Santa Clarita Valley History In Pictures
> ST. FRANCIS DAM
St. Francis Dam Tombstone
San Francisquito Canyon


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The St. Francis Dam "tombstone" — the section of the dam that remained standing after the dam broke March 12, 1928 — from the inside looking out (looking south).

This 2½x4-inch print, acquired at a flea market, shares the physical characteristics of this one, suggesting that it, too, may have been mass produced as a souvenir.


Construction on the 600-foot-long, 185-foot-high St. Francis Dam started in August 1924. With a 12.5-billion-gallon capacity, the reservoir began to fill with water on March 1, 1926. It was completed two months later.

At 11:57:30 p.m. on March 12, 1928, the dam failed, sending a 180-foot-high wall of water crashing down San Francisquito Canyon. An estimated 411 people lay dead by the time the floodwaters reached the Pacific Ocean south of Ventura 5½ hours later.

It was the second-worst disaster in California history, after the great San Francisco earthquake and fire of 1906, in terms of lives lost — and America's worst civil engineering failure of the 20th Century.


DI2803: 19200 dpi jpeg from original print.
ST. FRANCIS DAM
Sharon Divis Collection

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Dam & Reservoir

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Floodpath, Rubble

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Block 5

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West Abutment

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Empty Reservoir

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Tombstone

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Tombstone with Ladder x2

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Climbing Tombstone

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Visiting Tombstone

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Picnic at Dam Site

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Dam Rubble x2

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Tombstone & Perimeter Road

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Upended SPRR Track

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Wrecked Farmhouse

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PH-2 Reconstruction

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PH-2 Reconstruction

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PH-2 Reconstruction

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