“The stuff of “AN EXPERIENCE lessons learned no passionate theatergoer should miss.” BROADWAY LEGEND.” Mulholland’s Fatal Dam
TWO HISTORIANS ASSESS MULHOLLAND’S RESPONSIBILITY FOR ONE OF THE NATION’S WORST CIVIL ENGINEERING DISASTERS
By Norris Hundley, Jr. and Donald C. Jackson
In the critically acclaimed book Heavy Ground: William Mulholland and the St. Francis Dam Disaster, historians Norris Hundley, Jr. and Donald C. Jackson provide a detailed account and analysis of the collapse of the St. Francis Dam, which was located 45 miles northwest of downtown Los Angeles near the present-day city of Santa Clarita. In the early hours of March 13, 1928, a massive wall of water flooded the Santa Clara Valley, leaving roughly 400 people dead in its wake before reaching the Pacific Ocean at dawn. Considered the worst civil engineering failure in the history of California and the state’s second-worst disaster, in terms of lives lost, the collapse of the dam ended the storied career of Mulholland, the man who earlier had masterminded construction of the Los Angeles Aqueduct. To contextualize Mulhol- land’s responsibility for the dam’s failure, the authors relied extensively on items in The Huntington’s Top: William Mulholland, not long collections, including the only known copy of the transcript of the Los Angeles County Coroner’s In- after the completion of the Los Angeles Aqueduct in 1913, as he quest into the disaster. In addition, roughly a third of the book’s more than 150 illustrations are drawn appeared in the Complete Report from The Huntington’s holdings. on Construction of the Los Angeles Aqueduct, 1916. Bottom: St. By focusing on the design of the dam and its relation to dam engineering practice in the 1920s, the Francis Dam, around 1927. From authors build a convincing case that Mulholland himself ultimately was responsible for the dam’s collapse. Donald C. Jackson’s collection of historic dam images. Describing the dam’s construction and disintegration in precise detail, as well as the devastating impact of the flood on Santa Clara Valley residents, they also explore such issues as the political dimensions of water- control technology and dam safety legislation in 20th-century California. Most importantly, they probe Mul- holland’s background, training, and RACHEL YORK & BETTY BUCKLEY IN the professional and political context GREY GARDENS of his work as Los Angeles’ most BOOK BY MUSIC BY LYRICS BY DOUG WRIGHT SCOTT FRANKEL MICHAEL KORIE prominent hydraulic engineer. BASED ON THE FILM GREY GARDENS by DAVID MAYSLES, ALBERT MAYSLES, ELLEN HOVDE, MUFFY MAYER AND SUSAN FROEMKE
The following passage is from DIRECTED BY the book’s prologue. MICHAEL WILSON
“A Misty Haze over Everything”
t was a few minutes before midnight when Lillian Curtis awoke in her bed. Gazing out the window she witnessed a scene Iof calm beauty: “There was a large full moon with big white clouds rolling over it.” The serenity of the Jul 6 – Aug 14, 2016: On sale now! Sep 7 – Oct 16, 2016: On sale July 22! moment, in contrast to the tumult to come, lingered long in her memory. That evening Lillian, her husband, Lyman, and their three children had AHMANSON THEATRE | DOWNTOWN LOS ANGELES
CenterTheatreGroup.org | 213.972.4400 | season sponsor 26 huntington.org FrontiersSpring-Summer.qxp_ArtDrectr1 04 5/9/16 2:17 PM Page 1
retired for the night in their modest frame bungalow. It was one of a group of houses built for married employees of the Bureau of the HUNTINGTON STORE Power and Light, tucked in a small ravine off the main San Fran- cisquito Canyon. They lay close by the city’s recently built St. Francis Dam. Other city employees and transient workers lived in bungalows adjoining the city’s San Francisquito Power House No. 1, about five miles above the dam, or clustered near San Francisquito Power House No. 2, located a mile and a half downstream from the reservoir. The married employees’ com- pound where the Curtises lived lay but a short walk west from Power House No. 2. Also residing in the married employees’ compound were Ray Rising, his wife, Julia, and their three young daughters, Delores, Eleanor, and Adaline. Rising had worked for the city for nine months; Lillian’s husband had been on the job a few months more. Neither family had been living in San Francisquito Canyon when the St. Francis Dam was completed in May 1926, but the Curtises were in residence when the reservoir, with a capacity of more than 12 billion gallons, came close to filling in May 1927. And—not quite a year later, in early March 1928—both families called the Open Wed.