- The Terrible Tragedy that Befell the People of Our Golden City 
- The Metropolis of the Golden Gate, and the Death and Ruin Dealt Many 
  Adjacent Cities and Surrounding Country. 
- Destroying Earthquake Comes Without Warning, in the Early Hours 
  of the Morning. 
- Immense Structures Topple and Crumble. 
- Great Leland Stanford University Succumbs. 
- Water Mains Demolished and Fire Completes Devastation. 
- Fighting Fire With Dynamite. 
- Thousands Killed, Maimed, or Unaccounted For. 
- Tens of Thousands Without Food or Shelter; Martial Law Declared. 
- Property Loss Hundreds of Millions. 
- Appalling Stories by Eye Witnesses and Survivors. 
- The Disaster as Viewed by Scientists, etc.


The Project Gutenberg EBook of Complete Story of the San Francisco Horror, 
by Richard Linthicum and Trumbull White and Samuel Fallows

This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.net

Title: Complete Story of the San Francisco Horror
Author: Richard Linthicum
        Trumbull White
        Samuel Fallows

Release Date: August 21, 2008 [EBook #26380]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SAN FRANCISCO HORROR ***

Produced by Suzanne Shell, Sam W. and the Online Distributed
Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net

Transcriber's Note

Chapters 27 and 33 both end abruptly in the middle of a sentence. There are no omitted page numbers, so it is likely that this was an error made by the publisher when the book was in preparation.

There are some instances where sections of text are repeated, and these are preserved as printed. It may be that this book was published very hurriedly following the earthquake, and that these repetitions were simply missed.

COMPLETE STORY OF THE
San Francisco Horror

INTRODUCTION BY

RT. REV. SAMUEL FALLOWS, D. D., LL. D.

A Comprehensive and Connected Account of the Terrible Tragedy that Befell the
People of Our Golden City—The Metropolis of the Golden Gate, and the Death
and Ruin Dealt Many Adjacent Cities and Surrounding Country. Destroying
Earthquake Comes Without Warning, in the Early Hours of the
Morning; Immense Structures Topple and Crumble; Great Leland
Stanford University Succumbs; Water Mains Demolished and
Fire Completes Devastation; Fighting Fire With Dynamite.

SCENES OF DEATH AND TERROR

Thousands Killed, Maimed, or Unaccounted For; Tens of Thousands Without Food
or Shelter; Martial Law Declared; Millions Donated for Relief; Congress Makes
an Appropriation; Sympathetic Citizens Throughout the Land Untie
Their Purse-Strings to Aid the Suffering and Destitute; Property
Loss Hundreds of Millions; Appalling Stories by Eye Witnesses
and Survivors; The Disaster as Viewed by Scientists, etc.

Comprising Also a Vivid Portrayal of the Recent Death-Dealing

ERUPTION OF MT. VESUVIUS

BY RICHARD LINTHICUM
of the Editorial Staff of the Chicago Chronicle.

Together with twelve descriptive chapters giving a graphic and detailed account of the most interesting
and historic disasters of the past from ancient times to the present day.

BY TRUMBULL WHITE
Historian, Traveler and Geographer.

Profusely Illustrated with Photographic Scenes of the Great Disasters and Views
of the Devastated Cities and Their People.

THE AWFUL HORROR OF AN EARTHQUAKE.

Lives, homes and property lost in a few seconds.

A PANORAMA OF THE RUINS.

Photographed from Nob Hill—City Hall at the left.

BUSINESS DISTRICT IN SAN FRANCISCO.

View from Nob Hill.

—————

HUBERT D. RUSSELL

—————

[Pg 7]

PREFACE

IN PRESENTING this history of the San Francisco Earthquake Horror and Conflagration to the public, the publishers can assure the reader that it is the most complete and authentic history of the great disaster published.

The publishers set out with the determination to produce a work that would leave no room for any other history on this subject, a task for which they had the best facilities and the most perfect equipment.

The question of cost was not taken into consideration. The publishers wanted the best writers, the best illustrations, the best paper, printing and binding and proceeded immediately to get them. The services of the two best historical writers in the United States were secured within an hour after the first news of the catastrophe was received. The names and historical works of Richard Linthicum and Trumbull White are known in every household in the United States where current history is read. They are the authors of many standard works, including histories of recent wars and books of permanent reference, and rank among the world’s greatest descriptive writers.

A large staff of photographers have supplied illustrations for this great historical work depicting every phase of the catastrophe from the first shock of earthquake to the final work of relief. These illustrations have special interest and value because they are made from actual photographs taken by trained and skilled photographers. This history of the most recent of the world’s great disasters is beyond all comparison the most sumptuously and completely illustrated of any publication on this subject. So [Pg 8]numerous are the illustrations and so accurately do they portray every detail of the quake and fire that they constitute in themselves a complete, graphic and comprehensive pictorial history of the great catastrophe.

The story as told by the authors, however, is one of absorbing interest that thrills the reader with emotion and depicts the scenes of terror, destruction, misery and suffering as vividly as if the reader were an eye-witness to all the details of the stupendous disaster.

The history of the Earthquake and Fire Horror is told consecutively and systematically from beginning to end.

“The Doomed City” is a pen picture of San Francisco while its destruction was impending.

The four days of the conflagration are described each in separate chapters in such a way that the reader can follow the progress of the fire from the time of the first alarm until it was conquered by the dynamite squad of heroes.

A great amount of space has been devoted to “Thrilling Personal Experiences” and “Scenes of Death and Terror,” so that the reader has a thousand and one phases of the horror as witnessed by those who passed through the awful experience of the earthquake shock and the ordeal of the conflagration.

For purposes of comparison a chapter has been devoted to a magnificent description of San Francisco before the fire, “The City of a Hundred Hills,” the Mecca of sight-seers and pleasure loving travelers.

The descriptions of the Refuge Camps established in Golden Gate Park, the Presidio and other open spaces depict the sorrow and the suffering of the stricken people in words that appeal to the heart.

The magnificent manner in which the whole nation responded with aid and the conduct of the relief work are told in a way that brings a thrill of pride to every American heart.

“Fighting the Fire with Dynamite” is a thrilling chapter of [Pg 9]personal bravery and heroism, and the work of the “Boys in Blue” who patrolled the city and guarded life and property is adequately narrated.

Chinatown in San Francisco was one of the sights of the world and was visited by practically every tourist that passed through the Golden Gate. That odd corner of Cathay which was converted into a roaring furnace and completely consumed is described with breathless interest.

The “Ruin and Havoc in Other Coast Cities” describes the destruction of the great Leland Stanford, Jr., University, the scenes of horror and death at the State Asylum which collapsed, and in other ruined cities of the Pacific coast.

“The Earthquake as Viewed by Scientists” is a valuable addition to the seismology of the world—a science that is too little known, but which possesses tremendous interest for everyone.

The threatened destruction of Naples by the volcano of Vesuvius preceding the San Francisco disaster is fully described. The chapters on Vesuvius are especially valuable and interesting, by reason of the scientific belief that the two disasters are intimately related.

Altogether this volume is the best and most complete history of all the great disasters of the world and one that should be in the hands of every intelligent citizen, both as a historical and reference volume.

THE PUBLISHERS.

[Pg 10]

Preface	7
Introduction	21
CHAPTER I.
THE DOOMED CITY.
Earthquake Begins the Wreck of San Francisco and a Conflagration without Parallel Completes the Work of Destruction—Tremendous Loss of Life in Quake and Fire—Property Loss $200,000,000	33
CHAPTER II.
SAN FRANCISCO A ROARING FURNACE.
Flames Spread in a Hundred Directions and the Fire Becomes the Greatest Conflagration of Modern Times—Entire Business Section and Fairest Part of Residence District Wiped Off the Map—Palaces of Millionaires Vanish in Flames or are Blown Up by Dynamite—The Worst Day of the Catastrophe	46
CHAPTER III.
THIRD DAY ADDS TO HORROR.
Fire Spreads North and South Attended by Many Spectacular Features—Heroic Work of Soldiers Under General Funston—Explosions of Gas Add to General Terror	57
CHAPTER IV.
TWENTY SQUARE MILES OF WRECK AND RUIN.
Fierce Battle to Save the Famous Ferry Station, the Chief Inlet to and Egress from San Francisco—Fire Tugs and Vessels in the Bay Aid in Heroic Fight—Fort Mason, General Funston’s Temporary Headquarters, has Narrow Escape—A Survey of the Scene of Desolation	69
CHAPTER V.
THE CITY OF A HUNDRED HILLS.
A Description of San Francisco, the Metropolis of the Pacific Coast, Before the Fire—One of the Most Beautiful and Picturesque Cities in America—Home of the California Bonanza Kings	78

[Pg 11]

JAMES D. PHELAN.

Former Mayor of San Francisco, and who gave $1,000,000 for the relief of the sufferers. Largest sum given by an individual.

EUGENE E. SCHMITZ.

Mayor of San Francisco and who rendered great assistance in bringing order out of chaos.

[Pg 12]

LOOKING EAST ON MARKET STREET.

VIEW FROM FIFTH AND MARKET STREETS.

[Pg 13]

CHAPTER VI.
SCENES OF TERROR, DEATH AND HEROISM.
Thrilling Escapes and Deeds of Daring—Sublime Bravery and Self-Sacrifice by Men and Women—How the United States Mint and the Treasuries Were Saved and Protected by Devoted Employes and Soldiers—Pathetic Street Incidents—Soldiers and Police Compel Fashionably Attired to Assist in Cleaning Streets—Italians Drench Homes with Wine	103
CHAPTER VII.
THRILLING PERSONAL EXPERIENCES.
Scenes of Horror and Panic Described by Victims of the Quake Who Escaped—How Helpless People Were Crushed to Death by Falling Buildings and Debris—Some Marvelous Escapes	119
CHAPTER VIII.
THRILLING PERSONAL EXPERIENCES—CONTINUED.
Hairbreadth Escapes from the Hotels Whose Walls Crumbled—Frantic Mothers Seek Children from Whom They Were Torn by the Quake—Reckless Use of Firearms by Cadet Militia—Tales of Heroism and Suffering	132
CHAPTER IX.
THROUGH LANES OF MISERY.
A Graphic Pen Picture of San Francisco in Flames and in Ruins—Scenes and Stories of Human Interest where Millionaires and Paupers Mingled in a Common Brotherhood—A Harrowing Trip in an Automobile	141
CHAPTER X.
WHOLE NATION RESPONDS WITH AID.
Government Appropriates Millions and Chicago Leads All Other Cities with a Round Million of Dollars—People in All Ranks of Life from President Roosevelt to the Humblest Wage Earner Give Promptly and Freely	157
CHAPTER XI.
ALL CO-OPERATE IN RELIEF WORK.
Citizens’ Committee Takes Charge of the Distribution of Supplies, Aided by the Red Cross Society and the Army—Nearly Three-Fourths of the Entire Population Fed and Sheltered in Refuge Camps	162
CHAPTER XII.
OUR BOYS IN BLUE PROVE HEROISM.
United States Troops at the Presidio and Fort Mason Under Command of General [Pg 14]Funston Bring Order Out of Chaos and Save City from Pestilence—San Francisco Said “Thank God for the Boys in Blue”—Stricken City Patrolled by Soldiers	171
CHAPTER XIII.
IN THE REFUGE CAMPS.
Scenes of Destitution in the Parks Where the Homeless Were Gathered—Rich and Poor Share Food and Bed Alike—All Distinctions of Wealth and Social Position Wiped Out by the Great Calamity	178
CHAPTER XIV.
RUINS AND HAVOC IN COAST CITIES.
San Jose, the Prettiest Place in the State, Wrecked by Quake—State Insane Asylum Collapsed and Buried Many Patients Beneath the Crumbled Walls—Enormous Damage at Santa Rosa	189
CHAPTER XV.
DESTRUCTION OF GREAT STANFORD UNIVERSITY.
California’s Magnificent Educational Institution, the Pride of the State, Wrecked by Quake—Founded by the Late Senator Leland Stanford as a Memorial to His Son and Namesake—Loss $3,000,000	198
CHAPTER XVI.
FIGHTING FIRE WITH DYNAMITE.
San Francisco Conflagration Eventually Checked by the Use of Explosives—Lesson of Baltimore Needed in Coast City—Western Remnant of City in Residence Section Saved by Blowing Up Beautiful Homes of the Rich	208
CHAPTER XVII.
MISCELLANEOUS FACTS AND INCIDENTS.
Many Babies Born in Refuge Camps—Expressions of Sympathy from Foreign Nations—San Francisco’s Famous Restaurants—Plight of Newspaper and Telegraph Offices	214
CHAPTER XVIII.
DISASTER AS VIEWED BY SCIENTISTS.
Scientists are Divided Upon the Theories Concerning the Shock That Wrought Havoc in the Golden Gate City—May Have Originated Miles Under the Ocean—Growth of the Sierra Madre Mountains May Have Been the Cause	230
[Pg 15]CHAPTER XIX.
CHINATOWN, A PLAGUE SPOT BLOTTED OUT.
An Oriental Hell within an American City—Foreign in Its Stores, Gambling Dens and Inhabitants—The Mecca of All San Francisco Sight Seers—Secret Passages, Opium Joints and Slave Trade Its Chief Features	246
CHAPTER XX.
THE NEW SAN FRANCISCO.
A Modern City of Steel on the Ruins of the City that Was—A Beautiful Vista of Boulevards, Parks and Open Spaces Flanked by the Massive Structures of Commerce and the Palaces of Wealth and Fashion	255
CHAPTER XXI.
VESUVIUS THREATENS NAPLES.
Beautiful Italian City on the Mediterranean Almost Engulfed in Ashes and Lava from the Terrible Volcano—Worst Eruption Since the Days of Pompeii and Herculaneum—Buildings Crushed and Thousands Rendered Homeless	267
CHAPTER XXII.
SCENES IN FRIGHTENED NAPLES.
Blistering Showers of Hot Ashes—The People Frantic—Cry Everywhere “When Will It End?”—Atmosphere Charged with Electricity and Poisonous Fumes	279
CHAPTER XXIII.
VOLCANOES AND EARTHQUAKES EXPLAINED.
BY TRUMBULL WHITE.
The Theories of Science on Seismic Convulsions—Volcanoes Likened to Boils on the Human Body, Through Which the Fires and Impurities of the Blood Manifest Themselves—Seepage of Ocean Waters Through Crevices in the Rocks Reaches the Internal Fires of the Earth—Steam Is Generated and an Explosion Follows—Geysers and Steam Boilers as Illustrations—Views of the World’s Most Eminent Scientists Concerning the Causes of the Eruptions of Mount Pelee and La Soufriere	285
CHAPTER XXIV.
TERRIBLE VOLCANIC DISASTERS OF THE PAST.
BY TRUMBULL WHITE.
Destruction of Sodom, Gomorrah and the Other Cities of the Plain—The Bible Account a Graphic Description of the Event—Ancient Writers Tell of Earthquakes and Volcanoes of Antiquity—Discovery of Buried Cities of Which No Records Remain—Formation of the Dead Sea—The Valley of the Jordan and Its Physical Characteristics	303
[Pg 16]CHAPTER XXV.
VESUVIUS AND THE DESTRUCTION OF POMPEII.
BY TRUMBULL WHITE.
Most Famous Volcanic Eruption in History—Roman Cities Overwhelmed—Scenes of Horror Described by Pliny, the Great Classic Writer, an Eye-Witness of the Disaster—Buried in Ashes and Lava—The Stricken Towns Preserved for Centuries Excavated in Modern Times as a Wonderful Museum of the Life of 1,800 Years Ago	309
CHAPTER XXVI.
MOUNT ÆTNA AND THE SICILIAN HORRORS.
BY TRUMBULL WHITE.
A Volcano with a Record of Twenty-five Centuries—Seventy-eight Recorded Eruptions—Three Hundred Thousand Inhabitants Dwelling on the Slopes of the Mountain and in the Valleys at Its Base—Stories of Earthquake Shocks and Lava Flows—Tales of Destruction—Described by Ancient and Modern Writers and Eye-Witnesses	321
CHAPTER XXVII.
LISBON EARTHQUAKE SCOURGED.
BY TRUMBULL WHITE.
Sixty Thousand Lives Lost in a Few Moments—An Opulent and Populous Capital Destroyed—Graphic Account by an English Merchant Who Resided in the Stricken City—Tidal Waves Drown Thousands in the City Streets—Ships Engulfed in the Harbor—Criminals Rob and Burn—Terrible Desolation and Suffering	334
CHAPTER XXVIII.
JAPAN AND ITS DISASTROUS EARTHQUAKES AND VOLCANOES.
BY TRUMBULL WHITE.
The Island Empire Subject to Convulsions of Nature—Legends of Ancient Disturbances—Famous Volcano of Fuji-yama Formed in One Night—More Than One Hundred Volcanoes in Japan—Two Hundred and Thirty-two Eruptions Recorded—Devastation of Thriving Towns and Busy Cities—The Capital a Sufferer—Scenes of Desolation after the Most Recent Great Earthquakes	344
CHAPTER XXIX.
KRAKATOA, THE GREATEST OF VOLCANIC EXPLOSIONS.
BY TRUMBULL WHITE.
East Indian Catastrophes—The Volcano that Blew Its Own Head Off—The Terrific Crash Heard Three Thousand Miles—Atmospheric Waves Travel Seven Times Around the Earth—A Pillar of Dust Seventeen Miles High—Islands of the Malay Archipelago Blotted Out of Existence—Native Villages Annihilated—Other Disastrous Upheavals in the East Indies	353
[Pg 17]CHAPTER XXX.
OUR GREAT HAWAIIAN AND ALASKAN VOLCANOES.
BY TRUMBULL WHITE.
Greatest Volcanoes in the World Are Under the American Flag—Huge Craters in Our Pacific Islands—Native Worship of the Gods of the Flaming Mountains—Eruptions of the Past—Heroic Defiance of Pele, the Goddess of Volcanoes by a Brave Hawaiian Queen—The Spell of Superstition Broken—Volcanic Peaks in Alaska, Our Northern Territory—Aleutian Islands Report Eruptions	363
CHAPTER XXXI.
SOUTH AMERICAN CITIES DESTROYED.
BY TRUMBULL WHITE.
Earthquakes Ravage the Coast Cities of Peru and the Neighboring Countries—Spanish Capitals in the New World Frequent Sufferers—Lima, Callao and Caracas Devastated—Tidal Waves Accompany the Earthquakes—Juan Fernandez Island Shaken—Fissures Engulf Men and Animals—Peculiar Effects Observed	373
CHAPTER XXXII.
EARTHQUAKES AND VOLCANOES IN CENTRAL AMERICA AND MEXICO.
BY TRUMBULL WHITE.
A Region Frequently Disturbed by Subterranean Forces—Guatemala a Fated City—A Lake Eruption in Honduras Described by a Great Painter—City of San Jose Destroyed—Inhabitants Leave the Vicinity to Wander as Beggars—Disturbances on the Route of the Proposed Nicaragua Canal—San Salvador Is Shaken—Mexican Cities Suffer	382
CHAPTER XXXIII.
CHARLESTON, GALVESTON, JOHNSTOWN—OUR AMERICAN DISASTERS.
BY TRUMBULL WHITE.
Earthquake Shock in South Carolina—Many Lives Lost in the Riven City—Galveston Smitten by Tidal Wave and Hurricane—Thousands Die in Flood and Shattered Buildings—The Gulf Coast Desolated—Johnstown, Pennsylvania, Swept by Water from a Bursting Reservoir—Scenes of Horror	389
CHAPTER XXXIV.
ST. PIERRE, MARTINIQUE, ANNIHILATED BY A VOLCANO.
BY TRUMBULL WHITE.
Fifty Thousand Men, Women and Children Slain in an Instant—Molten Fire and Suffocating Gases Rob Multitudes of Life—Death Reigns in the Streets of the Stricken City—The Governor and Foreign Consuls Die at Their Posts of Duty—No Escape for the Hapless Residents in the Fated Town—Scenes of Suffering Described—Desolation Over All—Few Left to Tell the Tale of the Morning of Disaster	397

[Pg 18]

ILLUSTRATIONS

The Awful Horror of an Earthquake	Frontispiece
A Panorama of the Ruins	Frontispiece
Business District of San Francisco	Frontispiece
Former Mayor James D. Phelan	11
Mayor Eugene E. Schmitz	11
Looking East on Market Street	12
View from Fifth and Market Streets	12
Market Street, Scene of Ruins	31
United States Guards in Charge of Dead	32
Street Torn Up by Earthquake	41
Stockton Street	42
Grant Avenue	42
Mission Street	43
O’Farrell Street	43
Looking North from Sixth and Market Streets	44
The Orpheum Theatre	44
San Francisco on Fire	53
Destroyed Wholesale Houses	54
Cracks in Earth	63
Ruins of Emporium Building	63
Map—Bird’s-Eye View of San Francisco	64
Ruins of Hall of Justice	65
Looking Down Market Toward Call Building	66
From California Street Toward Call Building	66
Market Street Before the Disaster	75
The Devouring Flames	76
Mark Hopkins Institute, Nob Hill	85
United States Mint	86
New Postoffice Building	87
Jefferson Square	88
Chronicle Building	97
St. Francis Hotel (Before the Earthquake)	97
Ferry House	98
Free Water	115
Distributing Clothes	115
[Pg 19]Wires Destroyed	116
Military Camp	116
Kitchens in the Street	133
Wing of City Hall, Crumbled	133
Cattle Killed	134
St. John’s Church, Ruined	134
Camp Kitchen in Ball Park	151
Shacks in Golden Gate Park	151
Governor Pardee	152
Major General Adolphus Greely	152
Refugees on Telegraph Hill	169
General Funston and Wife	170
Vendome Hotel, San Jose	187
Postoffice, San Jose	188
Corner of Baptist Church	205
Kearney Street, San Francisco	205
Ferry Building	206
Military Quarters	206
Randolph Storage	223
Switchboard Destroyed	223
St. Dominici Church, Freak with Steeple	224
St. Dominici Church, Wrecked	224
Chinese Refugees	241
Flat Building, Sunk	242
Seeking Lost Friends	259
All that Was Left of a Fine Residence	259
Soldiers’ Encampment	260
Alameda Park	260
Dolores Mission	277
Wreck and Ruin	278
Wreck and Ruin	278
Crack in Earth	295
Ghoulish Thieves Looting the Dead	296
Effect of Earthquake on Modern Steel Building	313
Vesuvius During Recent Eruption	314
Road Leading to Vesuvius Before Eruption	314

[Pg 20]

MAP OF SAN FRANCISCO AND VICINITY.

Showing towns and section of country that suffered the most from effects of earthquake.

[Pg 21]

INTRODUCTION

By the RT. REV. SAMUEL FALLOWS, D. D., LL. D.

ABRIGHT, intelligent unbeliever in the Providential government of the world has just said to me in discussing this greatest of calamities which has occurred in our nation’s history, “Where is your benevolent God?” I answered “He still lives and guides the affairs of men.” Another said, “The preachers would do well not to meddle with the subject.” But the reply was made, “It is precisely the subject with which they, more than others, should concern themselves.”

It is for them, when the hearts of men are failing to confidently proclaim that God has not abdicated his throne, and that man is not the sport of malign and lawless forces.

All events are ordered for the best; and the evils which we suffer are parts of a great movement conducted by Almighty power, under the direction of Infinite Wisdom and Goodness. God’s creation is a perfect work. The world in which we live is the best possible world on the whole; not the best possible to the individual at any given moment, but the best possible on the whole, all creatures considered and all the ages of man taken into the account. This is the affirmation of a triumphant optimism.

John Stuart Mill averred that a better world could have been made and more favorable conditions for man devised. But before this hypothesis can be sustained, the skeptic from the beginning of time must have scanned the history of every individual and studied it in its minutest details. He must have explored every rill and river of influence entering into his character. He must have understood every relation of the individual to every other [Pg 22]person through all the ages. He must have mastered all the facts and laws of our earth. And as it sustains a vital connection with the solar system, he must have grasped all the mysteries which are involved in it.

As this system is related to the still grander one of which it is a part, he must have known the law and workings of its every star and sun. Still more, he must have gone from system to system with their millions of worlds and become familiar with every part of the vast stupendous whole. He must have learned every secret of all Nature’s forces, and have penetrated into the interior recesses of the Divine Being. He must have taken the place of God Himself.

A Divine Providence.

Amid all our doubts and distresses we must hold fast to the belief that there is a God who maketh the clouds His chariot and walketh upon the wings of the wind—a God who is present in every summer breath and every wintry blast, in every budding leaf, and every opening flower, in the fall of every sparrow and the wheeling of every world. His Providence is in every swinging of the tides, in every circulation of the air, in all attractions and repulsions, in all cohesions and gravitations. These, and the varied phenomena of nature are the direct expressions of the Divine Energy, the modes of operation of the Divine Mind, the manifestations of the Divine Wisdom and the expressions of the Divine Love.

The very thunderbolt that rives the oak and by its shock sunders the soul from the body of some unfortunate one purifies the air that millions may breathe the breath of life.

The very earthquake which shakes the earth to its center and shatters cities into ruin, prevents by that very concussion the graver catastrophes which bury continents out of sight.

The very hurricane which comes sweeping down and on, [Pg 23]prostrating forests, hurling mighty tidal waves on the shore and sending down many a gallant ship with all its crew, bears on its destructive wings, “the incense of the sea,” to remotest parts, that there may be the blooming of flowers, the upspringing of grass, the waving of all the banners of green, and the carrying away of the vapors of death that spring from decaying mold.

Man the Conqueror.

Pascal said “man is but a reed, the feeblest thing in nature, but he is a reed that thinks.” The elemental forces break loose and for the time being he cannot control them. Amid nature’s convulsions he is utterly helpless and insignificant.

It is but for a moment, however, that he yields. He knows that he is the central figure in the universe of worlds. “He is not one part of the furniture of this planet, not the highest merely in the scale of its creatures but the lord of all.” He is not a parasite but the paragon of the globe. He has faith in the unchangeableness of the laws he is mastering while suffering from them. He confidently declares there is nothing fitful, nothing capricious, nothing irregular in their action. The greater the calamity the more earnest his effort to ascertain its causes and learn the lessons it teaches.

Fearlessly man must meet the events of life as they come. Speculations as to future cataclysms and fearful forebodings as to the immediate end of the world must all be given to the winds. There will be at some time an end to our globe. It may be frozen out, or burned out, or scattered into impalpable dust by the terrific explosion of steam generated by an ocean of water precipitated into an ocean of fire. But cycles of millenniums will intervene before such an apocalypse takes place.

In the spirit of Campbell’s “Last Man” we must live, and act;

“Go sun, while mercy holds me upOn nature’s awful waste[Pg 24]To taste the last and bitter cupOf death, that man must taste:Go, say thou saw’st the last of Adam’s raceOn earth’s sepulchral clod,The darkening Universe defy,To quench his immortalityOr shake his trust in God.”

Wickedness not the Cause of Destruction.

There are among us men who seem to suppose that they have been let into the counsels of the Almighty and have the right to aver that this calamity so colossal in its proportions and awful in its character is a judgment upon our sister city for its great wickedness. I heard similar declarations when Chicago was swept by its tornado of flame. Neither Chicago nor San Francisco could claim to be pre-eminent in righteousness, but, that Divine Providence should visit the vials of His wrath in an especial manner upon them because of their iniquity, is utterly repugnant both to reason and Holy Scripture. Only by a special revelation from the Most High, accompanied with evidence corresponding to that which substantiates the claims of an Old Testament prophet can any warrant be given to any man to declare that a great catastrophe is the consequence of the moral sins of a given community.

The Book of Job gives the emphatic denial to the claim that specific human misery and suffering are the sure signs of the retribution for specific guilt or sin. The Great Teacher and Divine Savior of men reaffirmed the truth of the teachings of that ancient poem by asserting that the man born blind was not thus grievously afflicted because he himself or his parents had been guilty of some peculiar iniquity. He declared that the eighteen persons who had been killed by the falling of the Tower of Siloam (probably from an earthquake shock), were not greater sinners than those who were hearing him speak.

[Pg 25]

The Unity of Humanity.

This great disaster has given a new emphasis to our National Unity. Congress for the first time has voted to aid directly a city in distress within the bounds of our country. State Legislatures have followed its example, while municipal organizations by the score have poured out their benefactions.

From all quarters of the civilized globe expressions of sympathy have come and tenders of help made, without parallel in the annals of time.

All this has revealed the essential oneness of Humanity. It has shown that beneath all the artificial distinctions of society man is the equal of his fellow man. All the barriers of nationality, creed, color, social position, riches, poverty have been broken down in the common sufferings of the stricken people on our Western Coast. The chord of brotherhood is vibrating in all our hearts. Its divine melodies are heard above the roar and rush of business in our streets. We have been amassing wealth too often selfishly, and madly. We have been making money our god; and now we see how vain a thing it is in which to put our trust. Now we feel “it is more blessed to give than to receive.” Now, kindness and tenderness melt the hardness of our natures. Now, as we stretch the helping hand and witness the joy and gratitude evoked, by our God-like deeds, we feel in every fiber of our being the thrill of the poet’s rapt exclamation:

“O, if there be an Elysium on earthIt is this, it is this.”

Recovery from Earthquakes.

Earthquakes throughout the world have not disturbed the ultimate confidence of man in the stability of this old and often seemingly wayward earth. All Greece was convulsed centuries ago from center to circumference and Constantinople for the second time was overturned with the loss of tens of thousands of lives. [Pg 26]Five hundred years afterwards the city was again shaken and a large number of its buildings destroyed with an appalling loss of life. Again and again was the ancient city of Antioch shattered in almost every portion but each time she arose stronger than before. Fifteen hundred years ago one mighty shock cost the lives of 250,000 of its people, but Antioch remains, although its grandeur from other causes has departed. Twice at least has Naples been partly destroyed along with its neighboring towns and more than 100,000 people have perished. But Naples is still on the map of the earth.

Lisbon, one hundred and fifty years ago lost 50,000 of its inhabitants and had a part of its territory suddenly submerged under 600 feet of water. For 5,000 miles the earthquake extended and shook Scotland itself, alarming the English people and causing fasting and prayer and special sermons in the Scotch and Anglican churches.

Two hundred years ago Tokio was almost entirely destroyed. Every building was practically in ruins and more than 200,000 were numbered among its mangled dead. Again in 1855 it nearly suffered a similar fate with a decreased though very large loss of life. But Tokio has helped Japan play its dramatic part in the recent history of the world.

Graphic descriptions have been left us by eye witnesses of the tremendous upheaval in the great Mississippi Valley in 1811, when the flow of the mighty river was stopped, and the land on its banks for vast distances from its current was sunk for a stretch of nearly 300 miles. But the Father of Waters still goes on unvexed to the sea.

Charleston was sadly shaken twenty years ago, but her streets are not deserted. Senator Tillman still speaks vigorously as the representative of her wide-awake and increasing population.

Some of us have not forgotten when we saw Chicago burning in 1871, the doubts and fears of our own hearts regarding the [Pg 27]future of our city. Jeremiads were oracularly and dolefully uttered by many a prophetic pessimist that Chicago would never be rebuilt, that it would be burned again if it should rise from its ashes. Well! it did rise. It was again sadly burned. It again arose. It has been rising and growing ever since. And it is now ready to send its millions of dollars and more if needed to the stricken cities on our Pacific coast.

Not in fear then, but in hope, must our homes, our churches, our schools, our manufactories, our marts of trade, our bank buildings, our office buildings and other needed structures be established.

San Francisco will be Rebuilt.

The prophets of evil may croak as dismally as they may desire and predict that the earth will again shudder and quake and imperil if not destroy any city man may attempt to create on the now dismantled and disfigured site. But San Francisco will as surely be rebuilt as the sun rises in heaven. No earthquake upheaval can shake the determined will of the unconquerable American to recover from disaster. It will simply serve to make him more rock-rooted and firm in his purpose to pluck victory from defeat. No fiery blasts can burn up the asbestos of his unconsumable energy. No disaster, however seemingly overwhelming, can daunt his faith or dim his hope, or prevent his progress.

