Text from negative sleeve: Saint Francis Dam

Genre: cellulose nitrate film
news photographs
Location: San Francisquito Canyon (Calif.)
Longitude: 34.534349
Latitude: -118.52569
Resource type: still image
Subjects: Saint Francis Dam Failure, Calif., 1928
Hydroelectric generators--California--San Francisquito Canyon
Power plants--California--San Francisquito Canyon
Flood damage--California--San Francisquito Canyon

Repository: University of California, Los Angeles. Library. Department of Special Collections
Local Identifier: uclamss_1429_1931
ARK: ark:/21198/zz002dctjv
Manifest url

Rights statement: copyrighted
Rights Holder: 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
Rights Country: US
Funding Note: Access to this collection is generously supported by Arcadia funds.
License: This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License .