The St. Francis Dam in California, built by self-taught engineer William Mulholland, was constructed on a defective foundation with the surrounding canyon geology ignored.
Sources
- The Worst: Stupid Engineering Mistakes (wired.com)
- https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/occasions-i-envy-dead-st-francis-dam-disaster-180954543/ (smithsonianmag.com)
- https://www.geoinstitute.org/news/jazz-age-geotechnical-engineering-part-6-case-study-st-francis-dam-failure (geoinstitute.org)
- https://damfailures.org/case-study/st-francis-dam-california-1928 (damfailures.org)
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