San Francisco occupies the imperial gateway of the Pacific. Her harbor, one of the best in the world, still preserves its contour and extends its protecting arms as when Francis Drake found his way into it nearly four hundred years ago. The finger of Providence still points to it amid wreck and ruin and smoldering ashes as the place where a teeming city with every mark of a splendid civilization shall be the pride of our Western shores. Her wailing Miserere shall be turned into a joyful Te Deum.

Not for a moment after the temporary paralysis is past will [Pg 28]the work of reconstruction be delayed. We know not when another shock may come or whether it will come again at all. No matter. The city shall rise again. And with it, shall the other cities that have suffered from the earth’s commotion rise again into newness of life. California will not cease to be the land of fruits and flowers, of beauty and bounty, of sunshine and splendor from this temporary disturbance. It will continue to maintain its just reputation for all that is admirable in the American character, of pluck and perseverance, of vigor and versatility, and above all of the royal hospitality of its homes and of the welcome it always extends to every new and inspiring thought.

[Pg 31]

MARKET STREET SCENE OF RUINS.

Looking west on Market Street from 5th Street. The man in gutter was probably shot by the soldiers.

[Pg 32]

U. S. GUARDS IN CHARGE OF DEAD.

A scene in Jefferson Square where the U. S. Guards are caring for the dead. Note the caskets, dead person laid out on mattress, also guard tents, embalming fluids in demijohns, etc. Name or description of the dead being recorded.

[Pg 33]

CHAPTER I.

THE DOOMED CITY.

Earthquake Begins the Wreck of San Francisco and a Conflagration without Parallel Completes the Awful Work of Destruction—Tremendous Loss of life in Quake and Fire—Property Loss $200,000,000.

AFTER four days and three nights that have no parallel outside of Dante’s Inferno, the city of San Francisco, the American metropolis by the Golden Gate, was a mass of glowing embers fast resolving into heaps and winrows of grey ashes emblematic of devastation and death.

Where on the morning of April 18, 1906, stood a city of magnificent splendor, wealthier and more prosperous than Tyre and Sidon of antiquity, enriched by the mines of Ophir, there lay but a scene of desolation. The proud and beautiful city had been shorn of its manifold glories, its palaces and vast commercial emporiums levelled to the earth and its wide area of homes, where dwelt a happy and a prosperous people, lay prostrate in thin ashes. Here and there in the charred ruins and the streets lately blackened by waves of flame, lay crushed or charred corpses, unheeded by the survivors, some of whom were fighting desperately for their lives and property, while others were panic stricken and paralyzed by fear. Thousands of lives had been sacrificed and millions upon millions of dollars in property utterly destroyed.

The beginning of the unparalleled catastrophe was on the morning of April 18, 1906. In the grey dawn, when but few had arisen for the day, a shock of earthquake rocked the foundations of the city and precipitated scenes of panic and terror throughout the business and residence districts.

[Pg 34]It was 5:15 o’clock in the morning when the terrific earthquake shook San Francisco and the surrounding country. One shock apparently lasted two minutes and there was an almost immediate collapse of flimsy structures all over the former city. The water supply was cut off and when fires broke out in various sections there was nothing to do but to let the buildings burn. Telegraphic and telephone communication was shut off. Electric light and gas plants were rendered useless and the city was left without water, light or power. Street car tracks were twisted out of shape and even the ferry-boats ceased to run.

The dreadful earthquake shock came without warning, its motion apparently being from east to west. At first the upheaval of the earth was gradual, but in a few seconds it increased in intensity. Chimneys began to fall and buildings to crack, tottering on their foundations.

People became panic stricken and rushed into the streets, most of them in their night attire. They were met by showers of falling buildings, bricks, cornices and walls. Many were instantly crushed to death, while others were dreadfully mangled. Those who remained indoors generally escaped with their lives, though scores were hit by detached plaster, pictures and articles thrown to the floor by the shock.

Scarcely had the earth ceased to shake when fires broke out simultaneously in many places. The fire department promptly responded to the first calls for aid, but it was found that the water mains had been rendered useless by the underground movement. Fanned by a light breeze, the flames quickly spread and soon many blocks were seen to be doomed.

Then dynamite was resorted to and the sound of frequent explosions added to the terror of the people. All efforts to stay the progress of the fire, however, proved futile. The south side of Market street from Ninth street to the bay was soon ablaze, the fire covering a belt two blocks wide. On this, the main thoroughfare of the city, are located many of the finest edifices in the city, [Pg 35]including the Grant, Parrott, Flood, Call, Examiner and Monadnock buildings, the Palace and Grand hotels and numerous wholesale houses.

At the same time the commercial establishments and banks north of Market street were burning. The burning district in this section extended from Sansome street to the water front and from Market street to Broadway. Fires also broke out in the mission and the entire city seemed to be in flames.

The fire swept down the streets so rapidly that it was practically impossible to save anything in its way. It reached the Grand Opera House on Mission street and in a moment had burned through the roof. The Metropolitan opera company from New York had just opened its season there and all the expensive scenery and costumes were soon reduced to ashes. From the opera house the fire leaped from building to building, leveling them almost to the ground in quick succession.

The Call editorial and mechanical departments were totally destroyed in a few minutes and the flames leaped across Stevenson street toward the fine fifteen-story stone and iron Claus Spreckels building, which with its lofty dome is the most notable edifice in San Francisco. Two small wooden buildings furnished fuel to ignite the splendid pile.

Thousands of people watched the hungry tongues of flame licking the stone walls. At first no impression was made, but suddenly there was a cracking of glass and an entrance was affected. The interior furnishings of the fourth floor were the first to go. Then as though by magic, smoke issued from the top of the dome.

This was followed by a most spectacular illumination. The round windows of the dome shone like so many full moons; they burst and gave vent to long, waving streamers of flame. The crowd watched the spectacle with bated breath. One woman wrung her hands and burst into a torrent of tears.

“It is so terrible!” she sobbed. The tall and slender structure [Pg 36]which had withstood the forces of the earth appeared doomed to fall a prey to fire. After a while, however, the light grew less intense and the flames, finding nothing more to consume, gradually went, leaving the building standing but completely burned out.

The Palace Hotel, the rear of which was constantly threatened, was the scene of much excitement, the guests leaving in haste, many only with the clothing they wore. Finding that the hotel, being surrounded on all sides by streets, was likely to remain immune, many returned and made arrangements for the removal of their belongings, though little could be taken away owing to the utter absence of transportation facilities. The fire broke out anew and the building was soon a mass of ruins.

The Parrott building, in which were located the chambers of the state supreme court, the lower floors being devoted to an immense department store, was ruined, though its massive walls were not all destroyed.

A little farther down Market street the Academy of Sciences and the Jennie Flood building and the History building kindled and burned like tinder. Sparks carried across the wide street ignited the Phelan building and the army headquarters of the department of California, General Funston commanding, were burned.

Still nearing the bay, the waters of which did the firemen good service, along the docks, the fire took the Rialto building, a handsome skyscraper, and converted scores of solid business blocks into smoldering piles of brick.

Banks and commercial houses, supposed to be fireproof though not of modern build, burned quickly and the roar of the flames could be heard even on the hills, which were out of the danger zone. Here many thousands of people congregated and witnessed the awful scene. Great sheets of flame rose high in the heavens or rushed down some narrow street, joining midway between the [Pg 37]sidewalks and making a horizontal chimney of the former passage ways.

The dense smoke that arose from the entire business spread out like an immense funnel and could have been seen for miles out at sea. Occasionally, as some drug house or place stored with chemicals was reached, most fantastic effects were produced by the colored flames and smoke which rolled out against the darker background.

When the first shock occurred at 5:15 a. m. most of the population were in bed and many lodging houses collapsed with every occupant. There was no warning of the awful catastrophe. First came a slight shock, followed almost immediately by a second and then the great shock that sent buildings swaying and tumbling. Fire broke out immediately. Every able-bodied man who could be pressed into service was put to work rescuing the victims.

Panic seized most of the people and they rushed frantically about. Toward the ferry building there was a rush of those fleeing to cross the bay. Few carried any effects and some were hardly dressed. The streets were filled immediately with panic-stricken people and the frequently occurring shocks sent them into unreasoning panic. Fires lighted up the sky in every direction in the breaking dawn. In the business district devastation met the eye on every hand.

The area bounded by Washington, Mission and Montgomery streets and extending to the bay front was quickly devastated. That represented the heart of the handsome business section.

The greatest destruction on the first day occurred in that part of the city which was reclaimed from San Francisco Bay. Much of the devastated district was at one time low marshy ground entirely covered by water at high tide. As the city grew it became necessary to fill in many acres of this low ground in order to reach deep water. The Merchants’ Exchange building, a [Pg 38]fourteen-story steel structure, was situated on the edge of this reclaimed ground. It had just been completed and the executive offices of the Southern Pacific Company occupied the greater part of the building.

The damage by the earthquake to the residence portion of the city, the finest part of which was on Nob Hill and Pacific Heights, was slight but the fire completely destroyed that section on the following day.

To the westward, on Pacific Heights, were many fine, new residences, but little injury was done to any of them by the quake.

The Palace Hotel, a seven-story building about 300 feet square, was built thirty years ago by the late Senator Sharon, whose estate was in the courts for many years. At the time it was erected the Palace was considered the best equipped hotel in the west.

The offices of the three morning papers, the Chronicle, the Call and the Examiner, were located within 100 feet of each other. The Chronicle, situated at the corner of Market and Kearney streets, was a ten-story steel frame building and was one of the finest buildings of its character put up in San Francisco.

The Spreckels building, in which were located the business office of the Call, was sixteen stories high and very narrow. The editorial rooms, composing room and pressroom were in a small three-story building immediately in the rear of the Spreckels building.

Just across Third street was the home of the Examiner, seven stories high, with a frontage of 100 feet on Market street.

The postoffice was a fine, grey stone structure and had been completed less than two years. It covered half a block on Mission street between Sixth and Seventh streets. The ground on which the building stood was of a swampy character and some difficulty was experienced in obtaining a solid foundation.

[Pg 39]The City Hall, which was badly wrecked by the quake and afterwards swept by the fire, was a mile and a half from the water front. It was an imposing structure with a dome 150 feet high. The building covered about three acres and cost more than $7,000,000.

The Grand Opera House, where the Metropolitan Opera Company opened a two weeks’ engagement the previous Monday night, was one of the oldest theaters in San Francisco. It was located on Mission street between Third and Fourth streets and for a number of years was the leading playhouse of the city.

In 1885 when business began to move off of Mission street and to seek modern structures this playhouse was closed for some time and later devoted to vaudeville. Within the past four years, however, numerous fine buildings had been erected on Mission street and the Grand Opera house had been used by many of the leading independent theatrical companies.

All efforts to prevent the fire from reaching the Palace and Grand hotels were unsuccessful and both were completely destroyed together with all their contents.

All of San Francisco’s best playhouses, including the Majestic, Columbia, Orpheum and Grand Opera house were soon a mass of ruins. The earthquake demolished them for all practical purposes and the fire completed the work of demolition. The handsome Rialto and Casserly buildings were burned to the ground, as was everything in that district.

The scene at the Mechanics’ Pavilion during the early hours of the morning and up until noon, when all the injured and dead were removed because of the threatened destruction of the building by fire, was one of indescribable sadness. Sisters, brothers, wives and sweethearts searched eagerly for some missing dear one.

Thousands of persons hurriedly went through the building inspecting the cots on which the sufferers lay in the hope that they would locate some loved one that was missing.

[Pg 40]The dead were placed in one portion of the building and the remainder was devoted to hospital purposes. The fire forced the nurses and physicians to desert the building; the eager crowds followed them to the Presidio and the Children’s hospital, where they renewed their search for missing relatives.

The experience of the first day of the fire was a great testimonial to the modern steel building. A score of those structures were in course of erection and not one of them suffered. The completed modern buildings were also immune from harm by earthquake. The buildings that collapsed were all flimsy, wooden and old-fashioned brick structures.

On the evening of Wednesday, April 18, the first day of the fire, an area of thickly covered ground of eight square miles had been burned over and it was apparent that the entire city was doomed to destruction.

Nearly every famous landmark that had made San Francisco famous over the world had been laid in ruins or burned to the ground in the dire catastrophe. Never was the fate of a city more disastrous.

For three miles along the water front buildings had been swept clean and the blackened beams and great skeletons of factories and offices stood silhouetted against a background of flame that was slowly spreading over the entire city.

The whole commercial and office section of the city on the north side of Market street from the ferry building to Tenth street had been consumed in the hell of flame, while hardly a building was standing in the district south of Market street. At 2 o’clock in the afternoon, despite the heroic work of the firemen and the troops of dynamiters, who razed building after building and blew up property valued at millions, the flames spread across Market street to the north side and swept up Montgomery street, practically to Washington street. Along Montgomery street were some of the richest banks and commercial houses in San Francisco.

[Pg 41]

STREET TORN UP BY EARTHQUAKE.

A photograph of street in front of new Postoffice. Note how the car tracks are thrown up and twisted.

[Pg 42]

STOCKTON STREET FROM UNION SQUARE.

GRANT AVENUE FROM MARKET STREET.

[Pg 43]

MISSION STREET, SAN FRANCISCO.

Photographed from Fourth Street.

O’FARRELL STREET.

A new steel building which was being erected shown at the right.

[Pg 44]

LOOKING NORTH FROM SIXTH AND MARKET STREETS.

THE ORPHEUM THEATER ON O’FARRELL STREET.

[Pg 45]The famous Mills building and the new Merchants Exchange were still standing, but the Mutual Life Insurance building and scores of bank and office buildings were on fire, while blocks of other houses were in the path of the flames and nothing seemed to be at hand to stay their progress.

Nearly every big factory building had been wiped out of existence and a complete enumeration of them would look like a copy of the city directory.

Many of the finest buildings in the city had been leveled to dust by the terrific charges of dynamite in hopeless effort to stay the horror of fire. In this work many heroic soldiers, policemen and firemen were maimed or killed outright.

At 10 o’clock at night the fire was unabated and thousands of people were fleeing to the hills and clamoring for places on the ferry boats at the ferry landing.

From the Cliff House came word that the great pleasure resort and show place of the city, which stood upon a foundation of solid rock, had been swept into the sea. This report proved to be unfounded, but it was not until three days later that any one got close enough to the Cliff House to discover that it was still safe.

One of the big losses of the day was the destruction of St. Ignatius’ church and college at Van Ness avenue and Hayes street. This was the greatest Jesuitical institution in the west and built at a cost of $2,000,000.

By 7 o’clock at night the fire had swept from the south side of the town across Market street into the district called the Western addition and was burning houses at Golden Gate avenue and Octavia. This result was reached after almost the entire southern district from Ninth street to the eastern water front had been converted into a blackened waste. In this section were hundreds of factories, wholesale houses and many business firms, in addition to thousands of homes.

[Pg 46]

CHAPTER II.

SAN FRANCISCO A ROARING FURNACE.

Flames Spread in a Hundred Directions and the Fire Becomes the Greatest Conflagration of Modern Times—Entire Business Section and Fairest Part of Residence District Wiped Off the Map—Palaces of Millionaires Vanish in Flames or are Blown Up by Dynamite—The Worst Day of the Catastrophe.

MARIUS sitting among the ruins of Carthage saw not such a sight as presented itself to the afflicted people of San Francisco in the dim haze of the smoke pall at the end of the second day. Ruins stark naked, yawning at fearful angles and pinnacled into a thousand fearsome shapes, marked the site of what was three-fourths of the total area of the city.

Only the outer fringe of the city was left, and the flames which swept unimpeded in a hundred directions were swiftly obliterating what remained.

Nothing worthy of the name of building in the business district and not more than half of the residence district had escaped. Of its population of 400,000 nearly 300,000 were homeless.

Gutted throughout its entire magnificent financial quarters by the swift work of thirty hours and with a black ruin covering more than seven square miles out into her very heart, the city waited in a stupor the inevitable struggle with privation and hardship.

All the hospitals except the free city hospital had been destroyed, and the authorities were dragging the injured, sick and dying from place to place for safety.

All day the fire, sweeping in a dozen directions, irresistibly completed the desolation of the city. Nob Hill district, in which [Pg 47]were situated the home of Mrs. Stanford, the priceless Hopkins Art Institute, the Fairmount hotel, a marble palace that cost millions of dollars and homes of a hundred millionaires, was destroyed.

It was not without a struggle that Mayor Schmitz and his aides let this, the fairest section of the city, suffer obliteration. Before noon when the flames were marching swiftly on Nob Hill, but were still far off, dynamite was dragged up the steep debris laden streets. For a distance of a mile every residence on the east side of Van Ness avenue was swept away in a vain hope to stay the progress of the fire.

After sucking dry even the sewers the fire engines were either abandoned or moved to the outlying districts.

There was no help. Water was gone, powder was gone, hope even was a fiction. The fair city by the Golden Gate was doomed to be blotted from the sight of man.

The stricken people who wandered through the streets in pathetic helplessness and sat upon their scattered belongings in cooling ruins reached the stage of dumb, uncaring despair, the city dissolving before their eyes had no significance longer.

There was no business quarter; it was gone. There was no longer a hotel district, a theater route, a place where Night beckoned to Pleasure. Everything was gone.

But a portion of the residence domain of the city remained, and the jaws of the disaster were closing down on that with relentless determination.

All of the city south of Market street, even down to Islais creek and out as far as Valencia street, was a smouldering ruin. Into the western addition and the Pacific avenue heights three broad fingers of fire were feeling their way with a speed that foretold the destruction of all the palace sites of the city before the night would be over.

There was no longer a downtown district. A blot of black spread from East street to Octavia, bounded on the south and [Pg 48]north by Broadway and Washington streets and Islais creek respectively. Not a bank stood. There were no longer any exchanges, insurance offices, brokerages, real estate offices, all that once represented the financial heart of the city and its industrial strength.

Up Market street from the Ferry building to Valfira street nothing but the black fingers of jagged ruins pointed to the smoke blanket that pressed low overhead. What was once California, Sansome, and Montgomery streets was a labyrinth of grim blackened walls.

Chinatown was no more. Union square was a barren waste.

The Call building stood proudly erect, lifting its whited head above the ruin like some leprous thing and with all its windows, dead, staring eyes that looked upon nothing but a wilderness. The proud Flood building was a hollow shell.

The St. Francis Hotel, one time a place of luxury, was naught but a box of stone and steel.

Yet the flames leaped on exultantly. They leapt chasms like a waterfall taking a precipice. Now they are here, now there, always pressing on into the west and through to the end of the city.

It was supposed that the fire had eaten itself out in the wholesale district below Sansome street, and that the main body of the flames was confined to the district south of Market street, where the oil works, the furniture factories, and the vast lumber yards had given fodder into the mouth of the fire fiend.

Yet, suddenly, as if by perverse devilishness, a fierce wind from the west swept over the crest of Nob Hill and was answered by leaping tongues of flames from out of the heart of the ruins.

By 8:30 o’clock Montgomery street had been spanned and the great Merchants’ Exchange building on California street flamed out like the beacon torch of a falling star. From the dark fringe of humanity, watching on the crest of the California street hill, there sprang the noise of a sudden catching of the breath—not a [Pg 49]sigh, not a groan—just a sharp gasp, betraying a stress of despair near to the insanity point.

Nine o’clock and the great Crocker building shot sparks and added tongues of fire to the high heavens. Immediately the fire jumped to Kearney street, licking at the fat provender that shaped itself for consuming.

Then began the mournful procession of Japanese and poor whites occupying the rookeries about Dupont street and along Pine. Tugging at heavy ropes, they rasped trunks up the steep pavements of California and Pine streets to places of temporary safety.

It was a motley crew. Women laden with bundles and dragging reluctant children by the hands panted up the steep slope with terror stamped on their faces.

Men with household furniture heaped camelwise on their shoulders trudged stoically over the rough cobbles, with the flame of the fire bronzing their faces into the outlines of a gargoyle. One patriotic son of Nippon labored painfully up Dupont street with the crayon portrait of the emperor of Japan on his back.

While this zone of fire was swiftly gnawing its way through Kearney street and up the hill, another and even more terrible segment of the conflagration was being stubbornly fought at the corner of Golden Gate avenue and Polk street. There exhausted firemen directed the feeble streams from two hoses upon a solid block of streaming flame.

The engines pumped the supply from the sewers. Notwithstanding this desperate stand, the flames progressed until they had reached Octavia street.

Like a sickle set to a field of grain the fiery crescent spread around the southerly end of the west addition up to Oak and Fell streets, along Octavia. There one puny engine puffed a single stream of water upon the burning mass, but its efforts were like the stabbing of a pigmy at a giant.

[Pg 50]All the district bounded by Octavia, Golden Gate avenue, and Market street was a blackened ruin. One picked his way through the fallen walls on Van Ness avenue as he would cross an Arizona mesa. It was an absolute ruin, gaunt and flame lighted.

From the midst rose the great square wall of St. Ignatius college, standing like another ruined Acropolis in dead Athens.

Behind the gaunt specter of what had once been the city hall a blizzard of flame swept back into the gore between Turk and Market streets. Peeled of its heavy stone facing like a young leek that is stripped of its wrappings, the dome of the city hall rose spectral against the nebulous background of sparks.

From its summit looked down the goddess of justice, who had kept her pedestal even while the ones of masonry below her feet had been toppled to the earth in huge blocks the size of a freight car.

Through the gaunt iron ribs and the dome the red glare suffusing the whole northern sky glinted like the color of blood in a hand held to the sun.

At midnight the Hibernian bank was doomed, for from the frame buildings west of it there was being swept a veritable maelstrom of sheet flame that leaped toward it in giant strides. Not a fireman was in sight.

Across the street amid the smoke stood the new postoffice, one of the few buildings saved. Turk street was the northern boundary of this V shaped zone of the flames, but at 2 o’clock this street also was crossed and the triumphant march onward continued.

At midnight another fire, which had started in front of Fisher’s Music Hall, on O’Farrell street, had gouged its terrible way through to Market street, carrying away what the morning’s blaze across the street had left miraculously undestroyed.

Into Eddy and Turk streets the flames plunged, and soon the magnificent Flood building was doomed.

The firemen made an ineffectual attempt to check the ravages [Pg 51]of the advancing phalanx of flames, but their efforts were absolutely without avail. First from across the street shot tongues of flames which cracked the glass in one of the Flood building’s upper story windows. Then a shower of sparks was sent driving at a lace curtain which fluttered out in the draft. The flimsy whipping rag caught, a tongue of flame crept up its length and into the window casement.

“My God, let me get out of this,” said a man below who had watched the massive shape of the huge pile arise defiant before the flames. “I can’t stand to see that go, too.”

Shortly after midnight the streets about Union Square were barred by the red stripes of the fire. First Cordes Furniture Company’s store went, then Brennor’s. Next a tongue of flames crept stealthily into the rear of the City of Paris store, on the corner of Geary and Stockton streets.

Eager spectators watched for the first red streamers to appear from the windows of the great dry goods stores. Smoke eddied from under window sills and through cracks made by the earthquake in the cornices. Then the cloud grew denser. A puff of hot wind came from the west, and as if from the signal there streamed flamboyantly from every window in the top floor of the structure billowing banners, as a poppy colored silk that jumped skyward in curling, snapping breadths, a fearful heraldry of the pomp of destruction.

From the copper minarets on the Hebrew synagogue behind Union square tiny green, coppery flames next began to shoot forth. They grew quickly larger, and as the heat increased in intensity there shone from the two great bulbs of metal sheathing an iridescence that blinded like a sight into a blast furnace.

With a roar the minarets exploded almost simultaneously, and the sparks shot up to mingle with the dulled stars overhead. The Union League and Pacific Union clubs next shone red with the fire that was glutting them.

On three sides ringed with sheets of flame rose the Dewey [Pg 52]memorial in the midst of Union square. Victory tiptoeing on the apex of the column glowed red with the flames. It was as if the goddess of battle had suddenly become apostate and a fiend linked in sympathy with the devils of the blaze.

On the first day of the catastrophe the St. Francis escaped. On the second it fell. In the space of two hours the flames had blotted it out, and by night only the charred skeleton remained.

As a prelude to the destruction of the St. Francis the fire swept the homes of the Bohemian, Pacific, Union, and Family clubs, the best in San Francisco.

With them were obliterated the huge retail stores along Post street; St. Luke’s Church, the biggest Episcopal church on the Pacific coast, and the priceless Hopkins Art Institute.

From Union square to Chinatown it is only a pistol shot. By noon all Chinatown was a blazing furnace, the rickety wooden hives, where the largest Chinese colony in this country lived, was perfect fuel for the fire.

Then Nob Hill, the charmed circle of the city, the residential district of its millionaires and of those whose names have made it famous, went with the rest of the city into oblivion. The Fairmount Hotel, marble palace built by Mrs. Oelrichs, crowned this district.

Grouped around it were the residences of Mrs. Stanford, and a score of millionaires’ homes on Van Ness avenue. One by one they were buried in the onrushing flames, and when the fire was passed they were gone.

Here the most desperate effort of the fight to save the city was made. Nothing was spared. There was no discrimination, no sentiment. Rich men aided willingly in the destruction of their own homes that some of the city might be saved.

[Pg 53]

Copyright 1906, by American-Journal-Examiner. All rights reserved. Any infractions
of this copyright will be prosecuted to the full extent of the law.

VIEW FROM VALLEY STREET.

This is a view from Valley Street looking down Kearney toward Market.

[Pg 54]

Copyright 1906, by American-Journal-Examiner. All rights reserved. Any infractions
of this copyright will be prosecuted to the full extent of the law.

DESTROYED WHOLESALE HOUSES.

This photograph shows the wreck and ruin wrought by the earthquake and fire in the wholesale district.

But the sacrifice and the labor went for nothing. No human power could stay the flames. As darkness was falling the fire was eating its way through the heart of this residential district. [Pg 55]The mayor was forced to announce that the last hope had been dashed.

All the district bounded by Union, Van Ness, Golden Gate, to Octavia, Hayes, and Fillmore to Market was doomed. The fire fighters, troops, citizens, and city officials left the scene, powerless to do more.

On the morning of the second day when the fire reached the municipal building on Portsmouth square, the nurses, helped by soldiers, got out fifty bodies in the temporary morgue and a number of patients in the receiving hospital. Just after they reached the street a building was blown up and the flying bricks and splinters hurt a number of the soldiers, who had to be taken to the out of doors Presidio Hospital with the patients.

Mechanics’ pavilion, which, after housing prize fights, conventions, and great balls, found its last use as an emergency hospital. When it was seen that it could not last every vehicle in sight was impressed by the troops, and the wounded, some of them frightfully mangled, were taken to the Presidio, where they were out of danger and found comfort in tents.

The physicians worked without sleep and almost without food. There was food, however, for the injured; the soldiers saw to that. Even the soldiers flagged, and kept guard in relays, while the relieved men slept on the ground where they dropped.

The troops shut down with iron hands on the city, for where one man was homeless the first night five were homeless the second night. With the fire running all along the water front, few managed to make their way over to Oakland. The people for the most part were prisoners on the peninsula.

The soldiers enforced the rule against moving about except to escape the flames, and absolutely no one could enter the city who once had left.

The seat of city government and of military authority shifted with every shift of the flames. Mayor Schmitz and General Funston stuck close together and kept in touch with the firemen [Pg 56]and police, the volunteer aids, and the committee of safety through couriers.

There were loud reverberations along the fire line at night. Supplies of gun cotton and cordite from the Presidio were commandeered and the troops and the few remaining firemen made another futile effort to check the fiery advance.

Along the wharves the fire tugs saved most of the docks. But the Pacific mail dock had been reached and was out of control; and finally China basin, which was filled in for a freight yard at the expense of millions of dollars, had sunk into the bay and the water was over the tracks. This was one of the greatest single losses in the whole disaster.

Without sleep and without food, crowds watched all night Wednesday and all day Thursday from the hills, looking off toward that veil of fire and smoke that hid the city which had become a hell.

Back of that sheet of fire, and retreating backward every hour, were most of the people of the city, forced toward the Pacific by the advance of the flames. The open space of the Presidio and Golden Gate park was their only haven and so the night of the second day found them.

[Pg 57]

CHAPTER III.

THIRD DAY ADDS TO HORROR.

Fire Spreads North and South Attended by Many Spectacular Features—Heroic Work of Soldiers Under General Funston—Explosions of Gas Add to General Terror.

THE third day of the fire was attended by many spectacular features, many scenes of disaster and many acts of daring heroism.

When night came the fire was raging over fifty acres of the water front lying between Bay street and the end of Meiggs and Fisherman’s wharf. To the eastward it extended down to the sea wall, but had not reached the piers, which lay a quarter of a mile toward the east.

The cannery and warehouses of the Central California Canneries Company, together with 20,000 cases of canned fruit, was totally destroyed, as also was the Simpson and other lumber companies’ yards.

The flames reached the tanks of the San Francisco Gas Company, which had previously been pumped out, and had burned the ends of the grain sheds, five in number, which extended further out toward the point.

Flame and smoke hid from view the vessels that lay off shore vainly attempting to check the fire. No water was available except from the waterside and it was not until almost dark that the department was able to turn its attention to this point.

At dusk the fire had been checked at Van Ness avenue and Filbert street. The buildings on a high slope between Van Ness and Polk, Union and Filbert streets were blazing fiercely, fanned by a high wind, but the blocks were so sparsely settled [Pg 58]that the fire had but a slender chance of crossing Van Ness at that point.

Mayor Schmitz, who directed operations at that point, conferred with the military authorities and decided that it was not necessary to dynamite the buildings on the west side of Van Ness. As much of the fire department as could be collected was assembled to make a stand at that point.

To add to the horrors of the general situation and the general alarm of many people who ascribed the cause of the subterranean trouble to another convulsion of nature, explosions of sewer gas have ribboned and ribbed many streets. A Vesuvius in miniature was created by such an upheaval at Bryant and Eighth streets. Cobblestones were hurled twenty feet upward and dirt vomited out of the ground. This situation added to the calamity, as it was feared the sewer gas would breed disease.

Thousands were roaming the streets famishing for food and water and while supplies were coming in by the train loads the system of distribution was not in complete working order.

Many thousands had not tasted food or water for two and three days. They were on the verge of starvation.

The flames were checked north of Telegraph hill, the western boundary being along Franklin street and California street southeast to Market street. The firemen checked the advance of flames by dynamiting two large residences and then backfiring. Many times before had the firemen made such an effort, but always previously had they met defeat.

But success at that hour meant little for San Francisco.

The flames still burned fitfully about the city, but the spread of fire had been checked.

A three-story lodging house at Fifth and Minna streets collapsed and over seventy-five dead bodies were taken out. There were at least fifty other dead bodies exposed. This building [Pg 59]was one of the first to take fire on Fifth street. At least 100 people were lost in the Cosmopolitan on Fourth street.

The only building standing between Mission, Howard, East and Stewart streets was the San Pablo hotel. The shot tower at First and Howard streets was gone. This landmark was built forty years ago. The Risdon Iron works were partially destroyed. The Great Western Smelting and Refining works escaped damages, also the Mutual Electric Light works, with slight damage to the American Rubber Company, Vietagas Engine Company, Folger Brothers’ coffee and spice house was also uninjured and the firm gave away large quantities of bread and milk.

Over 150 people were lost in the Brunswick hotel, Seventh and Mission streets.

The soldiers who rendered such heroic aid took the cue from General Funston. He had not slept. He was the real ruler of San Francisco. All the military tents available were set up in the Presidio and the troops were turned out of the barracks to bivouac on the ground.

In the shelter tents they placed first the sick, second the more delicate of the women, and third, the nursing mothers, and in the afternoon he ordered all the dead buried at once in a temporary cemetery in the Presidio grounds. The recovered bodies were carted about the city ahead of the flames.

Many lay in the city morgue until the fire reached that; then it was Portsmouth square until it grew too hot; afterwards they were taken to the Presidio. There was another stream of bodies which had lain in Mechanics’ pavilion at first, and had then been laid out in Columbia square, in the heart of a district devastated first by the earthquake and then by fire.

The condition of the bodies was becoming a great danger. Yet the troops had no men to spare to dig graves, and the young and able bodied men were mainly fighting on the fire line or utterly exhausted.

