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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 2

St. Francis Dam (Site of), Los Angeles County, California — Narrative Statement of Significance
[continued]
Summary of Signficance

The St. Francis Dam site is significant at the state level under Criterion A as the site of the second largest disaster in terms of loss of
life of any type in California history, and the largest in the state of human origins. Further, the collapse of the dam led directly to
changes in the design and construction of dams not only within California, but elsewhere in the United States. The St. Francis Dam
disaster was seen as the capstone of an infamous series of events which began with the Lippincott surveys in the Owens Valley in
1905, and as such, became a prominent element not only within the broader fabric of California’s history, but also within the lore
which grew up around the development of water resources in the West.
The site of the St. Francis Dam disaster is also significant under Criterion B as directly causing the abrupt end of the career of
William Mulholland, chief engineer of the City of Los Angeles Bureau of Water Works and Supply, one of the principal enablers of
the growth and development of modern Los Angeles.
Period of Signficance

The period of significance for this property is 1924-29, covering the construction of the St. Francis Dam, its failure, the disaster
recovery period, and the creation of new dam safety regulations in California.

Water and the City of Los Angeles

During the 1860s, Los Angeles was a small frontier town, more closely resembling the remote Spanish pueblo of its founding than a
modern American city. Services provided by the city remained rudimentary, with the city’s water supply controlled by a private
utility, the Los Angeles City Water Company, under a thirty-year lease granted by the city in 1868.

As the population grew, many residents clamored for the city to switch to a municipally-managed system. With the Los Angeles
City Water Company controlling the water infrastructure, and determined to continue its franchise, the changeover from a private to
public water provider would prove costly and complicated by litigation. Among the civic leaders involved in the process of forming a
municipal water agency were Fred Eaton (who also served as mayor from 1898 to 1900), and engineer J.B. Lippincott, both of whom
played major roles in subsequent water development policy for the city. When the city finally gained municipal control of the water
supply in 1902, it also inherited the former employees of the Los Angeles City Water Company. Included in this package was
superintendent William Mulholland.

Born in Belfast, Ireland in 1855, William Mulholland took on a seafaring life at age 15, arriving in Los Angeles via San Francisco in
1877, in the period following one of the region’s most prolonged and devastating droughts. The following year, he began
employment with the Los Angeles Water Company. Starting as a ditch-clearer, Mulholland worked his way through the ranks of the
company until he became its Chief Engineer in 1886, succeeding Fred Eaton in the post. [Mulholland, 2000: 10-37; Kahrl, 1982:
18-21]

Few had a more comprehensive and first-hand knowledge of the pipes, valves, and other features of the city’s water system than
William Mulholland, and so he was the city’s obvious choice to be appointed superintendent of the city’s new Water Department.
Later, he would acquire the title of Chief Engineer and General Manager of the Bureau of Water Works and Supply, a position he held
for nearly three decades. [Kahrl, 1982: 22-23]

Mulholland became so identified with this post both within and outside the agency, that he became popularly known during his long
tenure simply as “The Chief.” Although he possessed little formal education of any kind, Mulholland became the architect of the
city’s vast and ambitious water system, a remarkable engineering accomplishment that enabled the transformation of Los Angeles
from a provincial town into a major Western metropolis. [Mulholland, 2000: 87]