Hydroelectric generators during the reconstruction of Power House no. 2 following the failure of the Saint Francis Dam, San Francisquito Canyon (Calif.), 1928

Title: Hydroelectric generators during the reconstruction of Power House no. 2 following the failure of the Saint Francis Dam, San Francisquito Canyon (Calif.), 1928
Date Created: 1928
Date: 1928
Publisher: Los Angeles Times
Language: No linguistic content
Collection: Los Angeles Times Photographic Collection

Description: Related to the article, "St. Francis Power Unit Turned On: Electric Plant Destroyed in Match Flood Rebuilt in Just Ninety Days." Los Angeles Times, 15 Jun. 1928: A8.
View of 2 hydroelectric generators, formerly inside Power House No. 2, located 1.5 miles downstream from the former Saint Francis Dam. The flood that followed the failure of the dam destroyed the power house, but left the generators attached to the concrete foundation. In this view, the flood debris has been removed and the ground excavated to expose the concrete base of each generator and 8 men stand on wooden scaffolding next to one of the generators. The power house was rebuilt and in operation by June 15, 1928.
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.
Caption: Text from negative sleeve: Saint Francis Dam
On the upper corner of the negative: 12

Genre: cellulose nitrate film
news photographs
Location: San Francisquito Canyon (Calif.)
Longitude: 34.534252
Latitude: -118.525046
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_1952
ARK: ark:/21198/zz002dcv86
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 .