[Pg 60]It was Funston who ordered that the old men and the weaklings should take this work in hand. They did it willingly enough, but had they refused the troops on guard would have forced them. It was ruled that every man physically capable of handling a spade or a pick should dig for an hour. When the first shallow graves were ready the men, under the direction of the troops, lowered the bodies several in a grave, and a strange burial began.

The women gathered about crying; many of them knelt while a Catholic priest read the burial service and pronounced absolution. All the afternoon this went on.

Representatives of the city authorities took the names of as many of the dead as could be identified and the descriptions of the others. Many, of course, will never be identified.

So confident were the authorities that they had the situation in control at the end of the third day that Mayor Schmitz issued the following proclamation:

“To the Citizens of San Francisco: The fire is now under control and all danger is passed. The only fear is that other fires may start should the people build fires in their stoves and I therefore warn all citizens not to build fires in their homes until the chimneys have been inspected and repaired properly. All citizens are urged to discountenance the building of fires. I congratulate the citizens of San Francisco upon the fortitude they have displayed and I urge upon them the necessity of aiding the authorities in the work of relieving the destitute and suffering. For the relief of those persons who are encamped in the various sections of the city everything possible is being done. In Golden Gate park, where there are approximately 200,000 homeless persons, relief stations have been established. The Spring Valley Water Company has informed me that the Mission district will be supplied with water this afternoon, between 10,000 and 12,000 gallons daily being available. Lake Merced will be taken by the federal troops and that supply protected.

“Eugene E. Schmitz, Mayor.”

[Pg 61]Although the third day of San Francisco’s desolation dawned with hope, it ended in despair.

In the early hours of the day the flames, which had raged for thirty-six hours, seemed to be checked.

Then late in the afternoon a fierce gale of wind from the northwest set in and by 7 o’clock the conflagration, with its energy restored, was sweeping over fifty acres of the water front.

The darkness and the wind, which at times amounted to a gale, added fresh terrors to the situation. The authorities considered conditions so grave that it was decided to swear in immediately 1,000 special policemen armed with rifles furnished by the federal government.

In addition to this force, companies of the national guard arrived from many interior points.

In the forenoon, when it was believed the fire had been checked, the full extent of the destitution and suffering of the people was seen for the first time in near perspective. While the whole city was burning there was no thought of food or shelter, death, injury, privation, or loss. The dead were left unburied and the living were left to find food and a place to sleep where they could.

On the morning of the third day, however, the indescribable destitution and suffering were borne in upon the authorities with crushing force. Dawn found a line of men, women, and children, numbering thousands, awaiting morsels of food at the street bakeries. The police and military were present in force, and each person was allowed only one loaf.

A big bakery was started early in the morning in the outskirts of the city, with the announcement that it would turn out 50,000 loaves of bread before night. The news spread and thousands of hungry persons crowded before its doors before the first deliveries were hot from the oven. Here again police and soldiers kept order and permitted each person to take only one loaf. The loaves were given out without cost.

These precautions were necessary, for earlier in the day bread [Pg 62]had sold as high as $1 a loaf and two loaves and a can of sardines brought in one instance $3.50.

Mayor Schmitz took prompt and drastic steps to stop this extortion. By his order all grocery and provision stores in the outlying districts which had escaped the flames were entered by the police and their goods confiscated.

Next to the need for food there was a cry for water, which until Friday morning the authorities could not answer.

In spite of all efforts to relieve distress there was indescribable suffering.

Women and children who had comfortable, happy homes a few days before slept that night—if sleep came at all—on hay on the wharves, on the sand lots near North beach, some of them under the little tents made of sheeting, which poorly protected them from the chilling ocean winds. The people in the parks were better provided in the matter of shelter, for they left their homes better prepared.

Thousands of members of families were separated, ignorant of one another’s whereabouts and without means of ascertaining. The police on Friday opened up a bureau of registration to bring relatives together.

[Pg 63]

CRACKS CAUSED BY EARTHQUAKE.

Front new Postoffice.

EMPORIUM BUILDING.

Largest department store west of Chicago.

[Pg 64]

BIRD’S-EYE VIEW OF SAN FRANCISCO.

A general view of city looking west toward the Pacific Ocean, also showing locations such as Nob Hill, business district, Market Street, Golden Gate and the famous Cliff House.

[Pg 65]

Copyright 1906, by American-Journal-Examiner. All rights reserved. Any infractions
of this copyright will be prosecuted to the full extent of the law.

HALL OF JUSTICE.

As photographs are true to life, they also convey to the eye correct views of this vast destruction.

[Pg 66]

LOOKING DOWN MARKET STREET.

Call Building in the distance.

VIEW FROM CALIFORNIA STREET.

The Call Building also shown in background.

The work of burying the dead was begun Friday for the first time. Out at the Presidio soldiers pressed into service all men who came near and forced them to labor at burying the dead. So thick were the corpses piled up that they were becoming a menace, and early in the day the order was issued to bury them at any cost. The soldiers were needed for other work, so, at the point of rifles, the citizens were compelled to take the work of burying. Some objected at first, but the troops stood no trifling, and every man who came in reach was forced to work at least one hour. Rich men who had never done such work labored by the side of the workingmen digging trenches in the sand for the sepulcher of those who fell in the awful calamity. At the present [Pg 67]writing many still remain unburied and the soldiers are still pressing men into service.

The Folsom street dock was turned into a temporary hospital, the harbor hospital being unable to accommodate all the injured who were brought there.

About 100 patients were stretched on the dock at one time. In the evening tugs conveyed them to Goat Island, where they were lodged in the hospital. The docks from Howard street to Folsom street had been saved, and the fire at this point was not permitted to creep farther east than Main street.

The work of clearing up the wrecked city has already begun at the water front in the business section of the town. A force of 100 men were employed under the direction of the street department clearing up the debris and putting the streets in proper condition.

It was impossible to secure a vehicle except at extortionate prices. One merchant engaged a teamster and horse and wagon, agreeing to pay $50 an hour. Charges of $20 for carrying trunks a few blocks were common. The police and military seized teams wherever they required them, their wishes being enforced at revolver point if the owner proved indisposed to comply with the demands.

Up and down the broad avenues of the parks the troops patrolled, keeping order. This was difficult at times, for the second hysterical stage had succeeded the paralysis of the first day and people were doing strange things. A man, running half naked, tearing at his clothes, and crying, “The end of all things has come!” was caught by the soldiers and placed under arrest.

Under a tree on the broad lawn of the children’s playground a baby was born. By good luck there was a doctor there, and the women helped out, so that the mother appeared to be safe. They carried her later to the children’s building in the park and did their best to make her comfortable.

All night wagons mounted with barrels and guarded by [Pg 68]soldiers drove through the park doling out water. There was always a crush about these wagons and but one drink was allowed to a person.

Separate supplies were sent to the sick in the tents. The troops allowed no camp fires, fearing that the trees of the park might catch and drive the people out of this refuge to the open and windswept sands by the ocean.

The wind which had saved the heights came cold across the park, driving a damp fog, and for those who had no blankets it was a terrible night, for many of them were exhausted and must sleep, even in the cold. They threw themselves down in the wet grass and fell asleep.

When the morning came the people even prepared to make the camp permanent. An ingenious man hung up before his little blanket shelter a sign on a stick giving his name and address before the fire wiped him out. This became a fashion, and it was taken to mean that the space was preempted.

Toward midnight a black, staggering body of men began to weave through the entrance. They were volunteer fire fighters, looking for a place to throw themselves down and sleep. These men dropped out all along the line and were rolled out of the driveways by the troops.

There was much splendid unselfishness there. Women gave up their blankets and sat up or walked about all night to cover exhausted men who had fought fire until there was no more fight in them.

[Pg 69]

CHAPTER IV.

TWENTY SQUARE MILES OF WRECK AND RUIN.

Fierce Battle to Save the Famous Ferry Station, the Chief Inlet to and Egress from San Francisco—Fire Tugs and Vessels in the Bay Aid in Heroic Fight—Fort Mason, General Funston’s Temporary Headquarters, has Narrow Escape—A Survey of the Scene of Desolation.

WHEN darkness fell over the desolate city at the end of the fourth day of terror, the heroic men who had borne the burden of the fight with the flames breathed their first sigh of relief, for what remained of the proud metropolis of the Pacific coast was safe.

This was but a semi-circular fringe, however, for San Francisco was a city desolate with twenty square miles of its best area in ashes. In that blackened territory lay the ruins of sixty thousand buildings, once worth many millions of dollars and containing many millions more.

The fourth and last day of the world’s greatest conflagration had been one of dire calamity and in some respects was the most spectacular of all. On the evening of the third day (Friday) a gale swept over the city from the west, fanned the glowing embers into fierce flames and again started them upon a path of terrible destruction.

The fire which had practically burnt itself out north of Telegraph Hill was revived by the wind and bursting into a blaze crept toward the East, threatening the destruction of the entire water front, including the Union ferry depot, the only means of egress from the devastated city.

[Pg 70]The weary firemen still at work in other quarters of the city were hastily summoned to combat the new danger. Hundreds of sailors from United States warships and hundreds of soldiers joined in the battle, and from midnight until dawn men fought fire as never fire had been fought before. Fire tugs drew up along the water front and threw immense streams of water on to the flames of burning factories, warehouses and sheds.

Blocks of buildings were blown up with powder, guncotton, and dynamite, or torn down by men armed with axes and ropes. All night long the struggle continued. Mayor Schmitz and Chief of Police Dinan, although without sleep for forty-eight hours, remained on the scene all night to assist army and navy officers in directing the fight.

At 7 o’clock Saturday morning, April 21, the battle was won. At that hour the fire was burning grain sheds on the water front about half a mile north of the Ferry station, but was confined to a comparatively small area, and with the work of the fireboats on the bay and the firemen on shore, who were using salt water pumped from the bay, prevented the flames from reaching the Ferry building and the docks in that immediate vicinity.

On the north beach the fire did not reach that part of the water front lying west of the foot of Powell street. The fire on the water front was the only one burning. The entire western addition to the city lying west of Van Ness avenue, which escaped the sweep of flame on Friday, was absolutely safe.

Forty carloads of supplies, which had been run upon the belt line tracks near one of the burned wharves, were destroyed during the night.

A survey of the water front Saturday morning showed that everything except four docks had been swept clean from Fisherman’s wharf, at the foot of Powell street, to a point around westerly, almost to the Ferry building.

This means that nearly a mile of grain sheds, docks and wharves were added to the general destruction. In the section [Pg 71]north of Market street the ruined district was practically bounded on the west by Van Ness avenue, although in many blocks the flames destroyed squares to the west of that thoroughfare. The Van Ness avenue burned line runs northerly to Greenwich street, which is a few blocks from the bay. Then the boundary was up over Telegraph Hill and down to that portion of the shore that faces Oakland. Practically everything included between Market, Van Ness avenue, Greenwich, and the bay was in ashes.

On the east side of Hyde street hill the fire burned down to Bay street and Montgomery avenue and stopped at that intersection.

Fort Mason was saved only by the most strenuous efforts of soldiers and firemen. It stands just north of the edge of the burned district, the flames having been checked only three blocks away at Greenwich street.

All south of Market street except in the vicinity of the Pacific Mail dock, was gone. This section is bounded on the north by Market street and runs out to Guerrero street, goes out that street two blocks, turns west to Dolores, runs west six blocks to about Twenty-second, taking in four blocks on the other side of Dolores. The fire then took an irregular course southward, spreading out as far as Twenty-fifth street and went down that way to the southerly bay shore.

Maj. C. A. Devol, depot quartermaster and superintendent of the transport service, graphically described the conquering of the fire on the water front, in which he played an important part:

“This fire, which ate its way down to the water front early Friday afternoon, was the climax of the whole situation.

“We realized at once that were the water front to go, San Francisco would be shut off from the world, thus paralyzing all transportation faculties for bringing in food and water to the thousands of refugees huddled on the hillsides from Fort Mason to Golden Gate Park. It would have been impossible to either [Pg 72]come in or go out of the city save by row boats and floats, or by the blocked passage overland southward.

“This all-important section of the city first broke into flames in a hollow near Meiggs wharf, about 2 o’clock in the afternoon. The tugs of our service were all busy transporting provisions from Oakland, but the gravity of the situation made it necessary for all of them to turn to fire-fighting.

“The flames ate down into the extensive lumber district, but had not caught the dock line. Behind the dock, adjacent to the Spreckels sugar warehouse and wharf, were hundreds of freight cars. Had these been allowed to catch fire, the flames would have swept down the entire water front to South San Francisco.

“The climax came at Pier No. 9, and it was here that all energies were focused. A large tug from Mare Island, two fire patrol boats, the Spreckels tugs and ten or twelve more, had lines of hose laid into the heart of the roaring furnace and were pumping from the bay to the limit of their capacities.

“About 5 o’clock I was told that the tugs were just about holding their own and that more help would be needed. The Slocum and the McDowell were at once ordered to the spot. I was on board the former and at one time the heat of the fire was so great that it was necessary to play minor streams on the cabin and sides of the vessel to keep it from taking fire. We were in a slip surrounded by flames.

“Our lines of hose once laid to the dockage, we found willing hands of volunteers waiting to carry the hose forward. I saw pale, hungry men, who probably had not slept for two days, hang on to the nozzle and play the stream until they fell from exhaustion. Others took their places and only with a very few exceptions was it necessary to use force to command the assistance of citizens or onlookers.

“All night the flames raged through the lumber district, and the fire reached its worst about 3:30 o’clock Saturday morning. Daylight found it under control.”

[Pg 73]All that was left of the proud Argonaut city was like a Crescent moon set about a black disk of shadow. A Saharan desolation of blackened, ash covered, twisted debris was all that remained of three-fifths of the city that four days ago stood like a sentinel in glittering, jeweled armor, guarding the Golden Gate to the Pacific.

Men who had numbered their fortunes in the tens of thousands camped on the ruins of their homes, eating as primitive men ate—gnawing; thinking as primitive men thought. Ashes and the dull pain of despair were their portions. They did not have the volition to help themselves, childlike as the men of the stone age, they awaited quiescent what the next hour might bring them.

Fear they had none, because they had known the shape of fear for forty-eight hours and to them it had no more terrors. Men overworked to the breaking point and women unnerved by hysteria dropped down on the cooling ashes and slept where they lay, for had they not seen the tall steel skyscrapers burn like a torch? Had they not beheld the cataracts of flame fleeting unhindered up the broad avenues, and over the solid blocks of the city?

Fire had become a commonplace. Fear of fire had been blunted by their terrible suffering, and although the soldiers roused the sleepers and warned them against possible approaching flames, they would only yawn, wrap their blanket about them and stolidly move on to find some other place where they might drop and again slumber like men dead.

As the work of clearing away the debris progressed it was found that an overwhelming portion of the fatalities occurred in the cheap rooming house section of the city, where the frail hotels were crowded at the time of the catastrophe.

In one of these hotels alone, the five-story Brunswick rooming-house at Sixth and Howard streets, it is believed that 300 people perished. The building had 300 rooms filled with guests. It [Pg 74]collapsed to the ground entirely and fire started amidst the ruins scarcely five minutes later.

South of Market street, where the loss of life was greatest, was located many cheap and crowded lodging houses. Among others the caving in of the Royal, corner Fourth and Minna streets, added to the horror of the situation by the shrieks of its many scores of victims imbedded in the ruins.

The collapsing of the Porter House on Sixth street, between Mission and Market, came about in a similar manner. Fully sixty persons were entombed midst the crash. Many of these were saved before the fire eventually crept to the scene.

Part of the large Cosmopolitan House, corner Fifth and Mission streets, collapsed at the very first tremble. Many of the sleepers were buried in the ruins; other escaped in their night clothes.

At 775 Mission street the Wilson House, with its four stories and eighty rooms, fell to the ground a mass of ruins. As far as known very few of the inmates were rescued.

The Denver House on lower Third street, with its many rooms, shared the same fate and none may ever know how many were killed, the majority of the inmates being strangers.

A small two-story frame building occupied by a man and wife at 405 Jessie street collapsed without an instant’s warning. Both were killed.

To the north of Market street the rooming-house people fared somewhat better. The Luxemburg, corner of Stockton and O’Farrell streets, a three-story affair, suffered severely from the falling of many tons of brick from an adjoining building. The falling mass crashed through the building, killing a man and woman.

At the Sutter street Turkish baths a brick chimney toppled over and crashing through the roof killed one of the occupants as he lay on a cot. Another close by, lying on another cot, escaped.

[Pg 75]

VIEW OF MARKET STREET, THE CENTRAL POINT OF THE DISASTER.

The tall building on the right is the Claus Spreckels building, in which the plant of the San Francisco Call is located; the next building beyond is the Examiner building and the last large building on the right is the Palace Hotel. The tall building on the left is a new sky scraper, erected on the old Baldwin Hotel site.

[Pg 76]

Copyright 1906, by American-Journal-Examiner. All rights reserved. Any infractions
of this copyright will be prosecuted to the full extent of the law.

LOOKING TOWARD THE FERRY FROM VALLEJO STREET.

[Pg 77]Two hundred bodies were found in the Potrero district, south of Shannon street in the vicinity of the Union Iron works, were cremated at the Six-Mile House, on Sunday by the order of Coroner Walsh. Some of the dead were the victims of falling buildings from the earthquake shock, some were killed in the fire.

So many dead were found in this limited area that cremation was deemed absolutely necessary to prevent disease. The names of some of the dead were learned, but in the majority of cases identification was impossible owing to the mutilation of the features.

A systematic search for bodies of the victims of the earthquake and fire was made by the coroner and the state board of health inspectors as soon as the ruins cooled sufficiently to permit a search.

The body of an infant was found in the center of Union street, near Dupont street.

Three bodies were found in the ruins of the house on Harrison street between First and Second streets. They had been burned beyond all possibility of identification. They were buried on the north beach at the foot of Van Ness avenue.

The body of a man was found in the middle of Silver street, between Third and Fourth streets. A bit of burned envelope was found in the pocket of the vest bearing the name “A. Houston.”

The total number of bodies recovered and buried up to Sunday night was 500. No complete record can ever be obtained as many bodies were buried without permits from the coroner and the board of health.

Whenever a body was found it was buried immediately without any formality whatever and, as these burials were made at widely separated parts of the city by different bodies of searchers, who did not even make a prompt report to headquarters, considerable confusion resulted in estimating the number of casualties and exaggerated reports resulted.

[Pg 78]

CHAPTER V.

THE CITY OF A HUNDRED HILLS.

A Description of San Francisco, the Metropolis of the Pacific Coast Before the Fire—One of the Most Beautiful and Picturesque Cities in America—Home of the California Bonanza Kings.

SAN FRANCISCO has had many soubriquets. It has been happily called the “City of a Hundred Hills,” and its title of the “Metropolis of the Golden Gate” is richly deserved. Its location is particularly attractive, inasmuch as the peninsula it occupies is swept by the Pacific Ocean on the west and the beautiful bay of San Francisco on the north and east. The peninsula itself is thirty miles long and the site of the city is six miles back from the ocean. It rests on the shore of San Francisco Bay, which, with its branches, covers over 600 square miles, and for beauty and convenience for commerce is worthy of its magnificent entrance—the Golden Gate.

San Francisco was originally a mission colony. It is reported that “the site of the mission of San Francisco was selected because of its political and commercial advantages. It was to be the nucleus of a seaport town that should serve to guard the dominion of Spain in its vicinity. Most of the other missions were founded in the midst of fertile valleys, inhabited by large numbers of Indians.” Both of these features were notably absent in San Francisco. Even the few Indians there in 1776 left upon the arrival of the friars and dragoons. Later on some of them returned and others were added, the number increasing from 215 in 1783, to 1,205 in 1813. This was the largest number ever reported. Soon after the number began to decrease through epidemics and emigration, until there was only 204 in 1832.

[Pg 79]The commercial life of San Francisco dates from 1835, when William A. Richardson, an Englishman, who had been living in Sausalito since 1822, moved to San Francisco. He erected a tent and began the collection of hides and tallow, by the use of two 30-ton schooners leased from the missions, and which plied between San Jose and San Francisco. At that time Mr. Richardson was also captain of the port.

Seventy-five years ago the white adult males, apart from the Mission colony, consisted of sixteen persons. The local census of 1852 showed a population of 36,000, and ten years later 90,000. The last general census of 1900 credits the city with a population of 343,000. The increase in the last six years has been much greater than for the previous five, and it is generally conceded that the population at the time of the fire was about 425,000.

California was declared American territory by Commodore Sleat, at Monterey, on the 7th of July, 1846, who on that day caused the American flag to be raised in that town. On the following day, under instructions from the commodore, Captain Montgomery, of the war sloop Portsmouth, performed a similar service in Yerba Buena, by which name the city afterwards christened San Francisco was then known. This ceremony took place on the plot of ground, afterward set apart as Portsmouth Square, on the west line of Kearney street, between Clay and Washington. At that time and for some years afterwards, the waters of the bay at high tide, came within a block of the spot where this service occurred. This was a great event in the history of the United States, and it has grown in importance and in appreciative remembrance from that day to the present, as the accumulative evidence abundantly shows.

Referring to the change in name from Yerba Buena to San Francisco, in 1847, a writer says: “A site so desirable for a city, formed by nature for a great destiny on one of the finest bays in the world, looking out upon the greatest, the richest, and the most pacific of oceans—in the very track of empire—in the [Pg 80]healthiest of latitudes—such a site could not fail to attract the attention of the expanding Saxon race. Commerce hastened it, the discovery of gold consummated it.”

Modern San Francisco had its birth following the gold discoveries which led to the construction of the Central Pacific railway, and produced a vast number of very wealthy men known by the general title of California Bonanza Kings. San Francisco became the home and headquarters of these multi-millionaires, and large sums of their immense fortunes were invested in palatial residences and business blocks.

The bonanza king residence section was Nob Hill, an eminence near the business part of the city.

In the early days of San Francisco’s growth and soon after the Central Pacific railroad had been built by Leland Stanford, Charles Crocker, Mark Hopkins, Collis P. Huntington and the others who devoted the best part of their lives to the project of crossing the mountains by rail this hill was selected as the most desirable spot in the city for the erection of homes for the use of wealthy pioneers.

The eminence is situated northwest of the business section of the city and commands a view of the bay and all adjacent territory with the exception of the Pacific Ocean, Russian Hill, Pacific Heights and several other high spots obscuring the view toward the west.

Far removed above the din and noise of the city Charles Crocker was the first to erect his residence on the top of this historic hill which afterward became known as Nob Hill. The Crocker home was built of brick and wood originally, but in later years granite staircases, pillars and copings were substituted. In its time it was looked upon as the most imposing edifice in the city and for that reason the business associates of the railroad magnate decided to vie with him in the building of their homes.

Directly across from the Crocker residence on California street Leland Stanford caused to be built a residence structure [Pg 81]that was intended to be the most ornate in the western metropolis. It was a veritable palace and it was within its walls that the boyhood days of Leland Stanford, Jr., after whom the university is named, were spent in luxurious surroundings. After the death of the younger Stanford a memorial room was set apart and the parents permitted no one to enter this except a trusted man servant who had been in the family for many years.

But the Stanford residence was relegated to the background as an object of architectural beauty when Mark Hopkins invaded the sacred precincts of Nob Hill and erected the residence which he occupied for three or four years. At his death the palatial building was deeded to the California Art Institute and as a tribute to the memory of the sturdy pioneer the building was called the Hopkins Institute of Art. Its spacious rooms were laden with the choicest works of art on the Pacific coast and the building and its contents were at all times a source of interest to the thousands of tourists who visited the city.

The late Collis P. Huntington was the next of the millionaires of San Francisco to locate upon the crest of Nob Hill. Within a block of the Crocker, Stanford and Hopkins palaces this railroad magnate of the west erected a mansion of granite and marble that caused all the others to be thrown in the shade. Its exterior was severe in its simplicity, but to those who were fortunate to gain entrance to the interior the sight was one never to be forgotten. The palaces of Europe could not excel it and for several years Huntington and his wife were its only occupants aside from the army of servants required to keep the house and grounds in order.

Not to be outdone by the railroad magnates of the city the next to acquire property on the crest of the hill was James Flood, the “bonanza king” and partner with William O’Brien, the names of both being closely interwoven with the early history of California and the Comstock lode. After having paid a visit to the east the millionaire mine owner became impressed with the brown [Pg 82]stone fronts of New York and outdone his neighbors by erecting the only brown stone structure in San Francisco.

It was in this historic hilltop also that James G. Fair laid the foundation of a residence that was intended to surpass anything in the sacred precincts, but before the foundations had been completed domestic troubles resulted in putting a stop to building operations and it is on this site that Mrs. Hermann Oelrichs, daughter of the late millionaire mine owner, erected the palatial Fairmont hotel, which was one of the most imposing edifices in San Francisco.

The old San Francisco is dead. The gayest, lightest hearted, most pleasure loving city of this continent, and in many ways the most interesting and romantic, is a horde of huddled refugees living among ruins. But those who have known that peculiar city by the Golden Gate and have caught its flavor of the Arabian Nights feel that it can never be the same. It is as though a pretty, frivolous woman had passed through a great tragedy. She survives, but she is sobered and different. When it rises out of the ashes it will be a modern city, much like other cities and without its old flavor.

The city lay on a series of hills and the lowlands between. These hills are really the end of the Coast Range of mountains which lie between the interior valleys and the ocean to the south. To its rear was the ocean; but the greater part of the town fronted on two sides on San Francisco Bay, a body of water always tinged with gold from the great washings of the mountains, usually overhung with a haze, and of magnificent color changes. Across the bay to the north lies Mount Tamalpais, about 5,000 feet high, and so close that ferries from the water front took one in less than half an hour to the little towns of Sausalito and Belvidere, at its foot.

It is a wooded mountain, with ample slopes, and from it on the north stretch away ridges of forest land, the outposts of the great Northern woods of Sequoia semperrirens. This mountain [Pg 83]and the mountainous country to the south brought the real forest closer to San Francisco than to any other American city.

Within the last few years men have killed deer on the slopes of Tamalpais and looked down to see the cable cars crawling up the hills of San Francisco to the north. In the suburbs coyotes still stole and robbed hen roosts by night. The people lived much out of doors. There was no time of the year, except a short part of the rainy season, when the weather kept one from the woods. The slopes of Tamalpais were crowded with little villas dotted through the woods, and those minor estates ran far up into the redwood country. The deep coves of Belvidere, sheltered by the wind from Tamalpais, held a colony of “arks” or houseboats, where people lived in the rather disagreeable summer months, going over to business every day by ferry. Everything invited out of doors.

The climate of California is peculiar; it is hard to give an impression of it. In the first place, all the forces of nature work on laws of their own in that part of California. There is no thunder or lightning; there is no snow, except a flurry once in five or six years; there are perhaps a dozen nights in the winter when the thermometer drops low enough so that there is a little film of ice on exposed water in the morning. Neither is there any hot weather. Yet most Easterners remaining in San Francisco for a few days remember that they were always chilly.

For the Gate is a big funnel, drawing in the winds and the mists which cool off the great, hot interior valleys of the San Joaquin and Sacramento. So the west wind blows steadily ten months of the year and almost all the mornings are foggy. This keeps the temperature steady at about 55 degrees—a little cool for comfort of an unacclimated person, especially indoors. Californians, used to it, hardly ever thought of making fires in their houses except in the few exceptional days of the winter season, and then they relied mainly upon fireplaces. This is like the custom of the Venetians and the Florentines.

[Pg 84]But give an Easterner six months of it and he too learns to exist without a chill in a steady temperature a little lower than that to which he is accustomed at home. After that one goes about with perfect indifference to the temperature. Summer and winter San Francisco women wore light tailor-made clothes, and men wore the same fall weight suits all the year around. There is no such thing as a change of clothing for the seasons. And after becoming acclimated these people found the changes from hot to cold in the normal regions of the earth hard to bear. Perhaps once in two or three years there comes a day when there is no fog, no wind and a high temperature in the coast district. Then there is hot weather, perhaps up in the eighties, and Californians grumble, swelter and rustle for summer clothes. These rare hot days were the only times when one saw on the streets of San Francisco women in light dresses.

Along in early May the rains cease. At that time everything is green and bright and the great golden poppies, as large as the saucer of an after dinner coffee cup, are blossoming everywhere. Tamalpais is green to its top; everything is washed and bright. By late May a yellow tinge is creeping over the hills. This is followed by a golden June and a brown July and August. The hills are burned and dry. The fog comes in heavily, too; and normally this is the most disagreeable season of the year. September brings a day or two of gentle rain; and then a change, as sweet and mysterious as the breaking of spring in the East, comes over the hills. The green grows through the brown and the flowers begin to come out.

As a matter of fact, the unpleasantness of summer is modified by the certainty that one can go anywhere without fear of rain. And in all the coast mountains, especially the seaward slopes, the dews and the shelter of the giant underbrush keep the water so that these areas are green and pleasant all summer.

[Pg 85]

MARK HOPKINS INSTITUTE, NOB HILL.

This Institute which crowned Nob Hill in San Francisco was originally the residence of Mark Hopkins of Central Pacific fame. Nob Hill was noted for Palatial Homes. They were destroyed by the fire.

[Pg 86]

UNITED STATES MINT AND SUB-TREASURY, SAN FRANCISCO, CAL.

This building, which had some $39,000,000 stored in it, remained intact.

[Pg 87]

NEW POSTOFFICE BUILDING.

This costly and handsome structure was destroyed by fire.

[Pg 88]

JEFFERSON SQUARE.

All of the buildings shown in the background were destroyed. Tents were erected in this square to shelter the homeless.

In a normal year the rains begin to fall heavily in November; there will be three or four days of steady downpour and then a [Pg 89]clear and green week. December is also likely to be rainy; and in this month people enjoy the sensation of gathering for Christmas the mistletoe which grows profusely on the live oaks, while the poppies are beginning to blossom at their feet. By the end of January the rains come lighter. In the long spaces between rains there is a temperature and a feeling in the air much like that of Indian summer in the East. January is the month when the roses are at their brightest.

So much for the strange climate, which invites out of doors and which has played its part in making the character of the people. The externals of the city are—or were, for they are no more—just as curious. One usually entered the city by way of San Francisco Bay. Across its yellow flood, covered with the fleets from the strange seas of the Pacific, San Francisco presented itself in a hill panorama. Probably no other city of the world could be so viewed and inspected at first sight. It rose above the passenger, as he reached dockage, in a succession of hill terraces.

At one side was Telegraph Hill, the end of the peninsula, a height so abrupt that it had a 200 foot sheer cliff on its seaward frontage. Further along lay Nob Hill, crowned with the Mark Hopkins mansion, which had the effect of a citadel, and in later years by the great, white Fairmount. Further along was Russian Hill, the highest point. Below was the business district, whose low site caused all the trouble.

Except for the modern buildings, the fruit of the last ten years, the town presented at first sight a disreputable appearance. Most of the buildings were low and of wood. In the middle period of the ’70s, when a great part of San Francisco was building, there was some atrocious architecture perpetrated. In that time, too, every one put bow windows on his house, to catch all of the morning sunlight that was coming through the fog, and those little houses, with bow windows and fancy work all down [Pg 90]their fronts, were characteristic of the middle class residence district.

Then the Italians, who tumbled over Telegraph Hill, had built as they listed and with little regard for streets, and their houses hung crazily on a side hill which was little less than a precipice. For the most part, the Chinese, although they occupied an abandoned business district, had remade the houses Chinese fashion, and the Mexicans and Spaniards had added to their houses those little balconies without which life is not life to a Spaniard.

Yet the most characteristic thing after all was the coloring. For the sea fog had a trick of painting every exposed object a sea gray which had a tinge of dull green in it. This, under the leaden sky of a San Francisco morning, had a depressing effect on first sight and afterward became a delight to the eye. For the color was soft, gentle and infinitely attractive in mass.

The hills are steep beyond conception. Where Vallejo street ran up Russian Hill it progressed for four blocks by regular steps like a flight of stairs. It is unnecessary to say that no teams ever came up this street or any other like it, and grass grew long among the paving stones until the Italians who live thereabouts took advantage of this to pasture a cow or two. At the end of the four blocks, the pavers had given it up and the last stage to the summit was a winding path. On the very top, a colony of artists lived in little villas of houses whose windows got the whole panorama of the bay. Luckily for these people, a cable car climbed the hill on the other side, so that it was not much of a climb to home.