–Mon., 10 a.m.–5 p.m. canyon home when water first filled the reservoir and rose within 1151 Oxford Road, San Marino three inches of the dam’s spillway crest. “Everything seemed per- theHuntingtonStore.org fectly safe,” recalled Lillian Curtis. Seconds after midnight on March 13, Lillian was startled by a strange apparition in the night sky. “I sat up in bed and looked out the windows toward the dam, which was northeast of us, and I seemed to see a misty haze over everything.” Nearby, Ray Rising was jolted awake by a roaring sound that reminded him of torna- does he had experienced as a youth in Minnesota. He grew fearful June 18, 2016 about what might be occurring at the dam. Lillian Curtis was now r Starts H First Ladies of Song also “hearing a strange noise,” and she grabbed her husband and Summe ere Your MICHAEL FEINSTEIN, conductor screamed, “The dam has broken!” A 125-foot wall of water, moving CADY HUFFMAN, soloist LYNN ROBERTS, soloist at about 18 miles per hour, soon engulfed Power House No. 2, Where the STARS MADELYN BAILLIO, soloist demolishing the plant and killing the on-duty crew. come out to Floodwaters surged up the ravine where the Curtis and Rising July 9, 2016 families lived. Lillian, several months pregnant, grabbed her three- PLAY Music of Billy Joel and-a-half-year-old son, Daniel. In turn, they were picked up by at the LA Arboretum MICHAEL CAVANAUGH, soloist LARRY BLANK, conductor her husband who, after pushing them through a window with orders to “run up the hill,” went back for Daniel’s two sisters, Mazie July 30, 2016 and Marjorie. Lillian never saw Lyman or her daughters alive again. Sinatra Project Vol. 2 For the moment, she concentrated on getting to higher ground, a MICHAEL FEINSTEIN, soloist punishing task amid the brush, silt, and debris filling the rising LARRY BLANK, conductor water. “Mommy,” her son called out, “don’t let the water get us.” August 20, 2016 With the boy in her arms, she persevered, telling herself, “I must Cole Porter Night get him out.” Breaking free from the tempest near the crest of the MICHAEL FEINSTEIN, conductor hill, she heard a voice. Convinced it was her husband, she crawled CATHERINE RUSSELL, soloist over the knoll to safety. NICK ZIOBRO, soloist Top (left to right): Lyman and Lillian Curtis, soon after their wedding in Bakersfield in 1921. Lyman worked for the municipally owned Bureau of Power and Light, and he and The voice she heard was not her husband’s, but Ray Rising’s. September 10, 2016 his family resided near San Francisquito Power House No. 2. Lillian survived the flood, Rising later recalled that his wife had shouted, “What’s that—a TICKETS but Lyman perished along with their two young daughters. Photograph credit: start A Salute to Warner Bros. SCVHistory.com. Bottom (left to right): Mazie, Daniel, and Marjorie Curtis in happier wind?” Soon “the sound grew louder and louder, then we heard at$25 MICHAEL FEINSTEIN, conductor times, before the St. Francis Dam disaster. The two Curtis daughters drowned in the trees snapping. We went to the door and looked out. Water was ALLYSON BRIGGS, soloist flood but Daniel was miraculously saved by his mother. Both mother and son attended TODD MURRAY, soloist the ceremonies in 1978 marking the 50th anniversary of the disaster. Photograph credit: coming. We hurried back to get the children. When we got back to ACT NOW! SCVHistory.com. MICHAEL FEINSTEIN Principal Pops Conductor Gates Open at 5:30pm for picnicking | Concerts begin at 7:30pm Call 626.793.7172 or visit PasadenaSymphony-Pops.org 28 huntington.org the door and tried to open it we could do nothing, as the force of the water held it shut.” Then he felt himself “thrown into the air with a force like from an explosion,” the water knocking him aside and crushing the timber bungalow. Fighting for air in the blackness and entangled in electrical wires
and an uprooted tree, Rising somehow found ref- uge atop a floating roof. Holding tight until the impromptu raft backed into a canyon wall, he jumped to safety, all the while shouting for his wife and
children. But they were gone, joined in death by 23 of his fellow city workers and 42 of their family members who, for at least a few months, had created and shared the community at Power House No. 2. The settlement’s only survivors were Lillian Curtis, her son, Daniel, and Ray Rising.
