Before the 1928 Disaster. LADWP Archive Photo.
When William Mulholland completed the 12.5-billion-gallon St. Francis Dam in 1926, Angelenos hailed it as the capstone to the distinguished engineer’s ambitious 233-mile-long aqueduct system designed to deliver their arid city virtually unlimited water. The farmers of San Francisquito Canyon, on the other hand, cast a wary eye upward toward the imposing structure and dubbed it The Giant Tombstone. Unfortunately, the farmers’ description proved prophetic.
The 19th in a series of dams built to contain and channel aqueduct waters, Mulholland’s 1,300-foot concrete span was created to store an extra year’s worth of the precious liquid for Los Angeles residents – just in case. As former Los Angeles Times history writer Cecilia Rasmussen explained:
“Southern California rainfall was, as always, capricious. His California Aqueduct had been built over a rift zone of the San Andreas fualt, and he knew it was vulnerable. To make matters worse, Owens Valley farmers kept vandalizing the aqueduct.”
The St. Francis reservoir was brimming with water the morning of March 12, 1928, when dam keeper Tony Harnischfeger spotted a muddy leak near his home at the foot of the structure. He telephoned Mulholland, who personally drove out from LA with his chief assistant to inspect the situation. A meticulous engineer, Mulholland closely examined the leak but concluded it was benign – no different than the trivial fissures that often spring up in most dams of this type from time to time. Ascertaining that the St. Francis Dam remained structurally sound, he and his deputy made the 50-plus-mile drive back to LA, confident that all was well.
Mulholland. Water & Power Associates.
They were tragically mistaken. Just minutes before the witching hour that night, at approximately 11:58 p.m., the St. Francis burst, emptying its massive reservoir into the canyon, instantly killing Harnischfeger, his girlfriend, and his 6-year-old son in their sleep. Seconds later, the dam’s first powerhouse was wiped out, leaving most of the area’s downstream inhabitants in darkness. By 12:03 p.m., a thunderous, 140-foot-high wall of water was careening past the dam’s second power station at nearly 20 miles per hour.
Fast asleep, families down the canyon were drowned as quickly as they were awakened by the deafening roar, which one survivor later compared to a cyclone. Castaic, Saugus, Piru, Filmore, Santa Paula, Saticoy – all fell prey one by one to the muddy torrent littered with the debris of homes, bridges, cars, trees, livestock and human bodies. Finally, in little more than five hours, the deadly cascade reached the Pacific Ocean near Ventura, a full 54 miles from the ruptured dam, leaving an estimated 470 or more dead in its wake. Except for the 1906 San Francisco earthquake and fire, it was the worst disaster in California history.
There were, thankfully, heroes and dramatic tales of survival amid the chaos. By 1:20 a.m., officials who had been caught off guard by the dam collapse were scrambling into action. Telephone operators later dubbed the Hello Girls risked their lives to stay at their posts and make warning calls to downstream homes. A handful of motorcycle officers rode ahead of the flood, systematically knocking at every third house and eliciting neighbors to warn each other and escape to higher ground. According to a KCET web article by Hadley Meares:
The living clung to whatever they could — a woman in an evening dress rode on top of a water tank. Sisto Luna and her three children held onto a feather mattress for two miles, and a man named William Spring swam a mile with his infant swung around his neck, while his wife climbed up an orange tree.
Mulholland also was in bed when the phone call came alerting him of the disaster. Shocked and grief-stricken, he reportedly prayed outloud, over and over begging God that no one be killed. Later investigations would determine he was not at fault―the dam had been built on a weak geological formation that no engineer of his day would have recognized. Nevertheless, he shouldered all the blame. Personally and professionally, Mulholland was shattered. His celebrated career was over.
The Giant Tombstone after the dam burst. LAPL Digital Archives.
Meanwhile, many in the public viewed the dam burst as a fitting rebuke to the City of Angels, whose unquenchable desire to expand through brutally corrupt water-grabbing policies had literally drained other far-flung communities dry.
Today the angry river is again a mere trickle, tamed by a new viaduct. Along its banks sits Ruiz Cemetery, the final resting place for a few of the bodies recovered in the flood’s aftermath. Concrete chunks of The Giant Tombstone still litter the canyon, as if to mark the unknown graves of the lost. There is an unearthly, peaceful calm to the setting.
Nevertheless, many locals speak of the canyon as haunted. When the midnight air is cold and still, they insist, grim apparitions can be seen in the moonlight, desperately climbing toward higher ground. The Ruiz graveyard is also believed to be a hub of bizarre activities, including charnel manifestations of “Old Man Ruiz,” phantom laborers, and the disturbing cries of a young, invisible child.
Listen closely, canyon residents say, and you may yet hear the woeful spirits shrieking in the ravines, eternally scolding a young metropolis’ thirst for water and power, and demanding that the story of their untimely deaths be remembered.