With these hills, with the strangeness of the architecture and with the green gray tinge over everything, the city fell always into vistas and pictures, a setting for the romance which hung over everything, which always hung over life in San Francisco since the padres came and gathered the Indians about Mission Dolores.

[Pg 91]And it was a city of romance and a gateway to adventure. It opened out on the mysterious Pacific, the untamed ocean, and most of China, Japan, the South Sea Islands, Lower California, the west coast of Central America, Australia that came to this country passed in through the Golden Gate. There was a sprinkling, too, of Alaska and Siberia. From his windows on Russian Hill one saw always something strange and suggestive creeping through the mists of the bay. It would be a South Sea Island brig, bringing in copra, to take out cottons and idols; a Chinese junk with fanlike sails, back from an expedition after sharks’ livers; an old whaler, which seemed to drip oil, back from a year of cruising in the Arctic. Even the tramp windjammers were deep chested craft, capable of rounding the Horn or of circumnavigating the globe; and they came in streaked and picturesque from their long voyaging.

In the orange colored dawn which always comes through the mists of that bay, the fishing fleet would crawl in under triangular lateen sails, for the fishermen of San Francisco Bay were all Neapolitans who brought their customers and their customs and sail with lateen rigs shaped like the ear of a horse when the wind fills them and stained an orange brown.

Along the water front the people of these craft met. “The smelting pot of the races,” Stevenson called it; and this was always the city of his soul. There are black Gilbert Islanders, almost indistinguishable from Negroes; lighter Kanakas from Hawaii or Samoa; Lascars in turbans; thickset Russian sailors; wild Chinese with unbraided hair; Italian fishermen in tam o’ shanters, loud shirts and blue sashes; Greeks, Alaska Indians, little bay Spanish-Americans, together with men of all the European races. These came in and out from among the queer craft, to lose themselves in the disreputable, tumbledown, but always mysterious shanties and small saloons. In the back rooms of these saloons South Sea Island traders and captains, fresh from the lands of romance, whaling masters, people who were trying [Pg 92]to get up treasure expeditions, filibusters, Alaskan miners, used to meet and trade adventures.

There was another element, less picturesque and equally characteristic, along the water front. For San Francisco was the back eddy of European civilization—one end of the world. The drifters came there and stopped, lingered a while to live by their wits in a country where living after a fashion has always been marvellously cheap. These people haunted the water front or lay on the grass on Portsmouth Square.

That square, the old plaza about which the city was built, Spanish fashion, had seen many things. There in the first burst of the early days the vigilance committee used to hold its hangings. There in the time of the sand lot riots Dennis Kearney, who nearly pulled the town down about his ears, used to make his orations which set the unruly to rioting. In these later years Chinatown laid on one side of it and the Latin quarter and the “Barbary Coast” on the other.

On this square men used to lie all day long and tell strange yarns. Stevenson lay there with them in his time and learned the things which he wrote into “The Wrecker” and his South Sea stories, and in the center of the square there stood the beautiful Stevenson monument. In later years the authorities put up a municipal building on one side of this square and prevented the loungers, for decency’s sake, from lying on the grass. Since then some of the peculiar character of the old plaza had gone.

The Barbary Coast was a loud bit of hell. No one knows who coined the name. The place was simply three blocks of solid dance halls, there for the delight of the sailors of the world. On a fine busy night every door blared loud dance music from orchestra, steam pianos and gramophones and the cumulative effect of the sound which reached the street was at least strange. Almost anything might be happening behind the swinging doors. For a fine and picturesque bundle of names characteristic of the place, a police story of three or four years ago is typical. Hell [Pg 93]broke out in the Eye Wink Dance Hall. The trouble was started by a sailor known as Kanaka Pete, who lived in the What Cheer House, over a woman known as Iodoform Kate. Kanaka Pete chased the man he had marked to the Little Silver Dollar, where he turned and punctured him. The by-product of his gun made some holes in the front of the Eye Wink, which were proudly kept as souvenirs, and were probably there until it went out in the fire. This was low life, the lowest of the low.

Until the last decade almost anything except the commonplace and the expected might happen to a man on the water front. The cheerful industry of shanghaiing was reduced to a science. A stranger taking a drink in one of the saloons which hung out over the water might be dropped through the floor into a boat, or he might drink with a stranger and wake in the forecastle of a whaler bound for the Arctic. Such an incident is the basis of Frank Norris’s novel, “Moran of the Lady Letty,” and although the novel draws it pretty strong, it is not exaggerated. Ten years ago the police and the foreign consuls, working together, stopped this.

Kearney street, a wilder and stranger Bowery, was the main thoroughfare of these people. An exiled Californian, mourning over the city of his heart, said recently:

“In a half an hour of Kearney street I could raise a dozen men for any wild adventure, from pulling down a statue to searching for the Cocos Island treasure.”

This is hardly an exaggeration.

These are a few of the elements which made the city strange and gave it the glamour of romance which has so strongly attracted such men as Stevenson, Frank Norris and Kipling. This lay apart from the regular life of the city, which was distinctive in itself.

The Californian is the second generation of a picked and mixed stock. The merry, the adventurous, often the desperate, always the brave, deserted the South and New England in 1849 [Pg 94]to rush around the Horn or to try the perils of the plains. They found there already grown old in the hands of the Spaniards younger sons of hidalgos and many of them of the proudest blood of Spain. To a great extent the pioneers intermarried with Spanish women; in fact, except for a proud little colony here and there, the old Spanish blood is sunk in that of the conquering race. Then there was an influx of intellectual French people, largely overlooked in the histories of the early days; and this Latin leaven has had its influence.

Brought up in a bountiful country, where no one really has to work very hard to live, nurtured on adventure, scion of a free and merry stock, the real, native Californian is a distinctive type; so far from the Easterner in psychology as the extreme Southerner is from the Yankee. He is easy going, witty, hospitable, lovable, inclined to be unmoral rather than immoral in his personal habits, and above all easy to meet and to know.

Above all there is an art sense all through the populace which sets it off from any other part of the country. This sense is almost Latin in its strength, and the Californian owes it to the leaven of Latin blood. The true Californian lingers in the north; for southern California has been built up by “lungers” from the East and middle West and is Eastern in character and feeling.

With such a people life was always gay. If they did not show it on the streets, as do the people of Paris, it was because the winds made open cafes disagreeable at all seasons of the year. The gayety went on indoors or out on the hundreds of estates that fringed the city. It was noted for its restaurants. Perhaps the very best for people who care not how they spend their money could not be had there, but for a dollar, 75 cents, 50 cents, a quarter or even 15 cents the restaurants afforded the best fare on earth at the price.

If one should tell exactly what could be had at Coppa’s for 50 cents or at the Fashion for, say, 35, no New Yorker who has [Pg 95]not been there would believe it. The San Francisco French dinner and the San Francisco free lunch were as the Public Library to Boston or the stock yards to Chicago. A number of causes contributed to this consummation. The country all about produced everything that a cook needed and that in abundance—the bay was an almost untapped fishing pond, the fruit farms came up to the very edge of the town, and the surrounding country produced in abundance fine meats, all cereals and all vegetables.

But the chefs who came from France in the early days and liked this land of plenty were the head and front of it. They passed on their art to other Frenchmen or to the clever Chinese. Most of the French chefs at the biggest restaurants were born in Canton, China. Later the Italians, learning of this country where good food is appreciated, came and brought their own style. Householders always dined out one or two nights of the week, and boarding houses were scarce, for the unattached preferred the restaurants. The eating was usually better than the surroundings.

Meals that were marvels were served in tumbledown little hotels. Most famous of all the restaurants was the Poodle Dog. There have been no less than four restaurants of this name, beginning with a frame shanty where, in the early days, a prince of French cooks used to exchange ragouts for gold dust. Each succeeding restaurant of the name has moved further downtown; and the recent Poodle Dog stood on the edge of the Tenderloin in a modern five story building. And it typified a certain spirit that there was in San Francisco.

For on the ground floor was a public restaurant where there was served the best dollar dinner on earth. It ranked with the best and the others were in San Francisco. Here, especially on Sunday night, almost everybody went to vary the monotony of home cooking. Every one who was any one in the town could [Pg 96]be seen there off and on. It was perfectly respectable. A man might take his wife and daughter there.

On the second floor there were private dining rooms, and to dine there, with one or more of the opposite sex, was risque but not especially terrible. But the third floor—and the fourth floor—and the fifth. The elevator man of the Poodle Dog, who had held the job for many years and never spoke unless spoken to, wore diamonds and was a heavy investor in real estate. There were others as famous in their way—the Zinka, where, at one time, every one went after the theatre, and Tate’s the Palace Grill, much like the grills of Eastern hotels, except for the price; Delmonico’s, which ran the Poodle Dog neck and neck in its own line, and many others, humbler but great at the price.

The city never went to bed. There was no closing law, so that the saloons kept open nights and Sundays, at their own sweet will. Most of them elected to remain open until 3 o’clock in the morning at least. Yet this restaurant life did not exactly express the careless, pleasure loving character of the people. In great part their pleasures were simple, inexpensive and out of doors. No people were fonder of expeditions into the country, of picnics—which might be brought off at almost any season of the year—and often long tours in the great mountains and forests. And hospitality was nearly a vice.

[Pg 97]

CHRONICLE BUILDING.

(An old landmark.)

ST. FRANCIS HOTEL, SAN FRANCISCO, CAL.

(Destroyed by fire.)

[Pg 98]

FERRY HOUSE, WHERE INJURED ARE LEAVING CITY.

This is the station of the greatest ferry in the world, just outside the fire belt in San Francisco. Hundreds of refugees have been taken from it to Oakland and other points.

As in the early mining days, if they liked the stranger the people took him in. At the first meeting the local man probably had him put up at the club; at the second, he invited him home to dinner. As long as he stayed he was being invited to week end parties at ranches, to little dinners in this or that restaurant and to the houses of his new acquaintances, until his engagements grew beyond hope of fulfillment. There was rather too much of it. At the end of a fortnight a stranger with a pleasant smile and a good story left the place a wreck. This tendency ran through all grades of society—except, perhaps, the sporting [Pg 99]people who kept the tracks and the fighting game alive. These also met the stranger—and also took him in.

Centers of men of hospitality were the clubs, especially the famous Bohemian and the Family. The latter was an offshoot of the Bohemian, which had been growing fast and vieing with the older organization for the honor of entertaining pleasing and distinguished visitors.

The Bohemian Club, whose real founder is said to have been the late Henry George, was formed in the ’70s by a number of newspaper writers and men working in the arts or interested in them. It had grown to a membership of 750. It still kept for its nucleus painters, writers, musicians and actors, amateur and professional. They were a gay group of men, and hospitality was their avocation. Yet the thing which set this club off from all others in the world was the midsummer High Jinks.

The club owns a fine tract of redwood forest fifty miles north of San Francisco, on the Russian River. There are two varieties of big trees in California: the Sequoia gigantea and the Sequoia sempervirens. The great trees of the Mariposa grove belong to the gigantea species. The sempervirens, however, reaches the diameter of 16 feet, and some of the greatest trees of this species are in the Bohemian Club grove. It lies in a cleft of the mountains; and up one hillside there runs a natural out of door stage of remarkable acoustic properties.

In August the whole Bohemian Club, or such as could get away from business, went up to this grove and camp out for two weeks. And on the last night they put on the Jinks proper, a great spectacle with poetic words, music and effects done by the club, in praise of the forest. In late years this had been practically a masque or an opera. It cost about $10,000. It took the spare time of scores of men for weeks; yet these 700 business men, professional men, artists, newspaper workers, struggled for the honor of helping out on the Jinks; and the whole thing was done naturally and with reverence. It would hardly be [Pg 100]possible anywhere else in this country; the thing which made it possible is the art spirit which is in the Californian. It runs in the blood.

Some one has been collecting statistics which prove this point. “Who’s Who in America” is long on the arts and on learning and comparatively weak in business and the professions. Now some one who has taken the trouble has found that more persons mentioned in “Who’s Who” by the thousand of the population were born in Massachusetts than in any other State; but that Massachusetts is crowded closely by California, with the rest nowhere. The institutions of learning in Massachusetts account for her pre-eminence; the art spirit does it for California. The really big men nurtured on California influence are few, perhaps; but she has sent out an amazing number of good workers in painting, in authorship, in music and especially in acting.

“High Society” in San Francisco had settled down from the rather wild spirit of the middle period; it had come to be there a good deal as it is elsewhere. There was much wealth; and the hills of the western addition were growing up with fine mansions. Outside of the city, at Burlingame, there was a fine country club centering a region of country estates which stretched out to Menlo Park. This club had a good polo team, which played every year with teams of Englishmen from southern California and even with teams from Honolulu.

The foreign quarters were worth a chapter in themselves. Chief of these was, of course, Chinatown, of which every one has heard who ever heard of San Francisco. A district six blocks long and two blocks wide, when the quarter was full, housed 30,000 Chinese. The dwellings were old business blocks of the early days; but the Chinese had added to them, rebuilt them, had run out their own balconies and entrances, and had given it that feeling of huddled irregularity which makes all Chinese built dwellings fall naturally into pictures. Not only this, they had burrowed to a depth equal to three stories under the ground, [Pg 101]and through this ran passages in which the Chinese transacted their dark and devious affairs—as the smuggling of opium, the traffic in slave girls and the settlement of their difficulties.

There was less of this underground life than formerly, for the Board of Health had a cleanup some time ago; but it was still possible to go from one end of Chinatown to the other through secret underground passages. The Chinese lived there their own life in their own way. The Chinatown of New York is dull beside it. And the tourist, who always included Chinatown in his itinerary, saw little of the real life. The guides gave him a show by actors hired for his benefit. In reality the place had considerable importance in a financial way. There were clothing and cigar factories of importance, and much of the tea and silk importing was in the hands of the merchants, who numbered several millionaires. Mainly, however, it was a Tenderloin for the house servants of the city—for the San Francisco Chinaman was seldom a laundryman; he was too much in demand at fancy prices as a servant.

The Chinese lived their own lives in their own way and settled their own quarrels with the revolvers of their highbinders. There were two theaters in the quarter, a number of rich joss houses, three newspapers and a Chinese telephone exchange. There is a race feeling against the Chinese among the working people of San Francisco, and no white man, except the very lowest outcasts, lived in the quarter.

On the slopes of Telegraph Hill dwelt the Mexicans and Spanish, in low houses, which they had transformed by balconies into a resemblance of Spain. Above, and streaming over the hill, were the Italians. The tenement quarter of San Francisco shone by contrast with that of New York, for while these people lived in old and humble houses they had room to breathe and a high eminence for light and air. Their shanties clung on the side of the hill or hung on the very edge of the precipice overlooking the bay, on the edge of which a wall kept their babies from falling. [Pg 102]The effect was picturesque, and this hill was the delight of painters. It was all more like Italy than anything in the Italian quarter of New York and Chicago—the very climate and surroundings, wine country close at hand, the bay for their lateen boats, helped them.

Over by the ocean and surrounded by cemeteries in which there are no more burials, there is an eminence which is topped by two peaks and which the Spanish of the early days named after the breasts of a woman. At its foot was Mission Dolores, the last mission planted by the Spanish padres in their march up the coast, and from these hills the Spanish looked for the first time upon the golden bay.

Many years ago some one set up at the summit of this peak a sixty foot cross of timber. Once a high wind blew it down, and the women of the Fair family then had it restored so firmly that it would resist anything. As it is on a hill it must have stood. It has risen for fifty years above the gay, careless, luxuriant and lovable city, in full view from every eminence and from every alley. It must stand now above the desolation of ruins.

[Pg 103]

CHAPTER VI.

SCENES OF TERROR, DEATH AND HEROISM.

Thrilling Escapes and Deeds of Daring—Sublime Bravery and Self-Sacrifice by Men and Women—How the United States Mint and the Treasuries Were Saved and Protected by Devoted Employes and Soldiers—Pathetic Street Incidents—Soldiers and Police Compel Fashionably Attired to Assist in Cleaning Streets—Italians Drench Homes with Wine.

THE week succeeding the quake was a remarkable one in the history of the country. For a day or two the people had been horror-stricken by the tales of suffering and desolation on the Pacific coast, but as the truth became known they arose equal to the occasion.

And not all the large amounts contributed were confined to those ranked as the great and strong of the nation. The laborers, too, banded together and sent large contributions. The members of the United Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners of Indianapolis realized their brethren would be in dire need and they sent $10,000. The United Mineworkers sent $1,000, and several other labor organizations were equally generous.

During even the most awful moments of the catastrophe men and women with sublimest heroism faced the most threatening terrors and dangers to assist, to rescue and to save. Everywhere throughout the city scenes of daring, self-sacrifice and bravery were witnessed and thrilling escapes from imminent death aroused enthusiasm as well as horror.

A landmark of San Francisco which escaped destruction, though every building around it was destroyed, is the United States Mint at the corner of Fifth and Mission streets. Harold [Pg 104]French, an employe of the mint, gave a graphic account of how the flames were successfully fought.

“Nearly $200,000,000 in coin and bullion,” said Mr. French, “is stored in the vaults of the mint and for the preservation of this prize a devoted band of employes, re-enforced by regular soldiers, fought until the baffled flames fled to the conquest of stately blocks of so-called fireproof buildings.

“For seven hours a sea of fire surged around this grand old federal edifice, attacking it on all sides with waves of fierce heat. Its little garrison was cut off from retreat for hours at a time, had such a course been thought of by those on guard.

“Iron shutters shielded the lower floors, but the windows of the upper story, on which are located the refinery and assay office, were exposed.

“When the fire leaped Mint avenue in solid masses of flames the refinery men stuck to their windows as long as the glass remained in the frames. Seventy-five feet of an inch hose played a slender stream upon the blazing window sill, while the floor was awash with diluted sulphuric acid. Ankle deep in this soldiers and employes stuck to the floor until the windows shattered. With a roar, the tongues of fire licked greedily the inner walls. Blinding and suffocating smoke necessitated the abandonment of the hose and the fighters retreated to the floor below.

“Then came a lull. There was yet a fighting chance, so back to the upper story the fire-fighters returned, led by Superintendent Leach. At length the mint was pronounced out of danger and a handful of exhausted but exultant employes stumbled out on the hot cobblestone to learn the fate of some of their homes.”

A number of men were killed while attempting to loot the United States Mint, where $39,000,000 was kept, while thirty-four white men were shot and killed by troops in a raid on the ruins of the burned United States Treasury. Several millions of dollars are in the treasury ruins.

[Pg 105]Among the many pathetic incidents of the fire was that of a woman who sat at the foot of Van Ness avenue on the hot sands on the hillside overlooking the bay east of Fort Mason with four little children, the youngest a girl of 3, the eldest a boy of 10.

They were destitute of water, food and money. The woman had fled with her children from a home in flames in the Mission street district and tramped to the bay in the hope of sighting the ship, which she said was about due, of which her husband was the captain.

“He would know me anywhere,” she said. And she would not move, although a young fellow gallantly offered his tent back on a vacant lot in which to shelter her children.

In a corner of the plaza a band of men and women were praying, and one fanatic, driven crazy by horror, was crying out at the top of his voice:

“The Lord sent it—the Lord!”

His hysterical crying got on the nerves of the soldiers and bade fair to start a panic among the women and children. A sergeant went over and stopped it by force. All night they huddled together in this hell, with the fire making it bright as day on all sides, and in the morning, the soldiers using their sense again, commandeered a supply of bread from a bakery, sent out another water squad, and fed the refugees with a semblance of breakfast.

A few Chinese made their way into the crowd. They were trembling, pitifully scared, and willing to stop wherever the soldiers placed them.

The soldiers and the police forced every available man in the downtown district to work, no matter where they were found or under what conditions. One party of four finely dressed men that came downtown in an automobile were stopped by the soldiers and were ordered out of the machine and compelled to [Pg 106]assist in clearing the debris from Market street. Then the automobile was loaded with provisions and sent out to relieve the hungry people in the parks.

One young man who was pressed into service by the soldiers, came clad in a fashionable summer suit, straw hat and kid gloves.

An incident of the fire in the Latin quarter on the slope of Telegraph Hill is worthy of note. The only available water supply was found in a well dug in early days. At a critical moment the pump suddenly sucked dry and the water in the well was exhausted.

“There is a last chance, boys!” was shouted and Italian residents crashed in their cellar doors with axes and, calling for assistance, began rolling out barrels of red wine.

The cellars gave forth barrel after barrel until there was fully 500 gallons ready for use. Then barrel heads were smashed in and the bucket brigade turned from water to wine. Sacks were dipped in the wine and used for beating out the fire. Beds were stripped of their blankets and these were soaked in the wine and hung over the exposed portions of the cottages and men on the roofs drenched the shingles and sides of the house with wine.

Past huddled groups of sleepers an unending stream of refugees was seen wending their way to the ferry, dragging trunks over the uneven pavement by ropes tethered to wheelbarrows laden with the household lares and penates. The bowed figures crept about the water and ruins and looked like the ghosts about the ruins of Troy, and unheeding save where instinct prompted them to make a detour about some still burning heap of ruins.

At the ferry the sleepers lay in windrows, each man resting his head upon some previous treasures that he had brought from his home. No one was able to fear thieves or to escape pillage, because of absolute physical inertia forced upon him.

Mad, wholly stark mad, were some of the unfortunates who had not fled from the ruins. In many instances the soldiers were forced to tear men and women away from the bodies of their [Pg 107]dead. Two women were stopped within a distance of a few blocks and forced to give up the dead bodies of their babes, which they were nursing to their bosoms.

A newsgatherer passing through Portsmouth square noticed a mother cowering under a bush. She was singing in a quavering voice a lullaby to her baby. The reporter parted the bushes and looked in. Then he saw what she held in her arms was only a mangled and reddened bit of flesh. The baby had been crushed when the shock of earthquake came and its mother did not know that its life had left it thirty hours before.

When law and order were strained a crew of hell rats crept out of their holes and in the flamelight plundered and reveled in bacchanalian orgies like the infamous inmates of Javert in “Les Miserables.” These denizens of the sewer traps and purlieus of “The Barbary Coast” exulted in unhindered joy of doing evil.

Sitting crouched among the ruins or sprawling on the still warm pavement they could be seen brutally drunk. A demijohn of wine placed on a convenient corner of some ruin was a shrine at which they worshiped. They toasted chunks of sausage over the dying coals of the cooling ruin even as they drank, and their songs of revelry were echoed from wall to wall down in the burnt Mission district.

Some of the bedizened women of the half world erected tents and champagne could be had for the asking, although water had its price. One of these women, dressed in pink silk with high heeled satin slippers on her feet, walked down the length of what had been Natoma street with a bucket of water and a dipper, and she gave the precious fluid freely to those stricken ones huddled there by their household goods and who had not tasted water in twenty-four hours.

“Let them drink and be happy,” said she, “water tastes better than beer to them now.”

[Pg 108]Soon after the earthquake San Francisco was practically placed under martial law with Gen. Fred Funston commanding and later Gen. Greely. The regiment has proven effective in subduing anarchy and preventing the depredations of looters. A detail of troops helped the police to guard the streets and remove people to places of safety.

The martial law dispensed was of the sternest. They have no records existing of the number of executions which had been meted out to offenders. It is known that more than one sneaking vandal suffered for disobedience of the injunction given against entering deserted houses.

There was a sharp, businesslike precision about the American soldier that stood San Francisco in good stead. The San Francisco water rat thug and “Barbary Coast” pirate might flout a policeman, but he discovered that he could not disobey a man who wears Uncle Sam’s uniform without imminent risk of being counted in that abstract mortuary list usually designated as “unknown dead.”

For instance: When Nob Hill was the crest of a huge wave of flame, soldiers were directing the work of saving the priceless art treasures from the Mark Hopkins institute.

Lieut. C. C. McMillan of the revenue cutter Bear impressed volunteers at the point of a pistol to assist in saving the priceless art treasures which the building housed.

“Here you,” barked Lieutenant McMillan to the great crowd of dazed men, “get in there and carry out those paintings.”

“What business have you got to order us about?” said a burly citizen with the jowl of a Bill Sykes.

The lieutenant gave a significant hitch to his arm and the burly man saw a revolver was hanging from the forefinger of the lieutenant’s right hand.

“Look here,” said the lieutenant. “You see this gun? Well, I think it is aimed at your right eye. Now, come here. I want to have a little talk with you.”

[Pg 109]The tough stared for a moment and then the shade of fear crept over his face, and with an “All right, boss,” he started in upon the labor of recovering the art treasures from the institute.

“This is martial law,” said the determined lieutenant. “I don’t like it, you may not like it, but it goes. I think that is understood.”

John H. Ryan and wife of Chicago after spending their honeymoon in Honolulu and Jamaica reached San Francisco just before the earthquake. They were stopping at the St. Francis Hotel, which was destroyed partially by the earthquake and totally by the fire following the shock. They lost many of their personal effects, but are thankful that they escaped with their lives.

“When the first shock came,” said Mr. Ryan, “I was out of bed in an instant. I immediately was thrown to the floor. Arising, I held on by a chair and by the door knob until I could get around the room to the window to see if I could find out what was the matter. I saw people running and heard them in the corridors of the hotel. I also heard women screaming. I hastily called one of my friends and he and myself threw on our overcoats, stuck our feet into our shoes and ran downstairs. I ran back to tell my wife, when I found her coming down the stairs.

“The first shock lasted, according to a professor in the university, sixty seconds. I thought it lasted about as many days.

“At the second shock all the guests piled into the streets. We stood in the bitter cold street for fully a quarter of an hour with nothing about us but our spring overcoats. I said ‘bitter cold.’ So it was. People there said it was the coldest spell that has struck Frisco in years.

“After standing in the streets for a while my friend and myself, with my wife, started back into the hotel to get our clothes. The guard was at the foot of the stairs and he told us that we would not be allowed to go to our rooms. I told him we merely wanted to get some clothes on so we would not freeze to death [Pg 110]and he told us to go up, but to come right down as soon as possible, for there was no telling what would happen. We rushed into our rooms and hurriedly threw on our clothes, and started out to reconnoiter. We stopped near a small building. Just then a policeman on guard came up and ordered everybody to assist in rescuing the persons within. We did not hesitate, but rushed into the building heedless of the impending falling of the walls. We found there a man lying unconscious on the floor. He revived sufficiently to make us understand that his wife and child were in the building and that he thought they were dead. We looked and finally found them, dead.

“We saw ambulances and undertakers’ wagons by the score racing down Market street. They were filled with the bodies of the injured and in many cases with dead. The injured were piled into the wagons indiscriminately without respect for any consequences in the future of the patients.”

R. F. Lund of Canal Dover, O., was asleep in apartments when the shock rent the city. “I awoke to find myself on the floor,” said Mr. Lund. “The building to me seemed to pitch to the right, then to the left, and finally to straighten itself and sink. I had the sensation of pitching down in an elevator shaft—that sudden, sickening wave that sweeps over you and leaves you breathless.

“I got into my clothes and with some difficulty wrenched open the door of my room. Screams of women were piercing the air. Together with a dozen other men, inmates of the apartments, I assembled the women guests and we finally got them into the streets. Few of them tarried long enough to dress. We went back again and then returned with more women.

“In one room particularly there was great commotion. It was occupied by two women and they were in a state of hysterical terror because they could not open their door and get out. The sudden settling of the building had twisted the jambs.

“Finally I put my two hundred and thirty pounds of weight [Pg 111]against the panels and smashed them through. I helped them wrap themselves in quilts and half led, half carried them to the street.

“While passing through a narrow street in the rear of the Emporium I came upon a tragedy. A rough fellow, evidently a south of Market street thug, was bending over the unconscious form of a woman. She was clothed in a kimono and lay upon the sidewalk near the curb. His back was toward me. He was trying to wrench a ring from her finger and he held her right wrist in his left hand. A soldier suddenly approached. He held a rifle thrust forward and his eyes were on the wretch.

“Involuntarily I stopped and involuntarily my hand went to my hip pocket. I remember only this, that it seemed in that moment a good thing to me to take a life. The soldier’s rifle came to his shoulder. There was a sharp report and I saw the smoke spurt from the muzzle. The thug straightened up with a wrench, he shot his right arm above his head and pitched forward across the body of the woman. He died with her wrist in his grasp. It may sound murderous, but the feeling I experienced was one of disappointment. I wanted to kill him myself.

“Along in the afternoon in my walking I came upon a great hulking fellow in the act of wresting food from an old woman and a young girl who evidently had joined their fortunes. No soldiers were about and I had the satisfaction of laying him out with the butt of my pistol. He went down in a heap. I did not stay to see whether or not he came to.”

“Strange is the scene where San Francisco’s Chinatown stood,” said W. W. Overton, after reaching Los Angeles among the refugees. “No heap of smoking ruins marks the site of the wooden warrens where the slant-eyed men of the orient dwelt in thousands. The place is pitted with deep holes and seared with dark passageways, from whose depths come smoke wreaths. All the wood has gone and the winds are streaking the ashes.

“Men, white men, never knew the depth of Chinatown’s [Pg 112]underground city. They often talked of these subterranean runways. And many of them had gone beneath the street levels, two and three stories. But now that Chinatown has been unmasked, for the destroyed buildings were only a mask, men from the hillside have looked on where its inner secrets lay. In places they can see passages 100 feet deep.

“The fire swept this Mongolian section clean. It left no shred of the painted wooden fabric. It ate down to the bare ground and this lies stark, for the breezes have taken away the light ashes. Joss houses and mission schools, grocery stores and opium dens, gambling hells and theaters—all of them went. The buildings blazed up like tissue paper lanterns used when the guttering candles touched their sides.

“From this place I, following the fire, saw hundreds of crazed yellow men flee. In their arms they bore their opium pipes, their money bags, their silks, and their children. Beside them ran the baggy trousered women, and some of them hobbled painfully.

“These were the men and women of the surface. Far beneath the street levels in those cellars and passageways were many others. Women who never saw the day from their darkened prisons and their blinking jailors were caught like rats in a huge trap. Their bones were eaten by the flames.

“And now there remain only the holes. They pit the hillside like a multitude of ground swallow nests. They go to depths which the police never penetrated. The secrets of those burrows will never be known, for into them the hungry fire first sifted its red coals and then licked eagerly in tongues of creeping flames, finally obliterating everything except the earth itself.”

“The scenes to be witnessed in San Francisco were beyond description,” said Mr. Oliver Posey, Jr.

“Not alone did the soldiers execute the law. One afternoon, in front of the Palace Hotel, a crowd of workers in the ruins discovered a miscreant in the act of robbing a corpse of its jewels. Without delay he was seized, a rope was procured, and he was [Pg 113]immediately strung up to a beam which was left standing in the ruined entrance of the Palace Hotel.

“No sooner had he been hoisted up and a hitch taken in the rope than one of his fellow criminals was captured. Stopping only to secure a few yards of hemp, a knot was quickly tied and the wretch was soon adorning the hotel entrance by the side of the other dastard.”

Jack Spencer, well known here, also returned home yesterday, and had much to say of the treatment of those caught in the act of rifling the dead of their jewels.

“At the corner of Market and Third streets on Wednesday,” said Mr. Spencer of Los Angeles, “I saw a man attempting to cut the fingers from the hand of a dead woman in order to secure the rings. Three soldiers witnessed the deed at the same time and ordered the man to throw up his hands. Instead of obeying he drew a revolver from his pocket and began to fire without warning.

“The three soldiers, reinforced by half a dozen uniformed patrolmen, raised their rifles to their shoulders and fired. With the first shots the man fell, and when the soldiers went to the body to dump it into an alley eleven bullets were found to have entered it.”

Here is an experience typical of hundreds told by Sam Wolf, a guest at the Grand Hotel:

“When I awakened the house was shaken as a terrier would shake a rat. I dressed and made for the street which seemed to move like waves of water. On my way down Market street the whole side of a building fell out and came so near me that I was covered and blinded by the dust. Then I saw the first dead come by. They were piled up in an automobile like carcasses in a butcher’s wagon, all over blood, with crushed skulls and broken limbs, and bloody faces.

