St. Francis Dam Disaster Papers

This collection consists of 12 notebooks with documents including correspondence, meetings minutes, press releases, photographs, and reports about the St. Francis dam collapse in Los Angeles County, California. The collection contains 12 folders; the largest folder has 223 pages, while the smallest has only 21. As the original arrangement of the papers has been kept, most folders contain documents related either to one of the government-established committees or to some non-governmental organizations. The papers document, in detail, how various governmental committees and non-governmental organizations worked together for the disaster's relief and compensation. It also deals with the conflicts between the Los Angeles city government and the Red Cross on some relief issues, the legal aspects of Los Angeles city government's relief efforts, and the investigation of the causes of the dam's failure. Among others, Charles C. Teague, mayor of the City of Santa Paula, participated in the decision making process of the disaster's relief and investigation and he is an author in the collection.

Subjects and participants in the collection include: American Legion, American Society of Civil Engineers, Lansing H. Beach, California State Board of Health, California Dept. of Finance, California Institute of Technology, Carnegie Institution of Washington, California attorneys, H. T. Cory, Bertram Hanford Crocheron, District attorneys, David Christian Henny, Louis C. Hill, Los Angeles City Council, Los Angeles Dept. of Water and Power, Los Angeles Mayor, Los Angeles Police Dept., Los Angeles Chamber of Commerce, Los Angeles City Attorney, Los Angeles times, C. E. Grunsky, George D. Louderback, Elwood Mead, Mexicans in California, Newhall Land and Farming Company, Red Cross and Red Crescent, Southern California Edison Company, Union Oil Company of California, United States Dept. of Agriculture, University of California College of Agriculture, Bailey Willis, Harry O. Wood, and Clement Calhoun Young.