Top left: A low-lying section of Santa Paula, Calif., after the inundation. From Donald C. Jackson’s collection of historic dam images. Center left: Drawing of the downstream side of the dam, showing the placement of surviving blocks within the original structure. Not all remnants could be identified, but because the dimensions of the stepped downstream face varied depending on the elevation in the original structure, it was possible to link many of the surviving pieces to a precise location. Failure of the dam started along the lower east abutment, near block 35. From Western Construction News, June 1928. Bottom left: Detail view of block 5, with broken mica schist deposited on top of the block. Richard Courtney Collection, The Huntington Library, Art Collections, and Botanical Gardens. Bottom right: Block 5 is visible in the lower-left foreground. Toppled to the right is block 2. This large remnant, along with blocks 3 and 4 (not pictured), sheared off from the surviving center section (block 1) late in the flood. Richard Courtney Collection, The Huntington Library, Art Collections, and Botanical Gardens.
One Colorado 48 Hugus Alley Pasadena CA 91103 plvendome.com 626.577.7001 30 huntington.org C M Y K THE UN-SNEAKER
Left: In the company of his chauffeur George Vejar, a weary Mulholland walked away from the St. Francis site in March 1928. The disaster weighed heavily on him—the Los Angeles Herald noted that he appeared to have aged some 10 years in the traumatic days after the collapse. Mulholland lived on for another seven years, but after the flood he was Norris Hundley, Jr. (1935–2013) was a professor no longer a dominant force in Los Angeles or in the world of hydraulic of American history at UCLA and longtime editor engineering. Peirson Hall Papers, The Huntington Library, Art Collections, and Botanical Gardens. Right: A reviewer for the Wall of Pacific Historical Quarterly. He also was the author Street Journal has written that Heavy Ground: William Mulholland and of Dividing the Waters: A Century of Controversy the St. Francis Dam Disaster “does something unexpected. It opens a new perspective onto William Mulholland… [bringing him] to life in all between the United States and Mexico (1966), Water his sharp-elbowed, stubborn glory, saddened and perplexed by the St. and the West: The Colorado River Compact and Francis Dam debacle yet prideful until the end.” The book, copublished by The Huntington and University of California Press in 2015, is available the Politics of Water in the American West (1975), online at theHuntingtonStore.org. and The Great Thirst: Californians and Water, 1770s–1990s (1992). The torrent sowed death and destruction throughout the night. Not until daybreak did it Donald C. Jackson is the Cornelia F. Hugel Professor finally wash into the Pacific Ocean south of Ventura, of History at Lafayette College and was a 2012 leaving in its wake millions of dollars in property Trent R. Dames Fellow in Civil Engineering History damage and some 400 lost lives. By then, William at The Huntington. His books include Great Ameri- Mulholland—the man responsible for building the can Bridges and Dams (1988), Building the Ultimate dam—had been roused from his bed in Los Angeles Dam: John S. Eastwood and the Control of Water and driven 45 miles to the site of the now empty in the West (1995), Big Dams of the New Deal Era: reservoir. Acclaimed as a master engineer for his A Confluence of Engineering and Politics (2006), success in creating the modern city’s expansive coauthored with David Billington, and Pastoral Ah, the comfort of a sneaker and the style of … not-a-sneaker. water supply system, the 72-year-old Mulholland and Monumental: Dams, Postcards, and the That’s pure Hubbard. Because your feet deserve to look good and feel good. had long reigned supreme in the world of Southern American Landscape (2013). California water. But now, as Lillian Curtis and Ray Rising—along with hundreds of law enforcement and civic officials, citizen volunteers, and family members with ties to the Santa Clara Valley—set out in search of survivors, it would be left to Mul- holland to explain how his once great dam had SAMUELHUBBARD COM turned to rubble.
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