“A man cried out to me, ‘Look out for that live wire.’ I just had time to sidestep certain death. On each side of me the fires [Pg 114]were burning fiercely. I finally got into the open space before the ferry. The ground was still shaking and gaping open in places. Women and children knelt on the cold asphalt and prayed God would be merciful to them. At last we got on the boat. Not a woman in that crowd had enough clothing to keep her warm, let alone the money for fare. I took off my hat, put a little money in it, and we got enough money right there to pay all their fares.”

W. H. Sanders, consulting engineer of the United States geological survey, insisted on paying his hotel bill before he left the St. Francis. He says:

“Before leaving my room I made my toilet and packed my grip. The other guests had left the house. As I hurried down the lobby I met the clerk who had rushed in to get something. I told him I wanted to pay my bill. ‘I guess not,’ he said, ‘this is no time for settlement.’

“As he ran into the office I cornered him, paid him the money, and got his receipt hurriedly stamped.”

Dr. Taggart of Los Angeles, a leader of the Los Angeles relief bureau, accidentally shot himself while entering a hospital at the corner of Page and Baker streets, Saturday, April 21. He was mounting the stairs, stumbled and fell. A pistol which he carried in his inside coat pocket was discharged, the bullet entering near the heart. He rose to his feet and cried, “I am dying,” and fell into the arms of a physician on the step below. Death was almost instantaneous.

Mrs. Lucien Shaw, of Los Angeles, wife of Judge Shaw of the State Supreme Court, disappeared in the war of the elements that raged in San Francisco.

At day dawn Thursday morning, April 19, the Shaw apartments, on Pope street, San Francisco, were burned. Mrs. Shaw fled with the refugees to the hills.

Judge Lucien Shaw went north on that first special on Wednesday that cleared for the Oakland mole.

[Pg 115]

FREE WATER.

The most welcome visitor to the Mission district.

DISTRIBUTING CLOTHES.

Handing out clothes to all who need them.

[Pg 116]

WIRES DOWN.

The earthquake shook down wires and poles.

MILITARY CAMP.

View in Golden Gate Park. Too much praise cannot be given our soldiers.

Thursday morning at daybreak he reached his apartments on [Pg 117]Pope street. Flames were burning fiercely. A friend told him that his wife had fled less than fifteen minutes before. She carried only a few articles in a hand satchel.

For two days and nights Judge Shaw wandered over hills and through the parks about San Francisco seeking among the 200,000 refugees for his wife.

During that heart-breaking quest, according to his own words, he had “no sleep, little food and less water.” At noon Saturday he gave up the search and hurried back to Los Angeles, hoping to find that she had arrived before him. He hastened to his home on West Fourth street.

“Where’s mother?” was the first greeting from his son, Hartley Shaw.

Judge Shaw sank fainting on his own doorstep. The search for the missing woman was continued but proved fruitless.

One of the beautiful little features on the human side of the disaster was the devotion of the Chinese servants to the children of the families which they served. And this was not the only thing, for often a Chinaman acted as the only man in families of homeless women and children. Except for the inevitable panic of the first morning, when the Chinese tore into Portsmouth square and fought with the Italians for a place of safety, the Chinese were orderly, easy to manage, and philosophical. They staggered around under loads of household goods which would have broken the back of a horse, and they took hard the order of the troops which commanded all passengers to leave their bundles at the ferry.

A letter to a friend in Fond du Lac, Wis., from Mrs. Bragg, wife of General E. S. Bragg, late consul general at Hong Kong, and one-time commander of the Iron Brigade, gave the following account of the escape of the Braggs in the Frisco quake. Mrs. Bragg says under date of April 20:

“We reached San Francisco a week ago today, but it seems a month, so much have we been through. We were going over to [Pg 118]Oakland the very morning of the earthquake, so, of course, we never went, as it is as bad there as here.

“General Bragg had to wait to collect some money on a draft, but the banks were all destroyed. The chimneys fell in and all hotels were burned as well as public buildings. There was no water to put out the fires which raged for blocks in every square and provisions were running low everywhere. Eggs were $5 a dozen, etc.; no telegraph, no nothing.

“We went from the Occidental to the Plymouth and from there to the Park Nob hill, where we lay, not slept, all Wednesday night, the day of the earthquake. From there we took refuge on the Pacific with friends who were obliged to get out also and we all came over together to Fort Mason, leaving there last night. We came from there to the flagship Chicago, the admiral having sent a boat for us.

“General Bragg is very well and we have both stood it wonderfully. The Chicago fire was bad enough, but this is worse in our old age. May we live till we reach home. So many here have lost everything, homes as well, we consider ourselves quite fortunate. May I never live to see another earthquake.

“The General had a very narrow escape from falling plaster; never thought to leave the first hotel alive. Many were killed or burned. God is good to us. Our baggage was rescued by our nephews alone. No one else’s was to be got out for love or money. The baggage was sent to the Presidio, not four miles from us.”

[Pg 119]

CHAPTER VII.

THRILLING PERSONAL EXPERIENCES.

Scenes of Horror and Panic Described by Victims of the Quake Who Escaped—How Helpless People Were Crushed to Death by Falling Buildings and Debris—Some Marvelous Escapes.

THE stories of hundreds who experienced the earthquake shock but escaped with life and limb constitute a series of thrilling stories unrivalled outside of fiction. Those that contain the most marvellous features are herewith narrated:

Albert H. Gould, of Chicago, describes the scene in the Palace Hotel following the first quake:

“I was asleep on the seventh floor of the Palace Hotel,” he said, “at the time of the first quake. I was thrown out of my bed and half way across the room.

“Immediately realizing the import of the occurrence, and fearing that the building was about to collapse, I made my way down the six flights of stairs and into the main corridor.

“I was the first guest to appear. The clerks and hotel employes were running about as if they were mad. Within two minutes after I had appeared other guests began to flock into the corridor. Few if any of them wore other than their night clothing. Men, women, and children with blanched faces stood as if fixed. Children and women cried, and the men were little less affected.

“I returned to my room and got my clothing, then walked to the office of the Western Union in my pajamas and bare feet to telegraph to my wife in Los Angeles. I found the telegraphers there, but all the wires were down. I sat down on the sidewalk, [Pg 120]picked the broken glass out of the soles of my feet, and put on my clothes.

“All this, I suppose, took little more than twenty minutes. Within that time, below the Palace the buildings for more than three blocks were a mass of flames, which quickly communicated to other buildings. The scene was a terrible one. Billows of fire seemed to roll from the business blocks soon half consumed to other blocks in the vicinity, only to climb and loom again.

“The Call building at the corner of Third and Market streets, as I passed, I saw to be more than a foot out of plumb and hanging over the street like the leaning tower of Pisa.

“I remained in San Francisco until 8 o’clock and then took a ferry for Oakland, but returned to the burning city an hour and a half later. At that time the city seemed doomed. I remained but for a few minutes; then made my way back to the ferry station.

“I hope I may never be called upon to pass through such an experience again. People by the thousands and seemingly devoid of reason were crowded around the ferry station. At the iron gates they clawed with their hands as so many maniacs. They sought to break the bars, and failing in that turned upon each other. Fighting my way to the gate like the others the thought came into my mind of what rats in a trap were. Had I not been a strong man I should certainly have been killed.

“When the ferry drew up to the slip, and the gates were thrown open the rush to safety was tremendous. The people flowed through the passageway like a mountain torrent that, meeting rocks in its path, dashes over them. Those who fell saved themselves as best they could.

“I left Oakland at about 5 o’clock. At that time San Francisco was hidden in a pall of smoke. The sun shone brightly upon it without any seeming penetration. Flames at times cleft the darkness. This cloud was five miles in height, and at its top changed into a milk white.”

[Pg 121]Mrs. Agnes Zink, Hotel Broadway, said:

“I was stopping at 35 Fifth street, San Francisco. The rear of that house collapsed and the landlady and about thirty of her roomers were killed. I escaped simply because I had a front room and because I got out on the roof, as the stairway had collapsed in the rear. Out in the street it was impossible to find a clear pathway. I saw another lodging house near ours collapse—I think it must have been 39 Fifth street—and I know all the inmates were killed, for its wreck was complete. In ten minutes the entire block to Mission street was in flames.”

Mr. J. P. Anthony, a business man who escaped from the doomed city in an automobile tells a graphic story:

Mr. Anthony says that he was sleeping in his room at the Romona hotel on Ellis street, near Macon, and was suddenly awakened at 5:23 in the morning. The first shock that brought him out of bed, he says, was appalling in its terrible force. The whole earth seemed to heave and fall. The building where he was housed, which is six stories high, was lifted from its foundation and the roof caved in. A score or more of guests, men and women, immediately made their way to the street, which was soon filled with people, and a perfect panic ensued. Debris showered into the street from the buildings on every side.

As a result, Mr. Anthony says, he saw a score or more of people killed. Women became hysterical and prayed in the streets, while men sat on the curbing, appearing to be dazed. It was twenty minutes before those in the vicinity seemed to realize the enormity of the catastrophe. The crowds became larger and in the public squares of the city and in empty lots thousands of people gathered.

It was 9 o’clock before the police were in control of the situation. When they finally resumed charge, the officers directed their energy toward warning the people in the streets away from danger. Buildings were on the brink of toppling over.

[Pg 122]Mr. Anthony says he was walking on Market street, near the Emporium, about 9 a. m., when a severe shock was felt. At once the street filled again with excited persons, and thousands were soon gathered in the vicinity, paralyzed with fear. Before the spectators could realize what had happened, the walls of the building swayed a distance of three feet. The thousands of bystanders stood as if paralyzed, expecting every moment that they would be crushed, but another tremor seemed to restore the big building to its natural position.

Mr. Anthony said that he momentarily expected that, with thousands of others who were in the neighborhood, he would be crushed to death in a few moments. He made his way down Market street as far as the Call building, from which flames were issuing at every window, with the blaze shooting through the roof. A similar condition prevailed in the Examiner building, across the street.

He then started for the depot, at Third and Townsend streets, determined to leave the city. He found a procession of several thousand other persons headed in the same direction.

All south of Market street about that time was a crackling mass of flames. Mr. Anthony made his way to Eighth and Market, thence down Eighth to Townsend and to Third street, and the entire section which he traversed was afire, making it impossible for him to reach his destination. He attempted to back track, but found that his retreat had been cut off by the flames. He then went to Twelfth street and reached Market again by the city hall. San Francisco’s magnificent municipal building had concaved like an egg shell. The steel dome was still standing, but the rest of the $3,000,000 structure was a mass of charred ruins.

It was not yet noon, but the city’s hospitals were already filled with dead and injured, and all available storerooms were being pressed into service. Dead bodies were being carried from the streets in garbage wagons. In every direction hysterical women [Pg 123]were seen. Men walked through the streets, weeping, and others wore blanched faces. Transfer men were being offered fabulous sums to remove household goods, even for a block distant. Horses had been turned loose and were running at large to prevent their being incinerated in the burning buildings. Women had loaded their personal belongings on carts and were pulling them through the city, the property being huddled in the public squares.

“The Grand Hotel tossed like a ship at sea. There was a wavelike motion, accompanied by a severe up and down shake,” said J. R. Hand of the Hand Fruit Company of Los Angeles. “The shock was accompanied by a terrific roar that is indescribable. An upright beam came through the floor of my room and the walls bulged in. I thought I should not get out alive. All my baggage was lost, but I still have the key to my room as a souvenir, No. 249.

“I was on the third story of the hotel and got the last vacant room. No one in any of the stronger built hotels was killed, to the best of my knowledge. These hotels were destroyed by fire after being severely wrecked. I reached the ferry station by a trip of about six miles around by the Fairmount Hotel and thence to the water front.

“The Examiner Building went up like a flash. I was standing in front of the Crocker Building and saw the first smoke. Just then the soldiers ran us out. We went around two blocks and the next view we had the building was a mass of flames. The burning of the Palace was a beautiful sight from the bay.”

F. O. Popenie, manager of the Pacific Monthly, was asleep in the Terminus hotel, near the Southern Pacific ferry station, when the first tremble came.

“The Terminus hotel did not go down at the first shock,” he said. “We were sleeping on the third floor when the quake came. The walls of the hotel began falling, but the guests had time to run outside before the building fell in.

[Pg 124]“I started for San Jose on foot. When I reached the Potrero I looked back and saw the business section a furnace. Fires had started up in many places and were blazing fiercely. Finally a man driving a single rig overtook me. He was headed for San Jose and he took me in. After a distance of fifteen miles we took the train and went on.”

The Terminus hotel was a six-story structure with stone and brick sides. It collapsed soon after the first shock.

Among the refugees who found themselves stranded were John Singleton, a Los Angeles millionaire, his wife and her sister. The Singletons were staying at the Palace hotel when the earthquake shock occurred.

Mr. Singleton gives the following account of his experience: “The shock wrecked the rooms in which we were sleeping. We managed to get our clothes on and get out immediately. We had been at the hotel only two days and left probably $3,000 worth of personal effects in the room.

“After leaving the Palace we secured an express wagon for $25 to take us to the Casino, near Golden Gate Park, where we stayed Wednesday night. On Thursday morning we managed to get a conveyance at enormous cost and spent the entire day in getting to the Palace. We paid $1 apiece for eggs and $2 for a loaf of bread. On these and a little ham we had to be satisfied.”

“I was asleep in the Hotel Dangham, Ellis and Mason streets, when the shock came,” said Miss Bessie Tannehill of the Tivoli Theatre. “There were at least 100 persons in the building at the time. At the first shock I leaped from the bed and ran to the window. Another upheaval came and I was thrown off my feet. I groped my way out of the room and down the dark stairway. Men, women and children, almost without clothing, crowded the place, crying and praying as they rushed out.

“When outside I saw the streets filled with people who rushed about wringing their hands and crying. Proprietor Lisser of the hotel offered a cabman $50 to take himself and his wife to the [Pg 125]Presidio heights, but he refused. He wanted more money. We finally secured a carriage by paying $100. Fire was raging at this time and people were panic-stricken.

“After getting outside of the danger region I walked back, hoping to aid some of the unfortunates. I have heard about big prices charged for food. I wish to testify that the merchants on upper Market street and in nearby districts threw open their stores and invited the crowds to help themselves. The mobs rushed into every place, carrying out all the goods possible.

“I saw many looters and pickpockets at work. On Mason street a gang of thieves was at work. They were pursued by troops, but escaped in an auto.”

The members of the Metropolitan opera company of New York were all victims of the great disaster, including Mme. Sembrich, Signor Caruso, Campanari, Dippel, Conductor Hertz and Bars.

All of the splendid scenery, stage fittings, costumes and musical instruments were lost in the fire which destroyed the Grand Opera House, where their season had just opened.

No one of the company was injured, but nearly all of them lost their personal effects. Mme. Sembrich placed the loss by the destruction of her elegant costumes at $20,000. She was fortunate enough to save her valuable jewels. The total loss to the organization was $150,000.

On the morning of the earthquake the members of the company were distributed among the different hotels.

The sudden shock brought all out of their bedrooms in all kinds of attire. The women were in their night dresses, the men in pajamas, none pausing to dress, all convinced that their last hour had come. Ten minutes later Caruso was seen seated on his valise in the middle of the street. Many of the others had rushed to open squares or other places of supposed safety. Even then it was difficult to avoid the debris falling from the crumbling walls.

[Pg 126]Several of those stopping at the Oaks were awakened by plaster from the ceilings falling on their bed and had barely time to flee for their lives. One singer was seen standing in the street, barefoot, and clad only in his underwear, but clutching a favorite violin which he carried with him in his flight. Rossi, though almost in tears, was heard trying his voice at a corner near the Palace hotel.

A. W. Hussey, who went to the Hall of Justice on the morning of the disaster, told how at the direction of a policeman whom he did not know, he had cut the arteries in the wrists of a man pinioned under timbers at St. Katherine hotel.

According to the statement made by Hussey the man was begging to be killed and the policeman shot at him, but his aim was defective and the bullet went wide of the mark. The officer then handed Hussey a knife with instructions to cut the veins in the suffering man’s wrists, and Hussey obeyed orders to the letter.

A story was told of one young girl who had followed for two days the body of her father, her only relative. It had been taken from a house in Mission street to an undertaker’s shop just after the quake. The fire drove her out with her charge, and it was placed in Mechanics’ Pavilion.

That went, and it had rested for a day at the Presidio, waiting burial. With many others she wept on the border of the burial area, while the women cared for her. That was truly a tragic and pathetic funeral.

In the commission house of C. D. Bunker a rescuer named Baker was killed while trying to get a dead body from the ruins. Other rescuers heard the pitiful wail of a little child, but were unable to get near the point from which the cry issued. Soon the onrushing fire ended the cry and the men turned to other tasks.

Hundreds of firemen and rescuers were prostrated, the strain of the continued fight in the face of the awful calamity proving more than any man could stand. In the crowds at many points [Pg 127]people fainted and in some instances dropped dead as the result of the reaction following the unprecedented shock.

At Mechanics’ Pavilion scenes of heroism and later of panic were enacted. The great frame building was turned into a hospital for the care of the injured and here a corps of fifty physicians rendered aid. Nurses volunteered their services and also girls from the Red Cross ship that steamed in from the government yards at Mare island and contributed doctors and supplies.

While the ambulances and automobiles were unloading their maimed and wounded at the building the march of the conflagration up Market street gave warning that the injured would have to be removed at once.

This work was undertaken and every available vehicle was pressed into service to get the stricken into the hospitals and private houses of the western addition. A few minutes after the last of the wounded had been carried through the door, some on cots, others in strong arms and on stretchers, shafts of fire shot from the roof and the structure burst into a whirlwind of flame.

One of the most thrilling of all stories related of adventures in stricken San Francisco during the days of horror and nights of terror is that of a party of four, two women and two men, who arrived at Los Angeles April 20, after having spent a night and the greater portion of two days on the hills about Golden Gate Park.

This party was composed of Mrs. Francis Winter, Miss Bessie Marley, Dr. Ernest W. Fleming, and Oliver Posey, all of Los Angeles.

“I was sleeping in a room on the third floor of the hotel,” said Dr. Fleming, “when the first shock occurred. An earthquake in San Francisco was no new sensation to me. I was there in 1868, when a boy ten years old, when the first great earthquake came. But that was a gentle rocking of a cradle to the one of Wednesday.

“I awoke to the groaning of timbers, the grinding, creaking [Pg 128]sound, then came the roaring street. Plastering and wall decorations fell. The sensation was as if the buildings were stretching and writhing like a snake. The darkness was intense. Shrieks of women, higher, shriller than that of the creaking timbers, cut the air. I tumbled from the bed and crawled, scrambling toward the door. The twisting and writhing appeared to increase. The air was oppressive. I seemed to be saying to myself, will it never, never stop? I wrenched the lock; the door of the room swung back against my shoulder. Just then the building seemed to breathe, stagger and right itself.

“But I fled from that building as from a falling wall. I could not believe that it could endure such a shock and still stand.

“The next I remember I was standing in the street laughing at the unholy appearance of half a hundred men clad in pajamas—and less.

“The women were in their night robes; they made a better appearance than the men.

“The street was a rainbow of colors in the early morning light. There was every stripe and hue of raiment never intended to be seen outside the boudoir.

“I looked at a man at my side; he was laughing at me. Then for the first time I became aware that I was in pajamas myself. I turned and fled back to my room.

“There I dressed, packed my grip, and hastened back to the street. All the big buildings on Market street toward the ferry were standing, but I marked four separate fires. The fronts of the small buildings had fallen out into the streets and at some places the debris had broken through the sidewalk into cellars.

“I noticed two women near me. They were apparently without escort. One said to the other, ‘What wouldn’t I give to be back in Los Angeles again.’

“That awakened a kindred feeling and I proffered my assistance. I put my overcoat on the stone steps of a building and told them to sit there.

[Pg 129]“In less than two minutes those steps appeared to pitch everything forward, to be flying at me. The groaning and writhing started afresh.

“But I was just stunned. I stood there in the street with debris falling about me. It seemed the natural thing for the tops of buildings to careen over and for fronts to fall out. I do not even recall that the women screamed.

“The street gave a convulsive shudder and the buildings somehow righted themselves again. I thought they had crashed together above my head.

“The air was filled with the roar of explosions. They were dynamiting great blocks. Sailors were training guns to rake rows of residences.

“All the while we were moving onward with the crowd. Cinders were falling about us. At times our clothing caught fire, just little embers that smoked and went out. The sting burned our faces and we used our handkerchiefs for veils.

“Everybody around us was using some kind of cloth to shield their eyes. It looked curious to see expressmen and teamsters wearing those veils.

“Quite naturally we seemed to come to Golden Gate Park. It seemed as if we had started for there. By this time the darkness was settling. But it was a weird twilight. The glare from the burning city threw a kind of red flame and shadow about us. It seemed uncanny; the figures about us moved like ghosts.

“The wind and fog blew chill from the ocean and we walked about to keep warm. Thousands were walking about, too, but there was no disturbance.

“Families trudged along there. There was no hurry. All appeared to have time to spare. The streets, walks, and lawns were wiggling with little parties, one or two families in each. The men had brought bedding and blankets and they made impromptu shelters to keep off the fog.

“The cinders still kept falling. They seemed at times to come [Pg 130]down right against the wind. They stung my face and made me restless.

“All night we moved about the hills. Thousands were moving with us. As the night wore on the crowd grew.

“Near daylight the soldiers came to the park. They were still moving in front of the fire.

“I had brought a little store of provisions before nightfall and somehow we had kept them. It seemed easy to keep things there. I walked over to the fire made by one squad of soldiers and picked up a tin bucket. They looked at me but made no move. I went to a faucet and turned it on. Water was there. Not much, but a trickling little stream. There was water in the park all night. I boiled some eggs and we ate our breakfast. Then we concluded to try to make our way back to the water front. We did this because the soldiers were driving us from that part of the hills. The flames were still after us.

“The dumb horror of it seemed to reach right into one’s heart. Walking and resting, we reached the ferry near sunset. We had come back through a burned district some four miles. I do not understand how the people stood it.

“Other parties staggered past us. They were reeling, but not from wine. It was here that the pangs of thirst caught us. But the end came at last. We reached the ferry and the boats were running. The soldiers were there, too. They seemed to be everywhere. They were offering milk to the women and children.

“We are in Los Angeles now. It hardly seems real. If it were not for the sting of the cinders that still stick to my face and eyes I might think it was all a nightmare.”

Adolphus Busch, the St. Louis brewer, gave this account of his experiences in the earthquake:

“The earthquake which shook ’Frisco made all frantic, and was undoubtedly the severest ever experienced in the United States. The St. Francis hotel swayed from south to north like [Pg 131]a tall poplar in a storm; furniture, even pianos, was overturned, and people thrown from their beds.

“I summoned my family and friends and urged them to escape to Jefferson square, which we did.

“An awful sight met our eyes. Every building was either partly or wholly wrecked, roofs and cornices falling from skyscrapers on lower houses, crushing and burying the inmates.

“Fires started in all parts of the city, the main water pipes burst and flooded the streets, one earthquake followed another, the people became terrified, but all were wonderfully calm. Over 100,000 persons without shelter were camping on the hills. There was no light, water, nor food. Regular soldiers and the militia maintained order and discipline, otherwise more horrors would have occurred and riots might have prevailed. Then the worst happened. The fire spread over three-fourths of the city and could not be controlled, no water to fight it, no light, and the earth still trembling.

“Building after building was dismantled to check the progress of the flames, but all of no avail. We were fortunate to secure conveyances and fled to Nob Hill, from which we witnessed the indescribable drama. Block after block was devastated. The fires blazed like volcanoes, and all business houses, hotels, theaters—in fact, the entire business portion—lay in ruins, and two-thirds of the residences.”

[Pg 132]

CHAPTER VIII.

THRILLING PERSONAL EXPERIENCES—CONTINUED.

Hairbreadth Escapes from the Hotels Whose Walls Crumbled—Frantic Mothers Seek Children from Whom They Were Torn by the Quake—Reckless Use of Firearms by Cadet Militia—Tales of Heroism and Suffering.

FOR two weeks or more tragedy, romance and comedy crowded the lives of women and children survivors homeless in the city of ashes and in Oakland, across the bay, the city of refuge. In this latter place thousands separated from their loved ones were tearfully awaiting developments, and every hour in the day members of families were restored to each other who had been lost.

On record in the Chamber of Commerce at Oakland, which was the headquarters of the Oakland Relief Committee, some queer stories were told. Not a day passed but there were from two to eight marriages in that office. Homeless young couples met each other, compared notes and finally agreed to marry.

At the registry bureau in Oakland scores of women, young and old, worked gratis. One applied for work to relieve her mind. She said she had seen her husband and eldest son killed and had fled with her baby. During the rush of people she lost her baby.

One of her first duties was to copy names of the lost and found. In one of the lists she believed she recognized the description of her baby. An investigation was made and the child proved to be hers.

[Pg 133]

COOKING IN THE STREET.

A familiar scene in San Francisco after the disaster.

WING OF CITY HALL.

Two policemen were buried under walls.

[Pg 134]

CATTLE KILLED.

A view showing a drove of cattle killed by falling walls.

ST. JOHN’S CHURCH.

Mission Street looking west.

A grief-stricken mother came in crying for her child, which she had not seen since the day of the disaster. A member of the relief committee was detailed on the case and he found the baby. The same day, while walking on the street, he saw a woman [Pg 135]carrying a baby in a pillow slip thrown over her shoulder. Two hours later he again met the woman. The pillow slip had ripped and the baby had fallen out unknown to the mother. When her attention was called to this fact the mother fainted.

Again the young man set to work and found the baby two blocks away, but upon returning could not find the mother.

One man escaped with his two babes as he saw his wife killed in a falling building. He seized two suit cases and placed a baby in each and started for the ferry. When he reached Oakland he found both smothered. He became violently insane and was put in a strait-jacket.

Hermann Oelrichs of New York, ten times a millionaire and husband of the eldest daughter of the late Senator Fair of California, arrived in Chicago on a scrap of paper on which was written a pass over all railroad lines. The scrap of paper was roughly torn, was two inches square, but upon it in lead pencil were written these magic words:

“Pass Hermann Oelrichs and servant to Chicago upon all lines. This paper to serve in lieu of tickets.—E. H. Harriman.”

Mr. Oelrichs described some of his experiences after he was driven from his quarters in the St. Francis Hotel by the earthquake. He said:

“It was heaven and hell combined to produce chaos. I have a bad foot, but I forgot it and walked twenty miles that day, helping all I could. Mayor Schmitz had a meeting in the afternoon at the shaking Hall of Justice and appointed a committee of fifty, of which I was one. He gave me a commission as a member of the Committee of Law and Order, which, together with my policeman’s star and club, I shall hand down to my son as heirlooms.”

“I am proud of that,” said Mr. Oelrichs. “That is the Mayor’s own signature and he has proved himself every inch a man. Lots of people thought the Mayor was just a fiddler, but they think differently now.

[Pg 136]“The regulars saved San Francisco. The militia got drunk and killed people. The hoodlums south of Market street were all burned out and they swarmed up in the swell quarter. The report was that they meant to fire the houses of the rich which had not been destroyed. Every night a west wind blows from the Pacific, and they meant to start the fire at the west end. That had to be guarded against.”

Mr. Oelrichs had fitted up apartments in the St. Francis, packed with curios and rarities to the extent of $20,000. These were all burned.

The operators and officials of the Postal Telegraph Company remained in the main office of the company at the corner of Market and Montgomery streets, opposite the Palace Hotel, until they were ordered out of the building because of the danger from the dynamite explosions in the immediate vicinity. The men proceeded to Oakland, across the bay, and took possession of the office there.

Before the offices of the telegraph companies in hundreds of cities excited crowds of men and women surged back and forth the morning of the catastrophe, all imploring the officials to send a message through for them to the stricken city to bring back some word from dear ones in peril there. It was explained that there was only one wire in operation and that imperative orders had been received that it was to be used solely for company purposes, press dispatches and general news.

Mr. Sternberger of New York was on the fourth floor of the St. Francis, with his wife, son and a maid. After hurriedly dressing he and his family rushed into Union square.

“We had hardly got seated,” said Mr. Sternberger, “when firemen came along asking for volunteers to take bodies from the ruins just above the hotel. There was a ready and willing response. It was a low building on which had toppled a lofty one, and all in the former were buried in the debris. We heard the stifled cries and prayers, ‘For God’s sake, come this way,’ [Pg 137]‘O, lift this off my back,’ ‘My God, I’m dying,’ and others, nerving us to greater efforts.

“Finally we got to some of them. Bruised, bleeding, blinded by smoke and dust, terrified past reason, the poor fellows who fell in the street fell from utter exhaustion. Those that were penned away below we could not reach, and their seeming far-off cries for mercy and life will ring in my ears till death.”

Henry Herz, a New York traveling man, after a terrible experience, made his escape and constituted himself a traveling relief committee. At Sacramento he organized a shipment of eggs. At Reno he set the housewives to baking bread, and in Salt Lake City he had raised a potato fund of $400. Mr. Herz crossed the bay in a launch. The boatman asked him how much money he had, and when he replied, with a mental reservation, $46.60, the boatman charged him $46.60 and collected the money in advance.

Worn by the exposure, hardships, and terrors of a two days’ effort to escape from the stricken city, Mrs. D. M. Johnson of Utica, N. Y., and Miss Martha Stibbals of Erie, Pa., passed through Denver.

“The first that we knew of the earthquake was when we were awakened in our room at the Randolph Hotel by a terrific shaking which broke loose fragments of the ceiling,” said Miss Stibbals. “There followed a tremendous shock which shook the building sideways and tossed it about with something like a spiral motion. When we reached the street people were running hither and thither.

“Fire was breaking out in hundreds of places over the city and the streets were becoming crowded with hurrying refugees. Where they were unable to procure horses, men and women had harnessed themselves to carriages and were drawing their belongings to places of safety. As we passed through the residence district where wealthy people lived we saw automobiles drawn up and loaded down before houses. Their owners remained [Pg 138]until the flames came too near, and then, getting into the machines, made for the hills.

“We saw one man pay $2,000 for an automobile in which to take his family to a place of safety.”

“I climbed over bodies, picked my way around flaming debris, and went over almost insurmountable obstacles to get out of San Francisco,” said C. C. Kendall, a retired Omaha capitalist, upon his arrival home.

“I arrived in San Francisco the night previous to the earthquake. I was awakened about 5:15 in the morning by being thrown out of my bed in the Palace Annex. I rushed to the window and looked out. The houses were reeling and tumbling like playthings. I hurried on clothing and ran into the street. Here I saw many dead and the debris was piled up along Market street.

“I went to the office of the Palace Hotel and there men, women, and children were rushing about, crazed and frantic in their night clothes. The first shock lasted only twenty-eight seconds, but it seemed to me two hours.

“A few minutes after I reached the Palace Hotel office the second shock came. It was light, compared with the first, but it brought to the ground many of the buildings that the first shock had unsettled.

“Fires were breaking out in every direction. Market street had sunk at least four feet. I started for the ferry. It is only a few blocks from the Palace Annex to the ferry, but it took me from 6 a. m. to 10:15 a. m. to cover the space.

“Men and women fought about the entrance of the ferry like a band of infuriated animals.

“I made my escape—I do not remember how, for I was as desperate as any of them. As the boat pulled over the bay the smoke and flame rose sky high and the roar of falling buildings and the cries of the people rent the air.”

J. C. Gill, of Philadelphia, told his experiences as follows: [Pg 139]“Mrs. Gill and myself were in a room on the third floor of the hotel. We were awakened by the rocking of our beds. Then they seemed to be lifted from their legs, suspended in the air, and as suddenly dropped, while the plaster began cracking and falling. We arose and left our room after putting on a few clothes. We felt that with every step we were treading on glass and that the ten stories above us would fall, not allowing us to escape alive. But once outside the building and with our friends I began to realize what had happened.

“I made my way back to the room and carefully packed our suit cases. I came across a valuable necklace and pearls that my wife in her haste had left behind.

