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NPS Form 10-900 OMB No. 1024-0018
(Rev. 8-86)
United States Department of the Interior
National Park Service

National Register of Historic Places
Continuation Sheet

Section number 8 Page 10

St. Francis Dam (Site of), Los Angeles County, California — Narrative Statement of Significance
[continued]
The most prominent and persistent popular explanation for the dam’s catastrophic failure was sabotage. The speculation that the dam
was destroyed by Owens Valley insurgents was a natural outgrowth of the notorious incidents which punctuated the water wars.
Further setting the stage for these suspicions was an anonymous phone call received by the Los Angeles County Sheriff nearly a year
before the dam’s collapse, suggesting that a contingent of men from Inyo County were headed down to San Francisquito Canyon to
blow up the dam. Officers were dispatched immediately. Although no saboteurs were apprehended, a residual feeling of unease
remained. [Outland, 1963: 48]

For his own part, William Mulholland initially made no effort to dispel the theories that the dam had been dynamited. He even
encouraged these notions by testifying at the Coroner’s Inquest convened ten days after the collapse that he had “a suspicion” why the
dam failed, but added evasively, “I don’t want to divulge it.” Later in his testimony, when the questioning turned to whether, if given
a second chance, he would “build this dam in the same way it was erected,” Mulholland responded, “not in the same place.”

Asked how he’d come to that conclusion, Mulholland replied that, to his mind, the site now had “a hoodoo on it.” Pressed by the
District Attorney to explain this characterization, Mulholland retreated from the implication that the dam site was somehow cursed,
and alluded once again to sabotage. The site “is vulnerable to human aggression,” he responded, “and I would not build it there.”
[Coroner’s Inquest, 1928: 23, 25]
Also contributing to this line of thinking, a zoologist from Stanford University, finding no live fish below the dam, concluded that
they must have been killed by a concussion from an explosion. The dam’s construction superintendent also publicly claimed that no
other force could have destroyed the structure. Further fueling this view, one week after the dam collapse, the Los Angeles Water
Commission renewed memories of the insurgency by placing the entire Owens Valley aqueduct system under armed guard. [Kahrl,
1983: 313; Jones, 1928: 26]

Suspicions of incompetence, or possibly worse, also characterized the post-disaster environment, the investigations which followed,
and the public’s perceptions of who or what was responsible for the death and destruction wrought by the dam’s failure. In particular,
questions focused on William Mulholland and Harvey Van Norman’s visit to the dam on the morning of March 12, and the
conditions they noted during that critical timeframe. Suggestions that the city could have, or should have, evacuated downstream
residents on the basis of the leaks in the dam face they’d observed were sharply refuted by both men in their testimony at the
Coroner’s Inquest. Still, this was a difficult question to put entirely to rest, especially when it was considered within the setting of
the contentious Owens Valley water project itself, and the popular feeling that the words and deeds of the determined and
single-minded Los Angeles “water men” could not be entirely trusted.

The St. Francis Dam disaster was the subject of no less than a dozen investigations, some driven by the desire to learn lessons in
engineering and geology which might prevent future similar occurrences. However, the first and most prominent investigation, the
Governor’s Commission, served the more immediate need of settling quickly on technical causes that would satisfy the public’s
desire for answers.
The governor’s six-member investigatory commission was chaired by A.J. Wiley, and included two geologists, F. Leslie Ransome of
the California Institute of Technology, and George D. Louderback of the University of California, Berkeley, as well as F.E. Bonner,
H.T. Corey and F.H. Fowler. They met for the first time in Los Angeles, one week after the dam’s collapse, and issued their report
on March 24th, after just five days of study.

The commission identified several potential flaws in the design and construction of the dam. In particular, the two geologists
criticized the placement of the dam across the San Francisquito fault, as well as the unstable conditions in the Palona Schist on the
dam’s eastern abutment.