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William Mulholland

Civil Engineer, St. Francis Dam Builder

It can be fairly said that William Mulholland engineered the growth of Los Angeles, for he brought to it the one
commodity this dusty, thirsty pueblo would need to support the influx of millions of new residents — water.

Chief engineer for the city of Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, Mulholland was a key player in the
construction of the Panama Canal, the Colorado Aqueduct, Hoover Dam and the Los Angeles Aqueduct — the
latter taking water from the farmland of the Owens Valley and piping it to the growing metropolis.

As part of the project, Mulholland designed and oversaw construction of the St. Francis Dam, a 600-foot-long,
185-foot-high curved, concrete gravity dam capable of holding 38,000 acre-feet (12.5 billion gallons) of water
high above Saugus in San Francisquito Canyon. The reservoir would meet the needs of Los Angeles for about
a year, should the Owens Valley farmers, who often sabotaged the project — or the Elizabeth Tunnel, which
crossed the San Andreas fault to the north of the dam and “Powerhouse No. 1” — threaten the flow of water to
the City.

Dam construction started in August 1924; water began to fill the reservoir on March 1, 1926. Two months later
the dam was completed.

Mulholland’s empire came crashing down at three minutes before midnight on March 12, 1928. Half of the dam
suddenly collapsed. An immense wall of water rushed down the canyon at 18 miles per hour, totally decimating
the concete-and-steel “Powerhouse No. 2” pumping station as well as the Frank LeBrun Ranch, the Harry Carey
Ranch and Trading Post, and everything else that stood in the way. Floodwaters met the Santa Clara River at
Castaic Junction and headed west toward the Pacific Ocean. The communities of Piru, Fillmore, Santa Paula,
Saticoy and much of Ventura lay in waste by the time the water, mud and debris completed a 54-mile journey to
the ocean at 5:25 a.m. on March 13th.