“With hundreds of others we roamed in the park in front of the hotel several hours. When we saw the fire was hemming in the lower part of the city we walked toward the outskirts. Early next morning we decided to leave the city, and started to the ferry. Policemen would stop us, and it was with difficulty and much trepidation that we walked through the burned district, and arrived at the wharf at 5:15, just fifteen minutes before the boat left.

“The scenes we passed through were sickening and indescribable. I fancy that scores of men, wharf rats, who had looted wholesale liquor houses and were maudlin drunk, were burned to death without being the wiser, because of their condition.”

“I had been stopping at the Metropole in Oakland,” said Frederick Lemon of New York, “and Tuesday night went to Frisco, where I stopped at the Terminal hotel, at the foot of Market street. The first shock threw all the loose articles around my room and I attempted to run unclad from the hotel. Just as I walked out the door I was struck by some heavy beams. I was stunned and while I lay there some one from the hotel brought me my clothing.

“At that time the streets were like bedlam. Soldiers were in control, and while the regulars were almost perfect in their [Pg 140]attempts to maintain order the militia men lost their heads. They shot some men without provocation, and never thought to cry ‘halt’ or ‘who comes there?’”

Henry Kohn of Chicago told of a horrible experience he had. “I had a room on the fifth floor of the Randolph Hotel, Mason and O’Farrell streets,” he said. “The first quake threw me out of bed. By the time I reached the second floor the building had ceased shaking, and I went back, got my clothes, and went into the street. In the building across the street twelve persons were killed. About 11 o’clock in the morning we were in the public square, with about 1,500 other refugees, when a severe shock was felt. People became panic stricken; some prayed, women fainted, and children shrieked and cried.

“The stream of people going up Nob and Telegraph hills all Wednesday was a pitiful sight. Many were barefooted and lightly clad. There was nothing to eat or drink.”

Sol Allenberg, a New York bookmaker, was with Kohn at the St. Francis Hotel. “I was sick in my room when the shock struck us,” he said, “and my friend helped me out to a boarding house on the hill. There I had to pay $7 for a room for the rest of the day.

“It was two miles from the fire and I thought I was safe enough when I got into my bed at noon, but about two hours later they awoke me to tell me that the fire was only two blocks away, and we got out only a short time before the house went up in flames.

“No exaggeration of the horrible scenes on the street is possible. There was one poor fellow pinned to earth with a great iron girder across his chest. It in turn was weighted down by a mass of wreckage that could not be moved. He could not be saved from the flames that were sweeping toward him, and begged a policeman to shoot him.

“The officer fired at him and missed him, and then an old man crawled through the debris and cut the arteries in the man’s wrists. The crowd hurried on and left him to die alone.”

[Pg 141]

CHAPTER IX.

THROUGH LANES OF MISERY.

A Graphic Pen Picture of San Francisco in Flames and in Ruins—Scenes and Stories of Human Interest where Millionaires and Paupers Mingled in a Common Brotherhood—A Harrowing Trip in an Automobile.

AMONG the most graphic and interesting pen pictures of scenes within and without the stricken city were those of Harry C. Carr, a newspaper photographer and correspondent of Los Angeles. This is his personal narrative:

I started from Los Angeles for the stricken city on that pitiful first train whose passengers were nearly all San Francisco men trying frantically to get back to their wives and children, whose fate they could only imagine.

All one terrible day I walked about through the lanes of the charred ruins that had once been San Francisco. I was one of the hungry who robbed grocery stores for their food; one of the parched thousands who eagerly drank water out of the gutter leakage of the fire engines.

After hours of discouraging failure, of being turned back by the sentries, with the sound of dynamited houses ringing in my ears, I managed at last to join the long caravan of homeless families carrying all the property left to them in the world in sheets.

Sometimes I walked with the daughter of a Van Ness avenue millionaire lugging a bundle over her shoulder, and again with a Chinaman moaning piteously over the loss of his laundry.

I came out of San Francisco on that broken-hearted first train carrying refugees, whose faces streamed with tears as they took [Pg 142]the last look from the Pullman windows at the weirdly beautiful red fringe of fire creeping along the ridges of the distant hills, burning the remnants of San Francisco.

An hour after the first word reached Los Angeles on that fateful Wednesday morning our train pulled out of the depot. There was an ominous number of reservations for Santa Barbara on the chair car. Most of the San Francisco men came on board there.

Beyond San Luis Obispo, two big freight trains were stalled by a cave-in caused by the earthquake. They crawled out just in time—before every one went mad.

At Salinas, about dark, the conductor came back, shaking his head; a freight train ahead at Pajaro had been completely buried by a mountain of earth hurled in the quake.

The men said it was likely to be a week before any train went through.

Three or four of us hurried into the town looking for an automobile. One of the passengers on the train was Mrs. Robert Louis Stevenson, and the news had been kept from her until this delay.

Strange to say, there were a number of automobiles in town, but none were to be had. One man was hurrying through from Los Angeles in his own touring car with his three boys to find his wife, their mother, who was somewhere in the burning city.

We were getting ready to hire saddle horses when the twin lights of an automobile came glaring down the street. There were two New England spinsters aboard. They had been in the Palace Hotel when the clerk telephoned to their rooms to tell them the city was burning and that the hotel was about to be blown up by dynamite by the soldiers of the Engineer Corps.

They hired an auto to San Jose at an outrageous price and paid $75 to be taken from there to Salinas. Had it not been for a bridge which kind Heaven smashed, I guess they would have been going yet. As it was, we persuaded them that the train [Pg 143]was the place for them and managed to hire the automobile back to San Jose. The cost was $20 a seat.

Men came to us and begged like frightened children to be taken; but we dared not risk a breakdown and had to refuse. But never shall I forget the look that was in their eyes.

We started at 10:30 and rode all night. It was bitterly cold and we suffered terribly, not having overcoats. The chauffeur had been using his auto all that morning taking medicines to the demolished insane asylum at Agnews.

His story of the scenes there was horrible. Scores of dead were lying stretched on the lawns and others were walking about hideously wounded. Amid this scene an insane woman was wandering, blithely singing little songs of her own improvision about the earthquake and the killing.

One giant maniac had broken his shackles and rescued one of the guards from the building. He had just one sane moment; long enough to be a hero. Then he fled howling into the hills.

It was just dawn when we got to San Jose. Sentries from the militia and special officers were patrolling the streets. A dead line had been established to keep persons away from wrecked buildings. There were jewelry stores whose fronts had been entirely torn off; these would have been plundered.

All through the city we saw people seated on beds on their front lawns, their houses having tumbled. On the front lawn of the Hotel Vendome was a bonfire about which were gathered twenty or thirty people. Every guest of the house had spent the night there with a blanket apiece.

We were just in time to catch the first train to go through to San Francisco. All along the route through such towns as Palo Alto and Belmont, we saw shattered buildings, warehouses with whole sides neatly cut off as though with a knife. One big warehouse of brick had completely buried a freight train standing on a siding.

During the night we could see the dull red glow that came [Pg 144]from the burning city. Now we could see the huge copper-colored clouds that almost hid the sun. As we came nearer the city we could hear the distant explosions of the dynamite with which the soldiers were wrecking the buildings. They came to us in dull but quick thumps.

The train got no further than Valencia street. As soon as we got off we saw the first stragglers of the great army of the homeless and ruined.

Sentries stopped us before we had gone a block, so a cheerful good-looking young fellow, who had seen first his home and his tailor shop utterly destroyed that morning, offered to be our guide.

He took us past the Hotel Valencia, which was the worst sufferer from the earthquake. The big building had been literally poured out into the street in a stream of splintered wood. No one knows how many people perished in it.

On the corner next the Valencia was a new set of three-story flats, just completed, and most of the flats not yet occupied. As though some one had struck it on top with a giant hammer, the entire building had sunk one story into the ground; you could walk right in at the second story.

Turning down into Steiner street, we were caught in the flood of the strangest tide the world ever saw. There never was anything like this before.

These were people warned to leave their homes from some district newly doomed to the Fire God.

They were trekking, in a long, motley procession, to find some park not already crowded to overflowing.

One of the first that I met was a little family beginning life over again. What they had been able to rescue before the flames came was packed in a little express wagon. The elderly husband was drawing this. Behind him came his wife. With the forethought of a woman, she had either bought or stolen two packages of breakfast food—all that stood between them and starvation. [Pg 145]They looked drawn and anxious; and were rather peculiar in this regard.

Most of the refugees leaving their homes were cheerful.

I saw a pretty “tailor-made girl” meeting her friend on the street. One of them had a little bundle of things tied in a handkerchief.

“That’s everything I own in this world,” she said, grinning—positively grinning.

“That’s nothing,” said the other girl, smiling back, “I haven’t a rag to my back or a cent of money, and I’ve lost track of my family somewhere in this crowd.”

“Oh, well, what’s the use of worrying?” And with that they parted.

Another touching little group was led by the father, who carried a sheet tied up with what he could carry. The young mother was dragging a child’s express wagon laden mostly with provisions. Behind her trooped two sweet little girls. One was wrapped up in a big shawl (this was just after sunrise.) A kitten, which she held in her arms, was poking its nose protestingly out from the shawl. Bringing up the rear was the other little tot, hugging a doll under each arm.

A fine looking young fellow in khaki trousers and a fashionable coat was packing an enormous clothes bundle. His young wife was clinging to his arm. It was everything they had left in the world, probably out of years of hard saving, but they were both almost going along with good spirits.

A little further up the street, I saw a refined looking young girl cooking breakfast in the gutter. She wore a handsomely made but badly torn skirt and had a remarkably fine bracelet on one wrist. Her oven was made of two bricks and a toasting grill. A young man was bringing her bits of fire wood and they were consulting together over the frying of bacon.

Further on were two other women doing the same thing and having fun out of it between themselves.

[Pg 146]“Is it so very much farther?” was the only complaint that came from one tired little woman who looked ready to faint. She was staggering under the weight of a huge bundle. She looked unused to work and her lips were white and trembling with exhaustion. She rested just a minute, then staggered on without another word of complaint.

Men spoke kindly to her, but none offered to help her, because Woe was the great leveler and all were on the same footing. All the day I spent in San Francisco, I only heard one person speak unkindly to another. I wish I had that young man’s name, just as a curiosity. He had been hired by a woman to drag a big Roman chair filled with treasures up the street.

“There,” he said, insolently, “I have earned all the money I got for that; now take it along yourself.”

Without a word, the woman took the chair from him and wheeled it on herself.

One rather amusing group was wheeling an immense and very handsome dining-room table. The young man who was pulling from the front was protesting vigorously; but the two young girls who shoved from behind, digging their stubby fashionable little oxford ties in the dirt for foothold, urged him peremptorily on. Following them was a half-grown hobbledehoy boy, strong enough to have packed an ox, who was doing his heavy share by carrying a little glass vase.

In a doorway half way up the hill, I saw an old Chinaman sitting with his bundle, which was all he had been able to save. He was just saying, “Oh, oh, oh,” in a curious, half-sobbing moan that never seemed to cease.

The young tailor with me said the Chinaman had lost his laundry and was terror-stricken lest the white people should make him pay for their clothes.

While his own tailor shop was burning, the young tailor said that he was out trying to rescue the trapped victims in the burning Hotel Brunswick.

[Pg 147]He could only get hold of one living man. He seemed to be caught in the wreckage, the smoke being too thick to permit one to see just how. Strong hands caught his feet and pulled desperately. When they dragged him out at last, they found that he had been caught under the chin. In pulling him out they cut his throat almost from ear to ear.

As we gained the top of the hill on Steiner street, a San Francisco man who came in with me on the train stopped dead still. “My God; look there!” he said, his voice catching with a sob.

Through the rift of the buildings we caught our first glimpse of the dying city.

“That was Market street,” said the San Francisco man, softly.

He pointed across a vast black plain, hundreds of acres in extent, to a row of haggard, gaunt specters that did seem to be in two lines like a street.

“There’s the City Hall,” he said, tremulously, pointing to a large dome surmounting a pile of ruins and surrounded like some hellish island with vast stretches of smouldering ashes and twisted iron girders.

The San Francisco man found a tottering, blackened pile of wall that he said was Mechanic’s Pavilion, and a sort of thin peak of brick that he said was the new Bell Theater. He would go over the town from the top of the hill and torture himself trying to locate San Francisco’s splendid landmarks in these acres of ash heaps.

Down in the middle of the city I found two young men in a violent argument over the location of Market street in the ashes.

At the pretty little park, Fell and Steiner streets, we came upon one of the strange little cities of refugees. I should pronounce this one of the most select residence districts of San Francisco now. It is the only home of hundreds upon hundreds of once well-to-do San Francisco people now ruined.

It was heart-rending to see the women tidying things up and trying to invent new ideas for attractive homes—trying to make [Pg 148]their homes look better than their neighbors’, just as they did before.

Some women made odd little bowers of two blankets and a sheet tent.

I passed one tent where a young mother was lying at ease with her little girl, under a parasol. Just as I was going by, the little girl demanded “another.” The mother laughed happily and began, “Well, once upon a time——”

As though one of the stories of all the ages was not going on down the hill below her!

To one of the groups on the lawn came a young man grinning all over and positively swaggering. He was received with shrieks of joy. He had six cans of sardines. He brought them to people who would have been insulted at the idea two days ago.

The San Francisco man invited me into his house, where we saw the wreck of his cut glass and library. But he forgot it all over a rare piece of good fortune that had befallen. The maid had managed to get a whole tea kettle of water. It was vile and muddy; but it was water.

The young tailor told me that he had gone from daylight until 11:30, parching for a drink. The saloons were closed by order of Gen. Funston, but he managed to get beer from a saloon man.

In some parts of the city there is plenty of water. But I saw people rushing eagerly with buckets to catch the water out of gutters where it had leaked from a fire hose. In the first terrible water famine, the firemen broke into sewers and threw sewer water on the fires.

The dramatic moments came as one neighborhood after another was told to pack up and move out. It was the sounding of doom. I saw several of these sorrowful dramas.

One was in an old-fashioned street where old southern houses with iron dogs planted about the lawns had been pressed in upon by lodging-houses and corner groceries. It seemed mockery to [Pg 149]think how the people in the aristocratic old houses must have raged at the intrusion of the corner stores. How futile it seemed now!

Came a dapper young cavalry lieutenant into the street. From their porches people watched him with pathetic anxiety. They could see the sentry’s heels click together and his carbine snap down to a present. With a few words the officer would hurry on.

Making a megaphone of his hands, the sentry would turn and bawl these words up the otherwise silent street: “This street is going to be dynamited; if you want anything in the grocery store, go to it!”

The balance of his remarks, if there were any, would be lost in a shout of applause from the crowds that seemed to smell such things. A rush for the grocery store would follow.

Men would come out laden to staggering with loot—canned goods, flour, bacon, hams, coffee—as much as they could possibly pack.

I saw one little girl not over four. This was the day she always had been dreaming of. Hugged to her heart was an enormous jar of stick candy, big enough to give her stomach-ache for the rest of her life. She could hardly lift it; but she put it down to rest, then went panting on.

At the warning of the sentry, the whole family in each house would rush back through the front door to rescue whatever treasure lay nearest their hearts. They only had four or five minutes. Men would come dragging bureaus and lounges. Often a man would be pulling along the family pride, the woman shoving from behind.

In one thrilling rescue I had the distinction of participating. An elderly woman grabbed me excitedly by the arms and gasped, “Catch it.”

She pointed to a dejected canary perched on a window sill. I shinned gallantly up the side of a dead wall; just touched the [Pg 150]canary bird with the tips of my fingers. It flew and a lady caught it triumphantly like a baseball as it came down. She went away “mothering” it.

Presently, the sentry would shout another warning and the people would scurry away, peeking out from behind safe corners. As if by magic, the streets would be thick with soldiers. The engineers would place the dynamite and they would all hurry out of danger.

Bang! And the grocery store would go scattering into the air.

It must be confessed that the dynamiting did very little good. It seemed to provide fine splintered timber as kindling for fiercer flames which jumped the gap supposed to check them.

The sound of the explosions was to be heard all day long almost like minute guns.

Let a word be interjected here about those splendid boys in blue uniform hurried into the city from the forts about San Francisco. They make one proud of the army. No more superbly policed city ever existed than the burning and stricken San Francisco.

Soldiers seemed to be everywhere. Almost at every street corner with fixed bayonet and ominous cartridge belt. Infantry, cavalry (some mounted infantry) and engineers, all doing sentry duty.

Gen. Funston was in personal command—not from his office, either. He went plowing around the most perilous streets soaked to the skin from the fire engines.

San Francisco in this time of panic and distress was more quiet and orderly than ever before. I saw not a single disturbance of the peace. With it all, the soldiers were polite, and seemed to try in every way to show courtesy and consideration. When they had to order people back, they did it in a quiet and gentlemanly way.

[Pg 151]

CAMP KITCHEN.

Cooking in Baseball Park.

SHACKS ERECTED IN A FEW HOURS.

Another view in Golden Gate Park.

[Pg 152]

GOVERNOR PARDEE OF CALIFORNIA.

The prompt help in relief work rendered by Gov. Pardee stamps him as one of the greatest humanitarians of the present day.

MAJOR GENERAL ADOLPHUS W. GREELY.

Commander of the Pacific Division of the U. S. Army in the earthquake district. General Greely is well known for his Arctic expedition.

I met men who claimed to have seen men shot down by the [Pg 153]soldiers for defying orders for unlicensed looting. Also there is a story of a negro being shot dead by a policeman for robbing a dead body.

One story I would like to believe—that a poor wretch pinned in among the blazing ruins roasting to death begged to be shot and some cavalry trooper had the moral courage to send a bullet through his brain.

Although I walked probably fifteen miles back and forth through the city, I saw very little unlicensed looting. Many grocery stores which did not seem to be in immediate danger, were thrown open; one very oddly. The proprietor nailed up one window with slats about four inches wide. He made the refugees line up, and each was privileged to take all he could reach through the window slats.

Some grocers and tradesmen were not so charitable. In other places I saw them demanding from people in danger of starving, 75 cents a loaf for bread.

Bread was the scarcest article except water.

The last of the tragedy that I witnessed was not only the most dramatic but the most tremendous.

It should be called the “Exodus,” for it was a Biblical scene. It was the headlong flight of those who were most terror-stricken to get out of the doomed city.

All day long a procession of almost countless thousands was to be seen hurrying with all the possessions they could carry. There were people with bundles, packs, laden express wagons, hacks bulging with plunder, brewery wagons pressed into service, automobiles, push carts, even fire hose wagons.

I happened along at a crucial moment. One of the lieutenants whose peculiar and melancholy function seemed to be to pronounce the doom of one section after another, had just sent warning to Nob Hill, the center of fashion in San Francisco.

For hours I had been working my way toward the Oakland ferries. As a last hope, some one told me I might get there by [Pg 154]going over these hills and following the line of the water front.

I got there after the warning had been given. It was San Francisco’s wealthiest and most exclusive society who had to pack and sling their bundles over their shoulders.

And they did it with just as good grace and courage as the others. All were making a frantic attempt to hire expressmen with any kind of vehicle that would move, and most of them were failing.

During the first of the fire, some young society women with very poor taste, went autoing around the stricken districts as though it were a circus. They were stopped by a sentry and were made to get out of their car and hand it over to a posse of special officers being hurried to some district in new peril.

As I gained the top of Nob Hill and turned to look back, it was clear why the warning had been given. In one direction, hospitals were burning south of Market street.

In the center distance the big car barns were on fire and roaring with flames. Ordinarily this would have been a sensation of a week. Now it wasn’t even considered worth while to send fire engines and nobody stopped to look as they walked by.

The main streets, where the business part of the city had been, were black with an immense throng of people who were walking up and down among the ruins.

Looking toward the ferries, I could count nine big skyscrapers, all crowned with fire, outlined in a lurid row against the sky line. The flames were creeping slowly, but with deadly persistence, toward Nob Hill, with several lesser fires blazing in between.

It was high time Nob Hill was moving.

One old man had chartered an express wagon, and was on top of the wagon frantically interfering with the work of removing the goods from a big, aristocratic-looking house.

“The books!” he shrieked, “Why in heaven’s sake don’t you bring the books?”

[Pg 155]A swagger young woman came to the door with a handsome mantel clock and walked calmly down the stairs. “Please put this in some especially safe place, please,” she said, as composedly as though this were nothing more than any ordinary moving day.

Down the street I saw a woman with the bearing of a patrician shoving at the rear of a push cart, loaded with all of the few things she could save; a servant was drawing it.

Behind came a young girl, who half turned for a last look at the house, and burst out crying. Her mother left the load for a moment and comforted her. “Never mind, dear,” she said. “Don’t cry! See, mamma isn’t crying.”

“Mamma” knew that in a few minutes her home and all the property she had in the world would die in the fire just as her husband’s business had already done; but mamma wasn’t crying.

On the corner of Van Ness avenue and Broadway, I saw a girl well dressed, who had evidently been driven out from there. All she had saved was a bed tick filled with something. As it was very hot, and she was very tired, she had spread it on the pavement, and was watching the throng from under her parasol.

I saw another girl in a trig outing suit and little patent-leather shoes, toss a bundle, done up in a sheet, over her shoulder and walk away in the procession with the most fascinating nonchalance.

One woman I saw going away in an elegantly-fitted private carriage. It was drawn by two horses with tails about two inches long and soaring; so she must have been near the top of the Upper Crust.

She, too, joined in the flight. Just as she got to the bottom of the hill she had the driver stop. I saw her turn and take a last wistful look from her carriage window at her doomed home. She was not attempting to take anything with her. Like many others, she had simply locked her door and gone.

Many of these people, rich one day, are practically paupers on [Pg 156]the morrow. Many of them slept outdoors in the parks under a blanket, afraid to sleep in their own palatial homes.

What I call the “Exodus” fled down Van Ness avenue to the water front, thence along the Barbary Coast and tough water front by an enormously long detour to the ferries; it was the only way, the town streets being on fire and closed by the military.

The farther you went along the more conglomerate the throng became. The inhabitants of the foreign quarters began pouring out to join the flight.

I was so tired with a long day spent walking about the burning city that it seemed an impossibility that I should keep on. Every step was actual physical pain.

Twenty passing cabs, returning from the ferries, I stopped and tried to charter. The drivers, after bigger game, would wave me aside and say “Nothin’ doin’.”

One cabby said that he had to hurry out to the other end of the city to rescue his own family who were in danger. Another young autocrat on the cabby’s box took a long puff on his cigarette before he replied to my appeal.

“Fellow, you couldn’t hire this hack for a million dollars,” he said.

There was one amusing feature in the terrible procession. She was a haughty dame from Van Ness avenue. All that she could save she had stuffed into a big striped bed tick. She was trying to drag this along, and at the same time trying to maintain the dignity of a perfect lady. Candidly, it was not a success. One can stick pretty nearly everything into a striped bed quilt, but not dignity.

All along the way were women who had dropped out from exhaustion and were sitting there with their bundles in utter despair.

[Pg 157]

CHAPTER X.

WHOLE NATION RESPONDS WITH AID.

Government Appropriates Millions and Chicago Leads All Other Cities with a Round Million of Dollars—People in All Ranks of Life from President Roosevelt to the Humblest Wage Earner Give Promptly and Freely.

THE fiery destruction of the beautiful city and the pitiable plight of the survivors who escaped annihilation from quake and fire only to face death in the equally horrible forms of starvation and exposure touched the heartstrings of humanity. The response to the needs of the stricken city and its people was so prompt, so universal and so generous that forever it will appeal to the admiration of mankind. It was a response that did not wait to be asked but in the moment when the need became known voluntarily turned the tide of the abundance of the unstricken to the help of the unfortunate before they had even breath to voice their need.

All over our own land, from every state and city and hamlet, from the president and the assembled congress, dropping all else to turn the nation’s resources generously to the rescue, through all grades of the people the response broke forth spontaneously, generously, warmly, without stint and with such practical promptness that relief for unexampled distress was already on the way before the close of the first fateful day.

From all the seeming sordidness of daily life one turns to this as proof incontestable that humanity is at heart infinitely kinder and better and less selfish than it esteems itself. Even other lands and other peoples when the horror of the calamity became known to them, added to the stream of gold, which had its beginning [Pg 158]in the sympathetic hearts of the American people and its ending in the stricken and despairing city. Once more were the lines of the geographer and politician obliterated and there was in the lurid light of the awful hours no north, no south, no east, no west. Once more did those in charge of the coffers of the municipalities raise high the lid and contribute to relieve the woe.

And Chicago, as became the Queen City of the Lakes, and which once in an almost equally dire calamity was, herself, the recipient of generous aid, was among the very first which recognized the need of prompt and generous aid. Almost as soon as the news of the direful plight of the city by the Golden Gate had been flashed over the wires, the Merchants’ Association of Chicago telegraphed to the authorities of San Francisco that it would be responsible for a relief fund of $1,000,000, and that any portion of that sum could be drawn upon at once. Then Mayor Dunne issued a call for a special relief meeting at which a big committee of the leading men of the city was formed and immediately went to work. Fraternal organizations, the newspapers and the clubs became also active solicitors for aid.

For several days the streets of the city presented a peculiar appearance. Upon the street corners stood boxes showing that funds deposited within would reach the homeless of the Pacific coast. Smaller boxes stood in the hotels that the strangers in the city might have an opportunity to contribute. Within the large stores in the business center were other boxes that the shoppers might have an opportunity of displaying their sympathy in something more tangible than words. Upon other corners stood the men and women of the Volunteers of America and the inscriptions above their boxes told that all pennies, nickels and dimes would eventually find their way to the stricken of San Francisco.

But while Chicago was the first of distant cities to pledge a big contribution, other cities throughout the country were not far behind. In Faneuil Hall, Boston, a meeting which [Pg 159]overcrowded that historic temple of liberty was held, and Bishop Mallalieu of the Methodist church, at the close of an eloquent address, had a motion enthusiastically passed that the state of Massachusetts raise $3,000,000 for the relief of the earthquake and fire victims of the Pacific coast. In the meantime the city of Boston had already pledged $500,000 of that amount.

The city of Philadelphia at a formal meeting of its council voted $100,000, while the relief committee of the people there had secured $125,000 for the sufferers of the stricken city.

And the congress of the United States, as became it, was prompt in action. In the lower house a bill appropriating $1,000,000 was introduced and passed at once, and a few days later a similar measure of relief was adopted, making the contribution of the government $2,000,000 altogether. This was about one-third as much as was required to care for the thousands who were made homeless by the Chicago disaster of 1871. President Roosevelt also sent a message to congress urging a further contribution of $500,000, and in an address to the public urged that they send contributions to the National Red Cross society as the readiest means by which the afflicted could be reached. Governor Deneen of Illinois also issued a proclamation to the like effect. Secretary of War Taft, in his capacity of President of the American National Red Cross society, issued a proclamation in which he announced that the necessary work of organization to feed and shelter the people was placed in the hands of the Red Cross society, under the direction of General Funston, Commander of the Department of the Pacific. In this way matters were made systematic and authoritative and assurances given that the contributions of the nation would be honestly and economically distributed to those in need. Among other states and cities not already mentioned, whose contributions were generous enough to deserve permanent record, were the following—and the amounts named may be in most cases set down as somewhat below the real final figures:

[Pg 160]

Texas	$100,000
Connecticut	30,000
St. Louis, Mo.	100,000
Sacramento	100,000
Seattle, Wash.	90,000
Victoria, B. C.	25,000
Spokane, Wash.	30,000
Milwaukee	30,000
City of Mexico	30,000
Des Moines	10,000
Jacksonville, Fla.	10,000
Los Angeles	200,000
Cincinnati	75,000
Omaha	10,000
Providence, R. I.	20,000
Davenport, Iowa	20,000
Stockton, Cal.	20,000
Portland, Ore.	130,000
Sacramento, Cal.	100,000
Columbus, O.	20,000

Among individuals in this and other countries who promptly sent in their contributions were the following:

Russell Sage	$ 5,000
London Americans	12,500
Clarence H. Mackay	100,000
Mrs. John W. Mackay	5,000
Robert Lebaudy	10,000
W. W. Astor	100,000
President Roosevelt	1,000
Senator Knox	500
C. J. Burrage, Boston oil dealer	100,000
President Diaz, Mexico	100,000
E. H. Harriman (for his railroads)	200,000
Andrew Carnegie	100,000
Charles Sweeney, New York	10,000
W. K. Vanderbilt	25,000
“Friend of Humanity,” New York	25,000
H. C. Frick	10,000
Gordon Blanding	10,000
H. M. Bowers, Boston	10,000
Robert Schandy, France	10,000

[Pg 161]Among the corporations and organizations which lost no time in going to the rescue of the afflicted and helpless were the following:

Bank of Commerce, Toronto	$ 25,000
Columbus Board of Trade	20,000
National Carpenters’ union	10,000
United States Steel Corporation	100,000
Kuhn, Loeb & Co., New York	25,000
United Mineworkers of America	1,000
Standard Oil Company	100,000
North German Lloyd Steamship Company	25,000
Wisconsin Masons	5,000
Carnegie Hero Fund	25,000
Heidelback-Ickleheimer, New York	10,000
National Park bank, New York	5,000
New York Stock Exchange	250,000
Citizens’ Relief Association, Philadelphia	100,000
Detroit Board of Commerce	10,000
N. K. Fairbank Co.	1,000
National Biscuit Co.	5,000
Hamburg-American Steamship Line	25,000
Canadian Parliament	100,000

[Pg 162]

CHAPTER XI.

ALL CO-OPERATE IN RELIEF WORK.

Citizens’ Committee Takes Charge of the Distribution of Supplies, Aided by the Red Cross Society and the Army—Nearly Three-Fourths of the Entire Population Fed and Sheltered in Refuge Camps.

PRESIDENT ROOSEVELT inaugurated the organized and systematic relief work through the National Red Cross Society. Before the embers of the conflagration had cooled he issued the following statement:

Washington, D. C., April 22.—The following statement was issued from the White House this afternoon:

“To the public: After full consultation with Secretary Taft, the president of the American National Red Cross Association, who also as secretary of war is controlling the army work and the expenditure of the money, probably two millions and a half, appropriated and to be appropriated by congress for the relief of San Francisco, I wish to make the following suggestion:

“Contributions both in money and in kind are being given most generously for the relief of those who have suffered through this appalling calamity. Unless there is a proper organization for handling these contributions they will in large part be wasted and will in large part fail to reach the people to whom it is most to be desired they should reach.

“The American National Red Cross Association has sent out to take charge of the relief work Dr. Edward Devine, general secretary of the Charity Organization Society of New York, whose experience has been large in work of this kind. Dr. Devine will work in conjunction with Judge Morrow, United States [Pg 163]Circuit judge of the Ninth circuit, and the head of the California Red Cross Association. Gen. Funston already has been directed to co-operate with Dr. Devine, and has advised the secretary of war that he will do so.

“Secretary Metcalf, who is on his way to the Pacific slope, will at once put himself in touch with Dr. Devine, as well as with the judge, the governor of California, and the mayor of San Francisco, to see if there is anything else the administration can do, and he will assist in all possible ways the effort to systematize what is being done.

“I recommend that all charitable and relief organizations and individuals who desire to contribute do so through the Red Cross Association, and that where provisions and supplies be sent they be consigned to Dr. Devine, Red Cross, San Francisco, and that Dr. Devine be notified by telegraph of the consignments. At the same time Jacob H. Schiff, the treasurer of the New York Red Cross Association, in New York, may be notified that the consignments have been sent to Dr. Devine, or else the notification can be sent to Charles H. Keep, assistant secretary of the treasury, Washington, D. C., and treasurer of the American National Red Cross Association.

“I also suggest that all contributions that already have been forwarded be brought to the attention of Dr. Devine by telegraph, which telegram should state the name and address of the consignee and the amount and nature of the consignment. It is better to send all moneys to Mr. Keep or Mr. Schiff; they will then be telegraphed to Dr. Devine as the money is needed.

“The White House, April 22, 1906. Theodore Roosevelt.”

At the time the foregoing was issued the President was not aware that the Citizens’ Committee of San Francisco headed by ex-Mayor James D. Phelan was completely organized for relief work and was at the time directing the succor of the victims.

Upon learning this fact he speedily endorsed the committee [Pg 164]and its work, and instructed the Red Cross Society to co-operate with the Citizens’ Committee.

