PCAD - City of Los Angeles, Department of Water and Power (LADWP), Saint Francis Dam, Saugus, CA

AKA: City of Los Angeles, Department of Water and Power (LADWP), St. Francis Dam, Saugus, CA

Structure Type: built works - infrastructure - transportation structures - dams

Saugus, CA

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Located near Saugus in the San Francisquito Canyon;

Part of the Los Angeles Aqueduct system, this 180-foot high 600-foot wide concrete dam broke on 03/12/1928, spilling 124 billion gallons of water throughout the Santa Clarita Valley, killing over 500 people and doing $20 million of damage; designed by the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power's Chief Engineer, William Mulholland; Mulholland retired in disgrace after the disaster in the early 1930s; recent study of the causes of the disaster seemed to indicate that underlying geologic conditions caused the dam to give way; the dam's left abutment was secured to a fragile, subterranean paleo-megaslide that could not have been detected by Mulholland in 1928; the dam was built by the Los Angeles Bureau of Water Works and Supply, 1925-1926;

Demolished; Failed upon its first filling, 03/12/1928;

PCAD id: 1673

Publications

Starr, Kevin, Material Dreams, 156, 162-163, 1990.

Links

New Perspectives on the West: William Mulholland San Francisquito Canyon and the Saint Francis Dam The Saint Francis Dam DisasterGathering Information Step-by-Step The St. Francis Dam Disaster Revisited, Edited by Doyce B. Nunis, Jr. William Mulholland & the Collapse of the Saint Francis Dam William Mulholland Civil Engineer, St. Francis Dam Builder

City of Los Angeles, Department of Water and Power (LADWP), Saint Francis Dam, Saugus, CA (1925-1926) demolished

Publications

Links