The Mulholland Dam’s location in Weid Canyon, in the hills below Mount Hollywood, had long been considered an ideal place for a dam. As far back as 1912, Mulholland and his cohorts believed ...

In the 1930s, engineers with L.A.’s Department of Water and Power performed their most impressive trick yet: they made an entire dam disappear. In 1932, the white concrete face of Mulholland Dam ...

The first is the Mulholland Dam in Hollywood Hills, responsible for Lake Hollywood, which supplied the basic design for St. Francis Dam. After a year or so of planning and engineering, ...

Mulholland personally inspected the dam and declared it safe. Hours later, the dam gave way, sending a 10-story wall of water surging down the canyon. Harnischfeger was its first victim.

Explore the 1928 dam collapse, the second deadliest disaster in California history. A colossal engineering failure, the dam was built by William Mulholland, who had ensured the growth of Los ...

Mulholland himself, ever the civil engineer, designed the St. Francis Dam, 15 miles north of Los Angeles proper, to help hold water inside a large reservoir. Crucially — and fatally — there ...

Mulholland was called back to the site on March 12, 1928, after dam keeper Tony Harnischfeger detected a leak on the west abutment. The structure, however, seemed sound to Mulholland, who returned ...

Again, the dam’s chief engineer – William Mulholland – declared it was normal. On the morning of its collapse, Mulholland and ...

Mulholland Drive sits high atop the Santa Monica Mountains, overlooking the vast expanse of the Los Angeles Basin. If you’ve ever been there, the view is especially spectacular at night: With ...