The failure of the St. Francis Dam, and the resulting loss of over 500 lives
in the path of a roaring wall of water, was a scandal that resulted in the
almost complete destruction of the reputation of its builder, William
Mulholland.
Mulholland was an immigrant from Ireland who rose up through the ranks of
the city's water department to the position of chief engineer. It was he
who proposed, designed, and supervised the construction of the Los
Angeles Aqueduct, which brought water from the Owens Valley to the city.
The St. Francis Dam, built in 1926, was 180 feet high and 600 feet long; it was located near Saugus in the San Francisquito Canyon.
The dam gave way on March 12, 1928, three minutes before midnight. Its waters swept
through the Santa Clara Valley toward the Pacific Ocean, about 54 miles away. 65 miles of
valley was devastated before the water finally made its way into the ocean
between Oxnard and Ventura. At its peak the wall of water was said to be 78 feet high; by the time it hit
Santa Paula, 42 miles south of the dam, the water was estimated to be 25 feet deep.
Almost everything in its path was destroyed: livestock, structures,
railways, bridges, livestock, and orchards. By the time it was over, parts of Ventura County lay
under 70 feet of mud and debris. Over 500 people were killed and damage estimates topped $20 million.
At the inquest following the tragedy, evidence was brought forth that the dam was leaking as late as the day before the break, and that the Department of Water and Power, but more importantly, Mulholland himself, knew it. On the stand, Mulholland admitted being at the dam the day before the break but had noticed nothing out of the ordinary. He testified that leaks were not unusual in dams, especially in dams the size of the St. Francis.
In the end, the jury found that the disaster was caused by the failure of the rock formations on which the dam was built. But responsibility was placed on the the governmental organizations behind the construction of the dam, and on its chief designer, William Mulholland. No criminal charges were brought against him, but he soon retired from his position with the DWP, and slowly retreated into a life of self-imposed isolation. He died in 1935, at the age of 79.
At the time, rumors were rife that the dam had been saboutaged--dynamited, it was theorized, by individuals who bore grudges against Mulholland and the city over the Owens River Valley controversy. Threats against the dam and Mulholland himself had been received in the past, and the Los Angeles Aqueduct had actually been dynamited in 1924. Though there was no hard evidence to reinforce the rumors, neither was there hard evidence to disprove them.
Recent research has raised questions about Mulholland's responsibility, and also offered some possible answers as to what really caused the St. Francis Dam to break. A 1992 examination of the disaster concluded that, given the geological knowledge of the time, Mulholland was in fact innocent of criminal negligence--that the break was caused by the anchoring of the dam's eastern edge to an ancient landslide impossible to detect in the 1920s.
The only memorial to the man who helped build the Colorado Aqueduct, Hoover Dam, and the Panama Canal is a fountain in the Los Feliz area.
Selected References
- Davis, Margaret. "How the Hero Who Brought Water to L.A. Abruptly Fell
From Grace," Los Angeles Times, July 25, 1993, p. M3.
- Leslie, Margaret. Rivers in the Desert: William Mulholland and the Inventing of Los Angeles. New York: HarperCollins, 1993.
- Mattson, Robert. William Mulholland: A Forgotten Forefather. Stockton: Pacific Center for Western Studies, 1976.
- St. Francis Dam Flood Simulation. From San Diego State University.
- Leslie, Margaret. Rivers in the Desert: William Mulholland and the Inventing of Los Angeles. New York: HarperCollins, 1993.
Photo Credits:
- Top image: Portrait of William Mulholland, 1924.
- Regional History Center, Los Angeles Herald Examiner collection
- Middle image: William Mulholland and H. Van Norman at St. Francis Dam, inspecting wreckage, Mar 15, 1928.
- Regional History Center, Los Angeles Herald Examiner collection
- Bottom image: William Mulholland and Gov C.C. Young, March 22, 1928.
- Regional History Center, Los Angeles Herald Examiner collection