The St. Francis Dam was a concrete gravity dam located in San Francisquito Canyon in Los Angeles County, California, United States, built from 1924 to 1926 to serve Los Angeles's growing water needs. It catastrophically failed in 1928 due to a defective soil foundation and design flaws, triggering a flood that claimed the lives of at least 431 people. The collapse of the dam is considered to be one of the worst American civil engineering disasters of the 20th century and remains the second-greatest loss of life in California's history, after the 1906 San Francisco earthquake and fire.
The Los Angeles Aqueduct system, comprising the Los Angeles Aqueduct and the Second Los Angeles Aqueduct, is a water conveyance system, built and operated by the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power. The Owens Valley aqueduct was designed and built by the city's water department, at the time named The Bureau of Los Angeles Aqueduct, under the supervision of the department's Chief Engineer William Mulholland. The system delivers water from the Owens River in the Eastern Sierra Nevada Mountains to Los Angeles, California.
The Santa Clara River is an 83 mi (134 km) long river in Southern California. It drains parts of four ranges in the Transverse Ranges System north and northwest of Los Angeles, then flows west onto the Oxnard Plain and into the Santa Barbara Channel of the Pacific Ocean.
The Governor Edmund G. Brown California Aqueduct is a system of canals, tunnels, and pipelines that conveys water collected from the Sierra Nevada Mountains and valleys of Northern and Central California to Southern California. Named after California Governor Edmund Gerald "Pat" Brown Sr., the over 400-mile (640 km) aqueduct is the principal feature of the California State Water Project.
The Santa Clara River Valley is a rural, mainly agricultural, valley in Ventura County, California that has been given the moniker Heritage Valley by the namesake tourism bureau. The valley includes the communities of Santa Paula, Fillmore, Piru and the national historic landmark of Rancho Camulos. Named for the Santa Clara River, which winds through the valley before emptying into the Pacific Ocean between the cities of Ventura and Oxnard, the tourist bureau describes it as ".... Southern California's last pristine agricultural valley nestled along the banks of the free-flowing Santa Clara River."
Pyramid Dam is a dam on Piru Creek located in northern Los Angeles County, north of Castaic and south of Gorman. Its reservoir, Pyramid Lake, stores water from the West Branch California Aqueduct for Ventura County and Los Angeles County. They are smaller than Castaic Dam and Lake, the other artificial water storage facility in the area, 7 miles (11 km) to the south.
Pyramid Lake is a reservoir formed by Pyramid Dam on Piru Creek in the eastern San Emigdio Mountains, near Castaic, Southern California. It is a part of the West Branch California Aqueduct, which is a part of the California State Water Project. Its water is fed by the system after being pumped up from the San Joaquin Valley and through the Tehachapi Mountains.
The San Gabriel River is a mostly urban waterway flowing 58 miles (93 km) southward through Los Angeles and Orange Counties, California in the United States. It is the central of three major rivers draining the Greater Los Angeles Area, the others being the Los Angeles River and Santa Ana River. The river's watershed stretches from the rugged San Gabriel Mountains to the heavily developed San Gabriel Valley and a significant part of the Los Angeles coastal plain, emptying into the Pacific Ocean between the cities of Long Beach and Seal Beach.
The Santa Ynez River is one of the largest rivers on the Central Coast of California. It is 92 miles (148 km) long, flowing from east to west through the Santa Ynez Valley, reaching the Pacific Ocean at Surf, near Vandenberg Space Force Base and the city of Lompoc.
San Francisquito Canyon is a canyon created through erosion of the Sierra Pelona Mountains by the San Francisquito Creek, in Los Angeles County, Southern California.
Lake Hughes is an unincorporated community in northern Los Angeles County, California. It is in the Sierra Pelona Mountains, northwest of Palmdale and north of the Santa Clarita Valley, in the Angeles National Forest. It is on the sag pond waters of Lake Hughes and Elizabeth Lake. The community is rural in character, with a population of 649 in 2010, but also has a strong recreational element centered on the three lakes in the vicinity. The community of Elizabeth Lake is located just east of Lake Hughes, sharing the same ZIP code.
The California State Water Project, commonly known as the SWP, is a state water management project in the U.S. state of California under the supervision of the California Department of Water Resources. The SWP is one of the largest public water and power utilities in the world, providing drinking water for more than 23 million people and generating an average of 6,500 GWh of hydroelectricity annually. However, as it is the largest single consumer of power in the state itself, it has a net usage of 5,100 GWh.
Castaic Creek is a 25.0-mile-long (40.2 km) stream in the Sierra Pelona Mountains, in northeastern Los Angeles County, California. It is a tributary of the Santa Clara River.
Piru Creek is a major stream, about 71 miles (114 km) long, in northern Los Angeles County and eastern Ventura County, California. It is a tributary of the Santa Clara River, the largest stream system in Southern California that is still relatively natural.
Castaic Lake is a reservoir formed by Castaic Dam on Castaic Creek, in the Sierra Pelona Mountains of northwestern Los Angeles County, California, United States, near the town of Castaic.
Bouquet Reservoir is an artificial lake in the Angeles National Forest of Los Angeles County, California about 15 miles (24 km) west from Palmdale.
The Sierra Pelona, also known as the Sierra Pelona Ridge or the Sierra Pelona Mountains, is a mountain ridge in the Transverse Ranges in Southern California. Located in northwest Los Angeles County, the ridge is bordered on the north by the San Andreas fault and lies within and is surrounded by the Angeles National Forest.
San Francisquito Creek is a creek that flows into southwest San Francisco Bay in California, United States. Historically it was called the Arroyo de San Francisco by Juan Bautista de Anza in 1776. San Francisquito Creek courses through the towns of Portola Valley and Woodside, as well as the cities of Menlo Park, Palo Alto, and East Palo Alto. The creek and its Los Trancos Creek tributary define the boundary between San Mateo and Santa Clara counties.
San Francisquito Creek, in Los Angeles County, is a tributary stream of the Santa Clara River. It drains the south facing slopes of the Sierra Pelona Mountains of the San Gabriel Mountains within the Transverse Range of California, United States.
King's Station, also known as Moore's and Hollandsville, was a stagecoach station of the Butterfield Overland Mail 1st Division between 1858-1861 in southern California.