President Roosevelt aroused criticism in some directions by declining aid from foreign countries. The first tenders of aid from abroad came from foreign steamship companies and later several foreign governments expressed a desire to contribute. The President took the ground that the United States was able to provide all the relief necessary. The justification for his attitude was expressed in an address by General Stewart L. Woodford, former minister to Spain, speaking with the authority of the President. He said:

“The President, in the midst of the horrors of San Francisco kindly but firmly declined the assistance offered by the other nations, and especially, through St. George’s society, the assistance of England. The President meant simply that, bowed as the American people were under their load, it was his wish that the American people show to the world that under such an adversity the United States would take care of its own; would rise equal to the terrible occasion; would feed their own hungry, would clothe their own naked, and, spurred on by the indomitable courage which this people always have exhibited under stress of distracting calamity, set up their flag and move to the assistance of ‘the city that once was,’ and build a new city, even though the earth shook beneath its foundations.

“In doing this—in refusing your great beneficence, the President still feels that he is greatly honored, as the American people are, in that England and the other great nations not only sent messages of regret, but offers of substantial material aid. He felt that the nation, as a nation, would set an example to other nations.”

All funds and supplies were dispensed through the Citizens’ Committee or general relief committee as it was known, with the co-operation of the army and the Red Cross. Money, food, shelter and clothing poured in from every quarter. On the [Pg 165]Monday succeeding the fire the food problem had been solved and its distribution reduced to a system. The people were fed thereafter in a thoroughly businesslike manner. From the water front, where the boatloads of provisions docked, there was an endless procession of carts and drays carrying food to the scores of substations established throughout the city and the parks. At these stations food and drink, comprising bread, prepared meats, and canned goods, milk, and a limited amount of hot coffee, was served to all those who applied. About 1,500 tons of provisions were being moved daily from the water front.

The food supply committee had fifty-two food depots in operation. Plain food of every description was plentiful.

The troops who dispensed the food played no favorites. Sometimes it took two or three hours to get through the lines, and with three meals a day a man living in the parks passed a good part of his time standing for his food.

The Red Cross saw that weak women and children were provided for without waiting in line. Even the people living in houses had to take their chances with the rest of the crowd in the parks near by.

Fully 30,000 refugees were fed by the government at the Presidio and North beach. Provisions were bountifully supplied to all who made application, and there was no suffering from hunger. Over 10,000 tents were given and the authorities distributed them as long as the supply lasted.

Barracks were erected in Golden Gate Park to accommodate 15,000 persons. The buildings contained thirty rooms, in two room apartments, with kitchen arranged so as to suit a family or be divided for the use of single men.

By great luck a lot of lumber yards along the water front escaped. Their stock was appropriated and used for barracks. Two or three lumber schooners arriving from the northern forest country were seized and the stocks used for the same purpose.

Further, the Red Cross, with the approval of Funston, [Pg 166]went through the standing residence district and made every householder give over his spare room to refugees. Here, generosity was its own reward. Those residents of the western addition who took in burned out friends or chance acquaintances on the first day had a chance to pick their company. Those who were selfish about it had to take whomsoever the Red Cross sent, even Chinese and new arrivals from Hungary.

The Red Cross people enjoyed the grim joke of this. They trotted ten refugees up to the door of a Pacific Heights residence. The woman of the house came to the door. The sergeant in charge made brief explanation.

“Heavens,” she said, looking them over. “You have brought me two of my discharged cooks.”

“See that the guests are quartered in the parlor,” said the sergeant briefly to his high private.

What with tents, barracks, the exodus to other parts of California, the plan of concentration in the standing houses of the western addition, there was shelter for everyone.

The water supply improved every day. Nearly everywhere the order to boil drinking water was enforced.

All vacant houses in the unburned district were seized. Many vacant flats were taken where the homeless are housed and the sick found good accommodations. Churches, and other buildings, including schoolhouses, were turned into living rooms for the homeless.

In some of the provisional camps established for refugees near the foot of Van Ness avenue and near Fort Mason it was difficult to distinguish men from women. The supply of women’s clothing had been exhausted, and many women could be seen dressed in ordinary soft shirts and overalls. In that garb they walked about their tents unconcernedly.

It was no time for false modesty and those who were able to make themselves comfortable in any sort of clothing were indeed fortunate.

[Pg 167]Within a week conditions had improved so rapidly that there was enough water in the mains to justify the removal of the restrictions on washing. Up to that time the only way to get a bath was to dip into the bay. Lights, only candles, of course, were allowed up to 10 p. m.

An idea of the Titanic task of feeding the refugees may be gained from the figures of the number of hungry people fed in one day. Throughout the city rations for 349,440 persons were distributed. At one point provisions were given out to 672 people in an hour for ten hours.

Two thousand persons were fed daily at St. Mary’s cathedral on Van Ness avenue, a relief station organized by the Rev. Father Hannigan and headed by him as chairman of the committee. This was perhaps the best organized and most systematically conducted private station in the city. The committee has a completed directory of the fifty square blocks in the district, and so perfect was the system that there is no duplicating and wrangling. Nine substations gave out orders, and it was arranged for those stations to give out food also. Fourteen members of the clergy were in charge of the various branches of the work.

The emergency hospitals were well organized under direction of army medical officers, and there were plenty of doctors and nurses after the second day.

The only complaint that really existed at that time was the lack of bedding. Though the army and navy were called upon for blankets, quilts, and the like, the supply furnished by those departments was not enough to relieve immediate needs.

Only 30 patients were quartered in the territory that comprised the park emergency hospital at the end of the first week. Considering that over 500 injured people received attention at the park during that time the record was remarkable.

More than 100 physicians and attendants were serving in the park within forty-eight hours after the first shock.

[Pg 168]Among the many pathetic scenes connected with the work of relief were others that illustrated the saving sense of humor which keeps people from going insane in times of great calamity and mental stress.

In the vestibule of a church they were giving away clothes. One shivering woman was being fitted out. “Here, dear,” said the woman in charge, “here is a nice, good warm waist.” “Oh, I couldn’t wear it,” she answered. “You know, I’m in mourning.”

Another girl near by said: “Yes, please, I want a waist. I want pink and white, you know; they’re my favorite colors.”

Quite suddenly the smile died on our lips. A little mother came up. “I want clothes for my baby; it’s cold,” she said.

They took the baby from her, and a man near by said to another: “The child is dead.”

We went down to Broadway to look for friends. Some people were so dazed they would make no effort to reach the homes of their friends. On the corner was a dapper youth whom we have long known.

A helpful feature of the relief work was the establishment by the Southern Pacific company of a chain of information kept by bureaus, which was served by relays of pony riders carrying the latest bulletins and instructions relative to transportation facilities, provided to relieve the congestion in San Francisco.

A committee sent by the Japanese consul, representing the Japanese relief society, cared for many of the stricken Japanese who still remain in the city. They rendered assistance to white people wherever required. They wired to every large city on the coast asking for supplies to be sent by the Japanese.

It was the desire of President Roosevelt that the work of the Red Cross in alleviating the distress in San Francisco should be done wholly without regard to the person and just as much for the Chinese as for any others.

[Pg 169]

REFUGEES ON TELEGRAPH HILL.

These people sought a safe place and are watching their houses and the city burning. Many of them carried bedding, pictures, relics, etc., with them—all they could carry and get to a safe place with their lives.

[Pg 170]

GENERAL FUNSTON AND WIFE.

[Pg 171]

CHAPTER XII.

OUR BOYS IN BLUE PROVE HEROISM.

United States Troops at the Presidio and Fort Mason Under Command of General Funston Bring Order Out of Chaos and Save City from Pestilence—San Francisco Said “Thank God for the Boys in Blue”—Stricken City Patrolled by Soldiers.

THANK GOD for the Boys in Blue!” was the ardent and praiseful exclamation of the people of San Francisco during and after the terrible days that rent by shock and consumed by fire their beautiful city. And as their courage and devotion to save and protect, and their tenderness towards the dying and the dead became known the entire country re-echoed the tribute. For it was the soldiers of Uncle Sam, untiring and unafraid amidst horrors and dangers seen and unseen, that stood between half-crazed refugees from the quake and the fire and downright starvation and anarchy.

When the catastrophe occurred Major General A. W. Greely, in command of the military department of the Pacific, was on his way east to attend the marriage of his daughter, and so the command of the troops and of the department devolved on Brigadier General Frederick Funston; and as on previous occasions when pluck and wise decision were required he showed himself equal to the emergency. The first thing that was done was to divide that portion of the city where order and protection were most needed into six districts, four of them being guarded by the military, one by the marine and one by the navy. Other portions of the city were patrolled by the National Guard and by the city’s police force. Because of these arrangements there was thereafter but [Pg 172]little trouble, and practically no more looting. During the fire General Funston established his headquarters at Fort Mason on the cliffs of Black Point, and at once it became the busiest and most picturesque spot in San Francisco. There was an awe-inspiring dignity about the place, with its many guards, military ensemble and the businesslike movements of officers and men. Few were allowed to enter within its gates, and the missions of those who did find their way within were disposed of with that accuracy and dispatch peculiar to government headquarters. Scores of automobiles rushed in and out of the gate, and each car contained an armed guardsman in the front seat furiously blowing a sentry whistle to clear the roadway. At the sound of that tremolo the crowds scattered as if by magic. San Francisco was virtually under martial law, and order was wrought from chaos.

After the quake the President and Secretary Taft were chiefly concerned at first with getting supplies, and that work was performed with extraordinary expedition and thoroughness. At the same time they were rushing troops, marines, and sailors to guard the devastated city.

The marvelous work done by the soldiers, from General Funston down to the newest recruit, won the admiration and congratulations of the entire country. The sentiment everywhere was and is that the army has demonstrated its splendid capacity not only to preserve peace in the face of armed resistance, but to take charge of affairs in a stricken city at a time when intelligent discipline was more needed than everything else.

Secretary Taft expressed the belief that congress would have to give him absolution for the violence he had done the constitution in those terrible days. He ordered General Funston to take complete command of the city, to put martial law into effect, and to enforce sanitary regulations without regard to the wishes of the people.

The war department had been morally responsible for the unhesitating way in which the troops shot down looters and [Pg 173]the people who refused to understand that great situations must be controlled without regard to law.

It was the soldiers apparently who brought order out of chaos. They headed the unfortunate refugees farther and farther on ahead of the flames, until finally they had located the vast homeless mob in the Presidio, in the Golden Gate Park, and in other wide expanses. General Funston had not exceeded his orders. He was given full discretion to employ his forces as he saw fit. He turned loose the soldiers under him with general instructions to act as their own good sense dictated, and it is to the eternal credit of the noncommissioned officers and the privates that every report sent to the war department and all the descriptions in the press reports indicated that the army had saved the situation in San Francisco.

When a sturdy sergeant brought down the butt of his musket on the counter of a bake shop where they were beginning to sell bread at 75 cents a loaf, and announced that bread thereafter in that concern would be sold at 10 cents a loaf or there would be one less baker in the world, he was guilty of an act which in any other time might have landed him in prison.

If he is punished for it now, it will only be after the Secretary of War and the President are impeached, because he was only obeying the spirit if not the letter of their instructions to General Funston.

Soldiers guarded the water wagons, which were driven about the streets, and this show of force was necessary, so that the scanty supplies might be distributed with even-handed justice. In the same way, when General Funston issued orders as the result of which the soldiers compelled citizens to dig graves for the temporary interment of the dead, he violated the law most flagrantly, but he acted as the emergency demanded, and the incident contributed with other things to make the army organization of the United States a little bit the most popular thing in the country in these days.

[Pg 174]When the army was reduced at the close of the Philippine insurrection, the machinery was left intact. In this way, although the quartermasters’ stores in San Francisco were wiped out of existence, it was possible to hurry supplies to San Francisco. They began arriving there promptly and the danger of famine was averted.

It is the purpose of the war department to continue practical martial law in San Francisco.

It is believed the greatest work of the soldiers, in which term of course are to be included the marines and sailors as well, was in the prevention of pestilence. Practically all of the house to house sewage system of San Francisco had been destroyed. An army of two or three hundred thousand men encamped in the suburbs of a great city would ordinarily die like flies unless it provided itself with proper facilities for the removal of garbage and the general sanitary cleansing of the immense camp. Even with trained soldiers under strict discipline it was an extremely difficult thing to enforce sanitary regulations.

Immense supplies of medical necessities already had been forwarded from the bureau at St. Louis, and General Funston organized at once a series of camps on military lines. The refugees were compelled to live up to sanitary rules whether they liked it or not. Those who refused felt the pick of a bayonet.

Furthermore, out of the tens of thousands of homeless people the soldiers forced as many as were needed to go to work for the common good, putting up shelters, erecting tents, devising store-houses, and, above all, creating the necessary sanitary appliances and safeguards to prevent the outbreak of pestilence.

It required the utmost vigilance on the part of the army officers and the most constant attention by the medical corps to prevent an outbreak of typhoid, dysentery, and the ordinary train of nearly fatal diseases which are common to large military camps, and which are almost inevitable when dealing with an unorganized and unintelligent mob.

[Pg 175]Efforts were made to compel every man, woman, and child to obey constantly the strict sanitary regulations which the army provides for its own protection.

Every medical officer and every man in the hospital corps within a wide range of San Francisco had been ordered to report at once for duty under General Funston. With the flames practically under control and with millions of army rations on the grounds or actually in sight of the people, the efforts of the War Department became directed to the preservation of health and in a secondary degree to the location and registration of the dead, the wounded, and the saved.

Following close upon the heels of the rations and the tents there came tons upon tons of disinfectants unloaded at Oakland and every possible device was being employed by the medical bureau to make as good a record in this regard as the quartermaster and commissary departments had already produced in supplying food and shelter.

Meanwhile the ever-ready American private soldier and his splendid executive officer, the American noncom., were really the rulers at San Francisco. They defied the law every minute, but evidently they acted with characteristic good sense. The price of bread was kept down, the mob was being systematized and taught to respect authority, and enough thieves had summarily been shot in San Francisco to render looting a dangerous and an unprofitable avocation.

People who went through the great fire at Chicago in 1871 remember that when Gen. Sheridan brought in regular soldiers he established order within a brief period of time, and there was a feeling of relief when men under his command began to blow up houses in the vicinity of Wabash avenue and Congress street.

The laws of the United States had been violated every minute. Supplies were purchased in the open market, government property had been handed out without receipts to anybody who seemed to have authority to receive it, and the distribution of [Pg 176]supplies had been wholly free from the slightest suspicion of red tape.

In spite of these facts, the President and Secretary Taft felt proud of the fact that the army organization had proved itself able to withstand the sudden strain put upon it, while the enlisted man showed his ability to act at a distance from his commissioned officer with an intelligence and an initiative which would be impossible in the European armies.

As during the days of disaster and terror stricken San Francisco was absolutely under the control of General Funston, a few facts about his career will be appropriate here. Red-headed, red-blooded; a pygmy in stature, a giant in experience; true son of Romany in peace and of Erin in war—the capture of Aguinaldo in the wilds of North Luzon and his control of affairs in San Francisco fairly top off the adventurous career of Frederick Funston, fighter.

General Funston was born in Ohio, but when he was two years old his family moved to Kansas. After passing through the high school he entered the University of Kansas. His father had been a congressman for a number of years. His ambition was to enter West Point, but he failed to pass its examination. He later broke into the newspaper business, but his career in that field was short. In 1900 his father secured him an appointment as botanist in the Department of Agriculture. After a trip to Montana and the Dakotas he was attached to the party which made the first Government survey of Death Valley, the famous California death-trap. Seven months were spent in this work, and Funston is the only man of the party alive and sane today.

In 1891-92 the Government sent him to make a botanical survey of certain parts of the Alaskan coast, and in 1893 he returned to the Arctic and made a similar survey of the Yukon. He negotiated Chilkoot Pass, then an untrodden pathway. After trying to start a coffee plantation in Central America and to fill a job with the Santa Fe railroad, the torch of the Cuban revolution became a beacon to his adventurous spirit. He joined a filibustering [Pg 177]party which the Dauntless landed at Camaguay in August, 1896. He was assigned by Garcia to the artillery arm of the insurgent service.

Twenty-three battles in Cuba was his record with his guns. Once he was captured and sentenced to death, but escaped. Later still a steel-tipped Mauser bullet pierced his lungs. This healed, but the fever struck him down, and compelled his return to the United States. As he was preparing to return to Cuba the Maine was blown up and in his certainty that war with Spain would result he awaited the issue. Governor Leedy, of Kansas, telegraphed for him, and he became Colonel of the Twentieth Kansas. He went with General Miles to Cuba in June, 1898, and sailed with his regiment for Manila in October. Three weeks before he sailed Colonel Funston met Miss Ella Blankhart of Oakland. As impetuous in love as in war he wooed and won her, the marriage taking place the day before the transport sailed.

Of his daring risks and feats in the Philippines and of his capture of Aguinaldo the general public is so familiar as not to need recapitulation here. Of his qualities as a fighting man pure and simple, there can be no two opinions. Says General Harrison G. Otis: “Funston is the greatest daredevil in the army, and would rather fight than eat. I never saw a man who enjoyed fighting so much.” Another friend of his once said that Funston was a sixteenth-century hero, born four hundred years or so too late, who had ever since been seeking to remedy the chronological error of his birth.

[Pg 178]

CHAPTER XIII.

IN THE REFUGE CAMPS.

Scenes of Destitution in the Parks Where the Homeless Were Gathered—Rich and Poor Share Food and Bed Alike—All Distinctions of Wealth and Social Position Wiped Out by the Great Calamity.

NEXT to viewing the many square miles of ruins that once made San Francisco a city, no better realization of the ruin can be gained than from the refugee camps located in the districts which were untouched by the flames. Golden Gate park was the mecca of the destitute. This immense playground of the municipality was converted into a vast mushroom city that bore striking resemblance to the fleeting towns located on the border of a government reservation about to be opened to public settlement.

The common destitution and suffering wiped out all social, financial and racial distinctions. The man who before the fire had been a prosperous merchant occupied with his family a little plot of ground that adjoined the open-air home of a laborer. The white man of California forgot his antipathy to the Asiatic race and maintained friendly relations with his new Chinese and Japanese neighbors.

The society belle of the night before the fire, a butterfly of fashion at the grand opera performance, assisted some factory girl in the preparation of humble daily meals. Money had little value. The family who had foresight to lay in the largest stock of foodstuffs on the first day of the disaster was rated highest in the scale of wealth.

A few of the families who could secure willing expressmen possessed cooking stoves, but over 95 per cent of the refugees had to do their cooking on little camp fires made of brick or stone. [Pg 179]Kitchen utensils that a week before would have been regarded with contempt were articles of high value.

Many of the homeless people were in possession of comfortable clothing and bed covering. The grass was their bed and their daily clothing their only protection against the penetrating fog of the ocean or the chilling dew of the morning. Fresh meat disappeared the first day of the catastrophe and canned foods and breadstuffs were the only victuals in evidence.

Not alone were the parks the places of refuge. Every large vacant lot in the safe zone was preempted and even the cemeteries were crowded.

A well-known young lady of social position when asked where she had spent the night replied: “On a grave.”

Throughout the entire western portion of the peninsular county of San Francisco these camps were located.

Major McKeever of the United States Army was appointed commandant of the camps and, with his staff of assistants, brought system and order out of the chaotic situation. His first thought was to supply food and water and then to arrange sanitary measures. The throngs of people who crowded elbow to elbow in the open lots and fields without conveniences that are naturally demanded were constantly threatened with an epidemic of disease.

Good order and fellowship prevailed in these impromptu settlements and the common ruin and poverty made all of the unfortunates akin.

In buildings close to the camps the police stored available foodstuffs and bed clothing for convenient delivery. No distinctions were drawn and but few favors shown in the distribution of supplies.

Although efforts of the various relief committees were bent to appease the gnawing hunger of the destitute thousands—efforts that were in a large measure entirely successful—there were many persons without sufficient food or entirely without it.

[Pg 180]The government officials took charge of every grocery store in that part of the city still standing and gave out foodstuffs to all those who were hungry. Broad lines were established at Fillmore and Turk streets, at Golden Gate park and at the Presidio and every person who stood in line was given a whole loaf. The line at Fillmore and Turk streets was four blocks long all one afternoon and those at the parks were even longer. A large supply of milk was received from Oakland in the morning and this was distributed to women and children whenever they were found in need. A great deal of this milk was used for the exhausted women.

The breadlines at the parks furnished striking instances of the absolute patience and fortitude that has marked the behavior of the people throughout their trying experience. There were no disorders when the hungry thousands were told to form a line and receive their bread and canned goods. All were content to wait their turn. Silk-hatted men followed good naturedly behind Chinese and took their loaves from the same hand.

Soup kitchens were established in the streets of the unburned section, no fires whatever being allowed indoors, and many hungry persons were fed by these individual efforts.

At the ferry station there were some pathetic scenes among the hungry people. When the boat came in from Stockton with tons of supplies a number of small children were the first to spy a large box of sandwiches with cries of delight. They made a rush for the food, seized as much as they could hold and rushed to their mothers with shouts of “Oh, mamma, mamma, look at the sandwiches!”

Seated around the ferry buildings sat hundreds of people sucking canned fruits from the tins. Some were drinking condensed cream and some were lucky enough to have sardines or cheese. At several places along Market street scores of men were digging with their hands among the still smoking debris of some large grocery house for canned goods. When they secured it, which [Pg 181]they did without molestation from anybody, they broke the tins and drank the contents.

At Filbert and Van Ness avenue at 6 o’clock at night a wagon of supplies conveyed by soldiers was besieged by a crowd of hungry people. They appealed to the soldiers for food and their appeals were quickly heeded. Seizing an ax a soldier smashed the boxes and tossed the supplies to the crowd, which took time to cheer lustily.

Owing to the energetic efforts of General Funston and the officials of the Spring Water Company the sufferers in all parts of the city were spared at least the horrors of a water famine. As soon as it was learned that some few mercenaries who were fortunate enough to have fresh water stored in tanks in manufacturing districts were selling it at 50 cents per glass the authorities took prompt action and hastened their efforts to repair the mains that had been damaged by the earthquake shocks.

The work of relief was started early on the second day of the disaster. A big bakery in the saved district started its fires and 50,000 loaves were baked before night. The police and military were present in force and each person was allowed only one loaf.

The destitution and suffering were indescribable. Women and children who had comfortable, happy homes a few days before slept—if sleep came at all—on hay on the wharves, on the sand lots near North beach, some of them under the little tents made of sheeting which poorly protected them from the chilling ocean winds. The people in the parks were better provided in the matter of shelter, for they left their homes better prepared.

Instructions were issued by Mayor Schmitz to break open every store containing provisions and to distribute them to the thousands under police supervision.

At one time bread sold as high as $1 a loaf and water at fifty cents a glass, but the authorities at once put a stop to the extortion.

Among the many pathetic incidents of the fire in San [Pg 182]Francisco was that of a woman who sat at the foot of Van Ness avenue on the hot sands on the hillside overlooking the bay east of Fort Mason with four little children, the youngest a girl of three, the eldest a boy of ten.

“He would know me anywhere,” she said. And she would not move, although a young fellow gallantly offered his tent back on a vacant lot in which to shelter her children.

Among the refugees who found themselves stranded were John Singleton, a Los Angeles millionaire, his wife and her sister. The Singletons were staying at the Palace Hotel when the earthquake shock occurred on Wednesday morning.

Mr. Singleton gave the following account of his experience: “The shock wrecked the rooms in which we were sleeping. We managed to get our clothes on and get out immediately. We had been at the hotel only two days and left probably $3,000 worth of personal effects in the room.

“After leaving the Palace we secured an express wagon for $25 to take us to the Casino near Golden Gate park, where we stayed the first night. On the following morning we managed to get a conveyance at enormous cost and spent the entire day in getting to the Palace. We paid $1 apiece for eggs and $2 for a loaf of bread. On these and a little ham we had to be satisfied.”

Mr. Singleton, like thousands of other people, found himself without funds and he had difficulty in securing cash until he met some one who knew him.

To allay the fears of the refugees in the various camps Mayor Schmitz issued the following proclamation which citizens were instructed to observe:

“Do not be afraid of famine. There will be abundance of food [Pg 183]supplied. Do not use any water except for drinking and cooking purposes. Do not light fires in houses, stoves or fireplaces. Do not use any house closets under any circumstances, but dig earth closets in yards or vacant lots, using if possible chloride of lime or some other disinfectant. This is of the greatest importance, as the water supply is only sufficient for drinking and cooking. Do not allow any garbage to remain on the premises; bury it and cover immediately. Pestilence can only be avoided by complying with these regulations.

“You are particularly requested not to enter any business house or dwelling except your own, as you may be mistaken for one of the looters and shot on sight, as the orders are not to arrest but shoot down any one caught stealing.”

The refugees numbered all told about 300,000. At least 75,000 of them made their way to Oakland, Berkeley, Alameda, Benicia and neighboring cities while many more fortunate and prosperous succeeded in reaching Los Angeles.

The work of caring for the homeless in the refugee camps was splendidly managed under the direction of the citizens’ committee, the military authorities and the Red Cross.

The people were fed in a thoroughly businesslike and systematic manner. From the water front, where the boatloads of provisions docked, there was an endless procession of carts and drays carrying food to the scores of substations established throughout the city and the parks. At these stations food and drink, comprising bread, prepared meats and canned goods, milk and a limited amount of hot coffee, were served to all those who applied. About 1,500 tons of provisions were moved daily from the water front.

Large supplies of blankets, tentings and other material to provide coverings for those who were scantily supplied theretofore reached the supply stations rapidly. Barracks were erected at several points and in those many people have found comfort and shelter against the inclemencies of the weather.

[Pg 184]The situation in the congested districts such as Golden Gate Park and the various public squares throughout the city, was considerably relieved by the departure of many people for points on the other side of the bay, as soon as access was had to the ferry building. The exodus continued daily from the time the fire broke out until every one who wished to get away had departed.

The greatest hardship experienced by the homeless refugees was on the first Sunday night following the fire.

From midnight Sunday until 3 o’clock Monday morning a drenching rain fell at intervals, while a high wind added a melancholy accompaniment, whistling and sighing about the ruins of the buildings in the burned district. Five days before when the fire catastrophe was in its infancy this downpour would have been regarded as a mercy and a godsend.

When it came it could be regarded in no other light than as an additional calamity. It meant indescribable suffering to the tens of thousands of people camped upon the naked hills and in the parks and open places of the city.

Few of them were provided with water-proof covering. For the most part their only protection from the wet was a thin covering of sheeting tacked upon improvised tent-poles. Through this the water poured as through a sieve, wetting the bedding and soaking the ground upon which they lay.

When it is understood that thousands upon thousands of delicately nurtured women and infants in arms and old and feeble people were in this plight nothing need be added to describe the misery of their condition.

What could be done was done by the guards in charge of the camps to relieve the distress. Whenever covering could be had for the women and children it was taken advantage of. They were housed in the chill and cheerless churches, garages and barns, and those who had been fortunate enough to save their homes were called upon to take care of these unfortunates. With few exceptions these people responded readily to the new call [Pg 185]made upon them and where they did not the butt ends of Krag rifles quickly forced a way through inhospitable doors.

Of individual instances of suffering the whole number is legion, but one will tell the story of them all.

About 4 o’clock, when the rain had been falling heavily for an hour, a middle-aged man, white-faced in his distress and fatigue, appeared at the headquarters of the general committee. He had walked two miles from his camping place in the park to make an appeal for his suffering wife and little ones. As he told of their distress the tears welled up in his eyes and coursed down his cheeks.

They were, he said, without covering other than a sheeting overhead and were lying on the naked ground and their bodies protected only by a quilt and blanket, which of his household bedding were all he had managed to save. These had quickly been soaked, and while unwilling to complain on his own account he had been unable to listen to the wails of his little ones and had tramped all the way from his camping place to the committee headquarters in the forlorn hope that there he might find some means of getting his family under shelter.

The condition of the 5,000 people or more camped in Jefferson Square Park was something terrible. Not more than 5 per cent had even an army tent and the makeshifts were constructed of carpets, bed sheets and every imaginable substance. They were totally inadequate to keep out the heavy rain.

The 400 soldiers of the Fifth and Sixth California National Guard were requisitioning.

Glenn A. Durston of the Spanish War Veteran’s relief committee, had charge of the relief work.

The spirit and courage shown by the sufferers in the face of their misfortunes was wonderful. An aged, crippled woman lying on the dirt floor of patchwork, bed sheets, carpets and tin roofing made a remark which was a sample.

“I am the widow of a union soldier,” she said. “The sufferings [Pg 186]related by my husband at Vicksburg were as nothing compared to mine. I am very comfortable, thank you.”

Many temporary emergency hospitals were established in and near the refugee camps. The St. Paul Lutheran church near Jefferson square was one, but the big hospital at the Presidio, the military headquarters of the government, provided for the greater number of cases.

A temporary detention hospital was also established in the basement of the Sacred Heart school, conducted by the Dominican Sisters at the corner of Fillmore and Hayes streets, and the first commitment since the earthquake was made on the Sunday following the fire. The sisters of the Sacred Heart kindly turned over a part of the already crowded quarters to the insanity commissioners, and a number of patients made insane by the fire were cared for there.

At the general hospital the wards were soon full of patients, but few were suffering from severe types of sickness. There were many cases of tonsilitis, colds and such ills.

Within a week after the fire thousands of people left the refugee camps and found homes with friends in nearby places. One week after the disaster the authorities estimated that the number of campers on the grounds had been reduced to less than 8,000, where over 30,000 people had camped.

Temporary structures were erected in Golden Gate Park for the housing of 40,000 people, who had been sleeping out of doors for nearly a week and they were moved into comfortable quarters. About the same time a supply of blankets and bedding was received.

Within a week from the beginning of the disaster the refuge camps were converted into comfortable places of residence, with adequate sanitation, and the homeless at least had temporary homes. All this was accomplished with a minimum of suffering and illness that speaks volumes for the courage, energy and common sense of the American people.

THE BEAUTIFUL VENDOME HOTEL, SAN JOSE.

This famous hotel was partly wrecked by the earthquake.

[Pg 188]

POSTOFFICE, SAN JOSE.

This building faces a beautiful public square and was badly damaged.

[Pg 189]

CHAPTER XIV.

RUINS AND HAVOC IN COAST CITIES.

San Jose, the Prettiest Place in the State, Wrecked by Quake—State Insane Asylum Collapsed and Buried Many Patients Beneath the Crumbled Walls—Enormous Damage at Santa Rosa.

OUTSIDE of San Francisco the earthquake did immense damage for fifty miles north and south of the Golden Gate City. San Jose, the prettiest city in California, sustained the severest shock, which killed a score of people and left the business section a pile of ruins. The loss in this one city alone amounted to $5,000,000.

The State Insane Asylum at Agnews near San Jose collapsed and buried upwards of 100 patients beneath its walls.

Among the buildings wrecked in San Jose are St. Patrick’s church, the First Presbyterian church, the Centella Methodist Episcopal church, the Central Christian and South Methodist churches.

Every building on the west side of First street from St. James park to San Fernando street either went down, toppling or was badly cracked. The Auzerias building, Elks club, Unique theater and many other buildings on Santa Clara street went down to the ground.

On Second street the six-story Dougherty building and several adjoining blocks were destroyed by fire. A new high school in Normal Park was a complete wreck.

The Nevada & Porter building on Second street, the Rucker building on Third and Santa Clara streets were also ruined.

The annex to the Vendome Hotel was completely wrecked, and one man was killed therein.

Sheriff William White, of Los Angeles, who was in San Jose [Pg 190]at the time attending a convention, thus describes the scenes following the quake:

“San Jose, which was the prettiest city in California, is the worst-looking wreck I ever saw. When I left there nineteen dead bodies had been recovered and there was a possibility that others would be found. I reached Agnews Asylum a few hours later in an automobile and was one of the first on the spot. There I helped to carry out sixty corpses. At noon, when I arrived at San Jose, it was believed that fully 100 bodies were still in the ruins.

