The St. Francis Dam was a concrete gravity arch dam, built by the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, under the direction of William Muholland (chief engineer), in the San Francisquito Canyon, CA. It's purpose was to provide storage for the Los Angeles Aquaduct. It failed catastrophically at 11:57 p.m., on March 12, 1928, (five days after it was fully filled), unleashing 12.5 billion gallons of water 140 feet high, rushing at 18 miles per hour . It followed the Santa Clara River, destroying over 1200 homes, 10 bridges, and killing over 450 people, on its way to the Pacific Ocean. The center of the dam, which remained standing after the failure, was dynamited and brought down in 1929. Although no criminal charges were brought against Mulholland, he soon retired from the DWP, and lived in insolation until his death in 1935. In 1992, it was concluded that the dam failure was due to the fact that it was anchored to an ancient landslide on the eastern edge, which would not have been able to be detected in the 1920's.