“The shock came to San Jose exactly at 5:12:45, according to the clock in the St. James Hotel, which was stopped. Supreme Court Clerk Jordan, my young nephew; Walter Jordan and myself occupied apartments on the fourth floor of the St. James Hotel. The shock awoke the three of us, but only seemed to disturb my nephew, who commenced calling out.

“There was not a brick or stone building of two stories or over in San Jose that was not leveled to the ground or so badly damaged it will have to be torn down. Some fires started after the quake, but the fire department soon had them under control.

“I secured an automobile at 7 o’clock and left for Agnew, where the insane asylum was located, with two or three of the visiting sheriffs. The sight there was awful. The walls were standing, but the floors had all fallen in.

“Scores of insane persons were running about in the grounds, unwatched and uncared for. I helped to take out the body of Dr. Kelly, the assistant superintendent of the asylum, who had been instantly killed. A nurse who was also taken out of the ruins by me died a little later.

“After getting away from San Jose I saw evidences of the earthquake at Niles and even as far as Livermore in the shape of fallen chimneys and broken glass.”

The main building of the State Hospital collapsed, pinning many of the patients under fallen walls and debris. The padded [Pg 191]cells had to be broken open and more dangerous patients were tied to trees out on the lawn in lieu of a safer place. The doctors and nurses stuck heroically to their posts and 100 students from Santa Clara College went over in a body and assisted in succoring the wounded.

State Senator Cornelius Pendleton, who escaped the earthquake shock at San Jose, thus narrated his experiences:

“We were all at the Vendome Hotel. The shock of the earthquake was so severe the floors and walls of the building collapsed at once and those of us who escaped made our way as best we could out of the ruins. On the side of the hotel where my room was there was a large tree. The side wall of my room fell against this tree, which also sustained that portion of the roof, preventing it from falling in on us.

“My room was on the second floor, but when I picked myself up I was in the basement of the building. I crawled up and out over the debris and escaped through a window on a level with the ground. After getting out I found this was one of the third story windows. Those of us who were uninjured at once set about assisting the less fortunate. I saw one dead woman in the hotel. We carried her out. The remainder of the dead were in various parts of the town. The residence district was not badly damaged. Martial law had been declared in the city when we left.

“Among the large buildings that were totally demolished were the Hall of Justice, the First Presbyterian Church, the Catholic Cathedral, the Hale Block, and the Vendome Hotel. Fire broke out following the earthquake in several quarters, but fortunately the water mains were uninjured and the spread of the flames was checked.”

At Salinas the immense plant of the Spreckels Sugar refinery was completely destroyed, and the loss of property aggregated $2,000,000.

The estimated loss of life and damage in California cities outside of San Francisco is as follows:

[Pg 192]Oakland, $500,000, 5 lives; Alameda, $400,000; San Jose, $5,000,000, 19 lives; Agnew (state hospital for insane), $400,000, 170 lives; Palo Alto (Stanford University), $3,000,000, 2 lives; Napa, $250,000; Salinas, $2,000,000; Hollister, $100,000, 1 life; Vallejo, $40,000; Sacramento, $25,000; Redwood City, $30,000; Suisun, $50,000; Santa Rosa, $800,000, 40 lives; Watsonville, $70,000; Monterey, $25,000, 8 lives; Loma Prieta, 10 lives; Stockton, $40,000; Brawley, $100,000; Santa Cruz, $200,000; Gilroy, $500,000; Healdsburg, $25,000; Cloverdale, $15,000; Geyserville, $12,000; Hopland, $10,000; Ukiah, $50,000; Alviso, $20,000; Niles, $10,000; Hinckley Creek, $10,000, 9 lives; Deer Creek Mill, $10,000, 2 lives; Santa Clara, $500,000; Pacific Grove, $50,000; Wrights, $75,000; Delmonte, $25,000, 2 lives.

The beautiful city of Santa Rosa was a terrible sufferer from the quake, both in loss of life and property:

The entire business section was left in ruins and practically every residence in the town was more or less damaged, fifteen or twenty being badly wrecked. The damage to residences was caused principally by the sinking of the foundations, which let many structures down on to the ground.

The brick and stone business blocks, together with the public buildings, were all thrown flat. The courthouse, Hall of Records, the Occidental and Santa Rosa hotels, the Athenaeum theater, the new Masonic Temple, Odd Fellows’ block, all the banks—everything—went, and in all the city not one brick or stone building was left standing except the California Northwestern depot.

It was almost impossible for an outsider to realize the situation as it actually existed there. No such complete destruction of a city’s business interests ever before resulted from an earthquake in America. The very completeness of the devastation was really the redeeming feature, though, for it put all upon exactly the same basis, commercially speaking. Bankers and millionaires went about with only the few dollars they happened [Pg 193]to have in their pockets when the crash came, and were little better off than the laborers who were digging through the debris. Money had practically no value, for there was no place to spend it, and this phase of the situation presented its own remedy. Almost every one slept out of doors, being afraid to enter their homes except for a short while at a time until repairs were made.

There were plenty of provisions. Some were supplied by other towns and much was brought in from the surrounding country. Two entire blocks of buildings escaped being swept by the flames, which immediately broke out in a dozen places at once as soon as the shock was over and from the tangled ruins of those buildings complete stocks of groceries and clothing were dug out and added to the common store. Then before the fire gained headway several grocery stores were emptied of their contents in anticipation of what might follow.

The city was put under martial law, company C of Petaluma having been called to assist the local company in preserving order. Many deputy sheriffs and special police were also sworn in, but no trouble of any kind occurred.

The relief committee was active and well managed and all in need of assistance received it promptly. The work that required the principal attention of the authorities was removal of the wreckage in order to search for the bodies of those missing and known to have perished.

Forty marines under command of Captain Holcombe arrived from Mare Island and did splendid work in assisting in the search. Forty-two bodies were buried in one day and the total dead and missing numbered upward of 100.

Santa Rosa, in proportion to its size, suffered worse than San Francisco. Mr. Griggs, who was in the employ of a large firm at Santa Rosa, tells a story which sufficiently proves the earthquake’s fury, so great as to practically reduce the town to [Pg 194]ruin. In addition to the death roll a large number of persons were missing and a still greater number were wounded.

As in the case of San Francisco, an admirable organization had the situation well in hand. Forty sailors from Mare Island, fully equipped with apparatus, were at work, while volunteer aid was unstinted.

Santa Rosa suffered the greatest disaster in her history, but the indomitable spirit of her people was shown all along the line. Even so early as Friday an announcement was made that the public schools and the college would open as usual on Monday morning, the buildings having been inspected and found to be safe.

At Agnews the cupola over the administration department went down and all the wards in that part of the building collapsed. Twelve attendants were killed and Dr. Kelly, second assistant physician, was crushed to death. There were 1,100 patients in the hospital. C. L. Seardee, secretary of the state commission in lunacy, who was in Agnews and attending to official business, declared that it was a marvel that many more were not killed. Dr. T. W. Hatch, superintendent of the state hospitals for insane, was in charge of the work of relief.

Friday morning 100 patients were transferred to the Stockton asylum. Forty or fifty patients escaped.

Dr. Clark, superintendent of the San Francisco County Hospital, was one of the first to give relief to the injured at Agnews. He went there in an automobile, taking four nurses with him, and materially assisted the remaining members of the staff to organize relief measures.

Tents were set up in the grounds of the institution, and the injured as well as the uninjured cared for. A temporary building was erected to house the patients.

The St. Rose and Grand hotels at Santa Rosa collapsed and buried all the occupants. Thirty-eight bodies were taken from the ruins. There were 10,000 homeless men, women and children [Pg 195]huddled together about Santa Rosa. As the last great seismic tremor spent its force in the earth, the whole business portion tumbled into ruins. The main street was piled many feet deep with the fallen buildings.

The destruction included all of the county buildings. The four story courthouse, with its dome, is a pile of broken masonry. What was not destroyed by the earthquake was swept by fire. The citizens deserted their homes. Not even their household goods were taken. They made for the fields and hills to watch the destruction of one of the most beautiful cities of the west.

C. A. Duffy of Owensboro, Ky., who was in Santa Rosa, was the only one out of several score to escape from the floor in which he was quartered in the St. Rose hotel at Santa Rosa. He went to Oakland on his motor cycle after he was released and told a thrilling story of his rescue and the condition of affairs in general at Santa Rosa.

Mr. Duffy said when the shock came he rushed for the stairway, but the building was swaying and shaking so that he could make no headway, and he turned back. He threw himself in front of the dresser in his room, trusting to that object to protect him from the falling timbers. This move saved his life. The dresser held up the beams which tumbled over him, and these in turn protected him from the falling mass of debris.

“I was imprisoned five hours,” said Mr. Duffy, “before being rescued. Three times I tried to call and the rescuers heard me, but could not locate my position from the sound of my voice, and I could hear them going away after getting close to me.

“Finally I got hold of a lath from the ruins around me, poked it through a hole left by the falling of a steam pipe, and by using it and yelling at the same time finally managed to show the people where I was.

“There were about 300 people killed in the destruction of the three hotels.

“The business section of the place collapsed to the ground [Pg 196]almost inside of five minutes. Then the fire started and burned Fourth street from one end to the other, starting at each end and meeting in the middle, thus sweeping over the ruins and burning the imprisoned people.

“I saw two arms protruding from one part of the debris and waving frantically. There was so much noise, however, that the screams could not be heard. Just then, as I looked, the flames swept over them and cruelly finished the work begun by the earthquake. The sight sickened me and I turned away.”

Fort Bragg, one of the principal lumbering towns of Mendocino county, was almost totally destroyed as a result of a fire following the earthquake of April 18.

The bank and other brick buildings were leveled as a result of the tremors and within a few hours fire completed the work of devastation. But one person of the 5,000 inhabitants was killed, although scores were injured.

Eureka, another large town in the same county, fifty miles from Fort Bragg, was practically undamaged, although the quake was distinctly felt there.

Relief expeditions were sent to Fort Bragg from surrounding towns and villages and the people of the ruined area were well cared for.

The town of Tomales was converted into a pile of ruins. All of the large stores were thrown flat. The Catholic church, a new stone structure, was also ruined. Many ranch houses and barns went down. Two children, Anita and Peter Couzza, were killed in a falling house about a mile from town.

The towns of Healdsburg, Geyserville, Cloverdale, Hopland, and Ukiah were almost totally destroyed. The section in which they were located is the country as far north as Mendocino and Lake counties and as far west as the Pacific ocean. These are frontier counties, and have not as large towns as farther south. In every case the loss of life and property was shocking.

[Pg 197]At Los Banos heavy damage was done. Several brick buildings were wrecked. The loss was $75,000.

Brawley, a small town on the Southern Pacific, 120 miles south of Los Angeles, was practically wiped out by the earthquake. This was the only town in southern California known to have suffered from the shock.

Buildings were damaged at Vallejo, Sacramento, and Suisun. At the latter place a mile and a half of railroad track is sunk from three to six feet. A loaded passenger train was almost engulfed.

R. H. Tucker, in charge of the Lick observatory, near San Jose, said: “No damage was done to the instruments or the buildings of the observatory by the earthquake.”

At Santa Cruz the courthouse and twelve buildings were destroyed. Contrary to reports, there must have been a tidal wave of some size, for three buildings were carried away on Santa Cruz beach.

The Moreland academy, a Catholic institution at Watsonville, was badly damaged, but no lives lost.

In a Delmonte hotel a bridal couple from Benson, Ari.—Mr. and Mrs. Rouser—were killed in bed by chimneys falling.

At 12:33 o’clock on the afternoon following the San Francisco quake Los Angeles experienced a distinct earthquake shock of short duration. Absolutely no damage was done, but thousands of people were badly frightened.

Men and women occupants of office buildings, especially the tall structures, ran out into the streets, some of them hatless. Many stores were deserted in like manner by customers and clerks. The shock, however, passed off in a few minutes, and most of those who had fled streetwards returned presently.

The San Francisco horror has strung the populace here to a high tension, and a spell of sultry weather serves to increase the general nervousness.

[Pg 198]

CHAPTER XV.

DESTRUCTION OF GREAT STANFORD UNIVERSITY.

California’s Magnificent Educational Institution, the Pride of the State, Wrecked by Quake—Founded by the Late Senator Leland Stanford as a Memorial to His Son and Namesake—Loss $3,000,000.

ONE of the most deplorable features of the great California calamity was the destruction of the Leland Stanford, Jr., University, situated at Palo Alto.

The magnificent buildings, including a beautiful memorial hall erected by Mrs. Stanford to the memory of her husband and son, were practically wrecked.

Leland Stanford University was one of the most richly endowed, most architecturally beautiful, and best equipped institutions of learning in the world. Mrs. Jane Stanford, widow of the school’s founder, in 1901 gave it outright $30,000,000—$18,000,000 in gilt edged bonds and securities and $12,000,000 in an aggregate of 100,000 acres of land in twenty-six counties in California. This, with what the university had received from Leland Stanford himself, made its endowment the enormous sum of $34,000,000 besides its original capital, and on the death of Mrs. Stanford this was raised to $36,000,000.

In a way the real founder of the university was a young boy, Leland Stanford, Jr. On his death bed he was asked by his parents what he would like them to do with the vast fortune which would have been his had he lived. He replied he would like them to found a great university where young men and women without means could get an education, “for,” he added, “that is what I intended all along to do before I knew I was going to die.”

[Pg 199]The dying wish was carried out.

The foundation stone was laid on the nineteenth anniversary of the boy’s birth, and in a few years there sprang into existence at Palo Alto, about thirty-three miles southeast of San Francisco, the “Leland Stanford University for Both Sexes,” with the colleges, schools, seminaries of learning, mechanical institutes, museums, galleries of art, and all other things necessary and appropriate to a university of high degree, with the avowed object of “qualifying students for personal success and direct usefulness in life.”

The architecture was a modification of the Moorish and Romanesque, with yet a strong blending of the picturesque mission type, which has come down from the early days of Spanish settlement in California. Driving up the avenue of palms from the university entrance to the quadrangle, one was faced by the massive, majestic memorial arch. Augustus St. Gaudens, the great sculptor, embodied his noblest conceptions in the magnificent frieze which adorned the arch.

However beautiful the other buildings, they were easily surpassed by the marvelous Memorial Church, which was built at a cost of $1,000,000.

The organ in this magnificent new edifice was the largest and most expensive in the world. It had nearly 3,000 pipes and forty-six stops. The church was 190 feet in length and 156 feet in width. It cost $840,000.

The substantial magnificence of Memorial Church was followed in every line of the university’s program. The assembly hall and the library were adjoining buildings of the outer quadrangle. The former had a seating capacity of 1,700, and with its stage and dressing rooms possessed all the conveniences of a modern theater.

When Stanford University opened its doors almost fifteen years ago people thought the Pacific coast was too wild and woolly to support Stanford in addition to the big state university [Pg 200]at Berkeley, Cal., and, as President David Starr Jordan remarked: “It was the opinion in the east that there was as much room for a new university in California as for an asylum of broken down sea captains in Switzerland.”

But Stanford grew steadily and rapidly, until last year its attendance was more than 1,600. Its president is David Starr Jordan.

The gateway to the university is opposite the town of Palo Alto, which has a population of 4,000. It is surrounded by part of its endowment, the magnificent Palo Alto estate of seventy-three hundred acres. The value of the total endowment is estimated at $35,000,000. The university buildings are the most beautiful group of public buildings in America. They are but parts of one plan, and are constructed of Santa Clara Valley brown sandstone throughout—beautiful and restful in color and in pleasing contrast to the walls of green of the surrounding hills and the great campus in front. The buildings of the university are not piled sky high, but with long corridors rise two stories, for the most part completely enclosing a beautiful quadrangle, in itself about a ninth of a mile long by eighty yards broad. The massive memorial arch in front, and the beautiful Memorial Church, with its cathedral-like interior, great arches and allegorical windows, are the most imposing features of the group. Flanking the main buildings to the right is Encina Hall for the boys and Roble Hall for the girls, while across the campus are the new chemistry building and the museum. The large grounds are most carefully tended, and all the flowers and trees and shrubs that help beautify California find a home here. The walks and drives are delightful. There is no other alliance of buildings and surrounding grounds quite so pleasing as those of Stanford University. Tuition at the University is free, and the equipment is that naturally to be expected in the richest endowed university in the world. The students of the present semester number fifteen hundred. Financial figures mean but little in connection [Pg 201]with a university—and yet since the new church is not describable, it may be mentioned that it cost $500,000. The buildings represent an expenditure of several million dollars.

To reach Palo Alto and Stanford University one has to travel from San Francisco thirty-three miles southward over the coast line of the Southern Pacific road. The town of Palo Alto is situated in the Santa Clara Valley—a riverless area of bottomland lying between San Francisco bay and the Santa Cruz range. The Santa Clara Valley is one of the various vales found here and there about the continent which proudly lay claim to the title “garden spot of the world.”

The Memorial Church was Mrs. Stanford’s gift to the university from her private fortune, was dedicated “to the glory of God and in loving memory of my husband, Leland Stanford.” Its erection and administration were matters entirely apart from the regular university control. In terms of money, it probably cost over $1,000,000. Clinton Day of San Francisco drew the plans, which were complemented in a hundred ways, from the ideas of Mrs. Stanford herself and suggestions obtained by her from a scrutiny of old world cathedrals.

The building of the university was decided upon by Mr. and Mrs. Leland Stanford in March, 1884, after their only son had died in Italy at the age of 16. Construction began, May 14, 1887, the anniversary of the boy’s birth, and instruction October 1, 1891. As for the name, here is the joint declaration of the Stanfords: “Since the idea of establishing an institution of this kind came directly and largely from our son and only child, Leland, and in the belief that had he been spared to advise as to the disposition of our estate he would have desired the devotion of a large portion thereof to this purpose, we will that for all time to come the institution hereby founded shall bear his name and shall be known as the Leland Stanford Junior University.” The object was declared to be “to qualify students for personal success and direct usefulness in life.” On the title page of the first register [Pg 202]ever printed and of every one since, appear these words of Senator Stanford’s: “A generous education is the birthright of every man and woman in America.” This and President Jordan’s favorite quotation, “Die Luft der Freiheit weht”—“the winds of freedom are blowing,” reveal somewhat the genius of the place.

The major study was the key to Stanford’s elective system of instruction. The ordinary class divisions were not officially recognized. Even the students until recently made far less of the terms “freshmen,” “sophomore,” “junior” and “senior,” than is made of them at most colleges. Each student elected at the start some major study, by which he steered his course for the four years, unless he changed “majors,” which was not unusual or inadvisable during the first two years, for after they had “learned the ropes” students naturally gravitated to the department whose lines they are best fitted to follow. The Stanford departments numbered 23, as follows: Greek, Latin, German, Romantic languages, English, philosophy, psychology, education, history, economics, law, drawing, mathematics, physics, chemistry, botany, physiology, zoology, entomology, geology and mining, civil engineering, mechanical engineering, electrical engineering.

The chosen site of the university was part of the great Palo Alto ranch of the Stanfords, devoted to the raising of grain, grapes and the famous trotting horses that were “the Senator’s” hobby and California’s pride. It resembled the Berkeley situation, in that the bay lies before it and the foothills of the Santa Cruz range behind, but the former is three miles away and the Palo Alto country is so level that only when one climbs the rolling slopes behind the college does he realize that the great inlet is so near. The view from the foothills, by the way, or better still from the crest of the mountain range farther back, where the Pacific ocean roars away to the westward and the valley and bay appear to divide the space between you and the mountains that cut the horizon to the east, is one of California’s treasures.

[Pg 203]The idea that made the Spanish mission the model for the Stanford buildings was translated into plans by Shepley, Rutan and Coolidge. If ever there was an inspiration, says the visitor, this was one. Ever so many millions put into ever so ornate structures of the type prevalent elsewhere could not give these halls their appealing beauty. The main group of buildings formed two quadrangles. The 12 one-story members of the inner quadrangle were ready in 1891, and with the shops of the engineering departments, were for several years “the university.” The 12 structures of the inner quad were increased to 13, for the church, provided for in the original scheme, but not begun until 1899, was added. Those inclosed—to quote statistics from the register—a court 586 feet long by 246 feet wide—3¼ acres—relieved from barrenness by big circular plots in which flourished palms, bamboos and a medley of other tropical translations. Penetrate 10 feet into one of these plots, which are always damp from much watering, and it takes little imagining to fancy yourself in an equatorial jungle. Surrounding this quadrangle was another—the “outer quad,” of 14 buildings that were bigger and higher and considerably more impressive than the pioneers. The extreme length of the second quadrangle was 894 feet. All the way around it stretched the same colonnades, with their open-arched facades, that flanked the inner court. And in addition the outer and inner quadrangles were connected here and there with these same arched pathways, which subdivide the space between the two into little reproductions in miniature of the main plaza within. The colonnades, the tiled roofs and peculiar yellow sandstone of which all the quadrangles were constructed formed a combination which is not easily nor willingly forgotten.

Outside this central group, of which the great church and the memorial arch were badly wrecked by the quake, were enough other buildings used for the university proper to bring the number up to fifty or so. They include chemistry building, museum, library, gymnasium, engineering and two dormitories—one, Roble hall, for women; the other, Encina hall, for men.

[Pg 204]The ruins wrought among those magnificent buildings by the frightful upheaval of the earth which wrenched some of them apart and threw down huge sections of walls aggregated in money value about $3,000,000.

The gymnasium and the library were wholly destroyed, nothing but skeletons of twisted steel remaining. The loss was half a million dollars on each. The Memorial church was left merely a frame, the mosaic work being torn down. The top of the 80-foot high memorial arch was crashed to the ground a heap of ruins. The original quadrangle was but little damaged. Many rare specimens from Egypt were lost in the museum, which was only partly destroyed. The fraternity lodge and Chi Psi Hall were a total loss. The engineering buildings were partly demolished. Encina Hall, where 200 boys stayed, was much shaken, and a large stone chimney crashed through the four floors, burying student Hanna, of Bradford, Pa. He was the only student killed. About twelve others were slightly hurt.

Roble Hall, women’s dormitory, escaped without a scratch.

The damage at Palo Alto City amounts to $200,000. The damage in the neighboring towns was also heavy. San Mateo suffered more than Palo Alto. The Redwood city jail was torn down and all the prisoners escaped.

There was severe damage at Menlo Park. Burlingame suffered a loss of fully $100,000. Many houses were torn down there. The only other death in that vicinity was that of Fireman Otto Gordes, who was buried under the chimney of the power house at Palo Alto.

All the towns mentioned were left without light or power.

President David Starr Jordan of Stanford University announced that the university authorities would begin at once to repair the quadrangle, laboratories and dormitories. The Memorial church was sheltered to prevent further injury and work in all classes was resumed on April 23.

[Pg 205]

CORNER OF A BAPTIST CHURCH.

A view of a Baptist Church on St. Pablo Avenue, Oakland.

KEARNEY STREET, SAN FRANCISCO.

Looking north from Market Street.

[Pg 206]

FERRY BUILDING.

The clock in tower stopped at 5:15.

MILITARY QUARTERS.

A view in Golden Gate Park.

President Jordan said that it was unlikely any attempt would [Pg 207]be made to restore the Memorial church, the memorial arch, the new library, the gymnasium or the museum of the university.

The great rival of the Leland Stanford, Jr., University is the University of California at Berkeley, a suburb of San Francisco. The effect of the earthquake there is tersely told by Professor Alpheus B. Streedain of the zoological department. There were eight severe shocks in succession.

“It all lasted about twenty-five seconds,” said Professor Streedain, “and talk about being frightened, to be more expressive I thought hell was coming to earth. I rushed down to the street in my pajamas, and people were almost crazy. Chimneys were down all over. I was safe and trusted to God for any coming shocks. It was a mighty serious proposition, and one I shall never forget.”

By a seeming miracle the big California University buildings that stand on the campus elevations escaped harm in the earthquake shock.

Recorder James Sutton of the University said: “I made a personal examination of the buildings on the campus and received reports from deans of the colleges and it appears that not one of the buildings was harmed in the slightest degree.

“Professor O’Neill of the chemistry department reported that the damage done to the instruments in the building did not aggregate more than $50. California Hall had not a mark on it to indicate that an earthquake occurred that morning. The other buildings were in the same condition. The Greek theater had not a scratch on its walls.”

The town of Berkeley was not so fortunate as the university in the matter of damage sustained. No lives were lost, nor were there any notable disasters to buildings, but the aggregate damage in the shape of twisted structures, broken chimneys and falling walls was many thousands of dollars.

The destruction of so many magnificent buildings at the Leland Stanford, Jr., University was one of the worst calamities that has ever befallen an American educational institution.

[Pg 208]

CHAPTER XVI.

FIGHTING FIRE WITH DYNAMITE.

San Francisco Conflagration Eventually Checked by the Use of Explosives—Lesson of Baltimore Heeded in Coast City—Western Remnant of City in Residence Section Saved by Blowing Up Beautiful Homes of the Rich.

THE remnant of San Francisco that escaped destruction in the four days conflagration owes its existence largely to the equally destructive force of dynamite. For four days one agent of destruction was employed against another.

The San Francisco conflagration was the second great fire in the United States at which dynamite was the chief agency of the fire fighters. Immediately following the first earthquake crash flames burst forth in numerous places, chiefly in the business section of the city. The fire department responded as promptly as possible under the circumstances for a new difficulty presented itself to the firemen. When the clang of the alarm sounded it was found that many of the engine houses had been damaged by the quake and so twisted that it was only with difficulty that the apparatus could be gotten out of the buildings. Upon arriving at the several scenes of the fire a worse calamity confronted them. The engines were attached to the hydrants and then followed the alarming cry:

“No water!”

The mains had been bursted, twisted and torn asunder by the violence of the shock, and only in rare instances could water be found wherewith to combat the rapidly spreading flames.

Then it was that the new method of checking conflagrations [Pg 209]was brought into use, and the order was given to fight the flames with dynamite. Doubtless the officials of the department had freshly in mind the great Baltimore fire in which the city was saved only from total destruction by the use of an immense amount of explosives. Fire chief Denis Sullivan and his wife had both been injured by the earthquake, the former having been fatally hurt, so that in addition to the hopeless situation which confronted the firemen they were without the guidance of their principal leader.

There was little dynamite available in the city, but what was on hand was immediately brought into use and soon the terrific explosions added to the terror of the panic stricken people fleeing from the flames.

At 9 o’clock on the first day of the fire Mayor Schmitz sent a tug to Pinole for several cans of the explosive. He also sent a telegram to Mayor Mott of Oakland. He received this reply to his Oakland message: “Three engines and hose companies leave here immediately. Will forward dynamite as soon as obtained.”

All outside nearby places were appealed to for dynamite and as fast as the explosive was received it was directed against large buildings in the path of the fire. The crash of falling walls mingled with the reverberations of the explosions, led many to believe that the earthquake shocks were being repeated. Here and there a fireman went down beneath the ruins as some huge building tumbled to the ground shattered by the destructive explosive. In the downtown districts the efforts of the dynamiters were wholly unavailing. The fire had gained such headway that it swept with a roar over every vacant space made by the explosive and continued its consuming way in every direction.

Better success was obtained in the residence district west on the second day of the fire. The widest thoroughfare in the city is Van Ness avenue in the heart of the fashionable residence section. There it was decided that an effort should be made to check the spread of the flames westward and save the many [Pg 210]beautiful homes in the district between that avenue and the water line.

The co-operation of the artillery was secured and huge cannons were drawn to the avenue by the military horses to aid the dynamiters in blowing up the mansions of the millionaires on the west of Van Ness avenue in order to prevent the flames from leaping across the highway and starting on their unrestraining sweep across the western addition.

Every available pound of dynamite was hauled to that point and the sight was one of stupendous and appalling havoc as the cannons were trained on the palaces and the shot tore into the walls and toppled the buildings in crushing ruins. At other points the dynamite was used, and house after house, the dwellings of millionaires, was lifted into the air by the bellowing blast and dropped to the earth a mass of dust and debris.

The work was necessarily dangerous and many of the exhausted workers who kept working through a stretch of forty-eight hours without sleep and scarcely any food through force of instinctive heroism alone were killed while making their last desperate stand.

Many of the workers in placing the blasts, took chances that spelled injury or death. The fire line at 6 o’clock extended a mile along the east side of Van Ness avenue from Pacific street to Ellis. All behind this excepting the Russian Hill region and a small district lying along the north beach had been swept clean by the flames and the steel hulks of buildings and pipes and shafts and spires were dropped into a molten mass of debris like so much melted wax.

The steady booming of the artillery and the roar of the dynamite above the howl and cracking of the flames continued with monotonous regularity. Such noises had been bombarding the ears of the panic-stricken people since the earthquake of forty-eight hours before. They ceased to hear the sound and rush pell-mell, drowning their senses in a bedlam of their own creation. There seemed to be an irresistible power behind the flames [Pg 211]that even the desperately heroic measures being taken at Van Ness avenue could not stay.

Hundreds of police, regiments of soldiers, and scores of volunteers were sent into the doomed district to inform the people that their homes were about to be blown up, and to warn them to flee. They heroically responded to the demand of law, and went bravely on their way trudging painfully over the pavements with the little they could get together.

Every available wagon that could be found was pressed into service to transport the powder from the various arsenals to the scene of the proposed destruction.

Then for hours the bursting, rending sounds of explosions filled the air. At 9 o’clock block after block of residences had been leveled to the ground, but the fire was eating closer and closer.

Then the explosives gave out. Even the powder in the government arsenals was exhausted long before noon. From that hour the flames raged practically unhindered.

Lieut. Charles C. Pulis, commanding the Twenty-fourth company of light artillery, was blown up by a charge of dynamite at Sixth and Jessie streets and fatally injured. He was taken to the military hospital at the Presidio. He suffered a fractured skull and several bones broken and internal injuries.

Lieut. Pulis placed a heavy charge of dynamite in a building on Sixth street. The fuse was imperfect and did not ignite the charge as soon as was expected. Pulis went to the building to relight it and the charge exploded while he was in the building.

The deceased officer was a graduate of the artillery school at Fortress Monroe, Va. He was 30 years of age.

The effectiveness of dynamite was proved on the fourth and last day of the conflagration, when the flames were finally checked by the use of that explosive.

Three heroes saved San Francisco—what was left of it. They were the dynamite squad that threw back the fire demon at Van Ness avenue.

[Pg 212]When the burning city seemed doomed and the flames lit the sky further and further to the west, Admiral McCalla sent a trio of his most trusted men from Mare Island with orders to check the conflagration at any cost of life or property.

With them they brought a ton and a half of gun cotton. The terrific power of the explosion was equal to the maniac determination of the fire. Captain MacBride was in charge of the squad. Chief Gunner Adamson placed the charges, and the third gunner set them off.

The thunderous detonations to which the terrified city listened all that dreadful Friday night meant the salvation of 300,000 lives. A million dollars’ worth of property, noble residences and worthless shacks alike were blown to drifting dust, but that destruction broke the fire and sent the raging flames over their own charred path.

The whole east side of Van Ness avenue, from Golden Gate to Greenwich, was dynamited a block deep, though most of the structures stood untouched by sparks or cinders. Not one charge failed. Not one building stood upon its foundations.

Every pound of gun cotton did its work, and though the ruins burned, it was but feebly. From Golden Gate avenue north the fire crossed the wide street in but one place. That was the Claus Spreckels place, on the corner of California street. There the flames were writhing up the walls before the dynamiters could reach it. The charge had to be placed so swiftly and the fuse lit in such a hurry that the explosion was not quite successful from the trained viewpoint of the gunners. But though the walls still stood, it was only an empty victory for the fire, as bare brick and smoking ruins are poor food for flames.

Captain MacBride’s dynamiting squad realized that a stand was hopeless except on Van Ness avenue. They could have forced their explosive further in the burning section, but not a pound of gun cotton could be or was wasted. The ruined block that met the wide thoroughfare formed a trench through the [Pg 213]clustered structures that the conflagration, wild as it was, could not leap.

Engines pumping brine through Fort Madison from the bay completed the little work that the gun cotton had left, but for three days the haggard-eyed firemen guarded the flickering ruins.

The desolate waste straight through the heart of the city is a mute witness to the squad’s effective work. Three men did this. They were ordered to save San Francisco. They obeyed orders, and his two gunners made history on that dreadful night.