While multitudes escaped from toppling buildings and crashing walls in the dread disaster of that fatal Wednesday morning of April 18th in San Francisco, hundreds of the less fortunate met their death in the ruins, and horrifying scenes were witnessed by the survivors. Many of those who escaped had tales of terror to tell. Mr. J. P. Anthony, as he fled from the Ramona Hotel, saw a score or more of people crushed to death, and as he walked the streets at a later hour saw bodies of the dead being carried in garbage wagons and all kinds of vehicles to the improvised morgues, while hospitals and storerooms were already filled with the injured. Mr. G. A. Raymond, of Tomales, Cal., gives evidence to the same effect. As he rushed into the street, he says that the air was filled with falling stones and people around him were crushed to death on all sides.
Others gave testimony to the same effect. Samuel Wolf, of Salt Lake City, tells us that he saved one woman from death in the hotel. She was rushing blindly toward an open window, from which she would have fallen fifty feet to the stone pavement below. “On my way down Market Street,” he says, “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 bloody, with crushed skulls, broken limbs and bloody faces.”
These are frightful stories, exaggerated probably from the nervous excitement of those terrible moments, as are also the following statements, which form part of the early accounts of the disaster. Thus we are told that “from a three-story lodging house at Fifth and Minna Streets, which collapsed Wednesday morning, more than seventy-five bodies were taken to-day. There are fifty other bodies in sight in the ruins. This building was one of the first to take fire on Fifth Street. At least 100 persons are said to have been killed in the Cosmopolitan, on Fourth Street. More than 150 persons are reported dead in the Brunswick Hotel, at Seventh and Mission Streets.”
Another statement is to the effect that “at Seventh and Howard Streets a great lodging house took fire after the first shock, before the guests had escaped. There were few exits and nearly all the lodgers perished. Mrs. J. J. Munson, one of those in the building, leaped with her child in her arms from the second floor to the pavement below and escaped unhurt. She says she was the only one who escaped from the house. Such horrors as this were repeated at many points. B. Baker was killed while trying to get a 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.”
ESTIMATES OF THE DEATH LIST.
The questionable point in those statements is that the numbers of dead spoken of in these few instances exceed the whole number given in the official records issued two weeks after the disaster. Yet they go to illustrate the actual horrors of the case, and are of importance for this reason. As regards the whole number killed, in fact, there is not, and probably never will be, a full and accurate statement. While about 350 bodies had been recovered at the end of the second week, it was impossible to estimate how many lay buried under the ruins, to be discovered only as the work of excavation went on, and how many more had been utterly consumed by the flames, leaving no trace of their existence. The estimates of the probable loss of life ran up to 1,500 and more, while the injured were very numerous.
The shock of the earthquake, the pulse of deep horror to which it gave rise, the first wild impulse to flee for life, gave way in the minds of many to a feeling of intense sympathy as agonized cries came from those pinned down to the ruins of buildings or felled by falling bricks or stones, and as the sight of dead bodies incrimsoned with blood met the eyes of the survivors in the streets. From wandering aimlessly about, many of these went earnestly to work to rescue the wounded and recover the bodies of the slain. In this merciful work the police and the soldiers lent their aid, and soon there was a large corps of rescuers actively engaged.
BURYING THE DEAD.
Soon numbers were taken, alive or dead, from the ruins, passing vehicles were pressed into the service, and the labor of mercy went on rapidly, several buildings being quickly converted into temporary hospitals, while the dead were conveyed to the Mechanics’ Pavilion and other available places. Portsmouth Square became for a time a public morgue. Between twenty and thirty corpses were laid side by side upon the trodden grass in the absence of more suitable accommodations. It is said that when the flames threatened to reach the square, the dead, mostly unknown, were removed to Columbia Square, where they were buried when danger threatened that quarter. Others were taken to the Presidio, and here the soldiers pressed into service all men who came near and forced them to labor at burying the dead, a temporary cemetery being opened there. 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 to the work of burying. Some objected at first, but the troops stood no trifling, and every man who came within reach was forced to work. Rich men, unused to physical exertion, labored by the side of the workingmen digging trenches in which to bury the dead. The able-bodied being engaged in fighting the flames, General Funston ordered that the old men and the weaklings should take the 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 Thursday afternoon this went on.
In this connection the following stories are told:
Dr. George V. Schramm, a young medical graduate, said:
“As I was passing down Market Street with a new-found friend, an automobile came rushing along with two soldiers in it. My doctor’s badge protected me, but the soldiers invited my companion, a husky six-footer, to get into the automobile. He said:
“‘I don’t want to ride, and have plenty of business to attend to.’
“Once more they invited him, and he refused. One of the soldiers pointed a gun at him and said:
“‘We need such men as you to save women and children and to help fight the fire.’
“The man was on his way to find his sister, but he yielded to the inevitable. He worked all day with the soldiers, and when released to get lunch he felt that he could conscientiously desert to go and find his own loved ones.”
“Half a block down the street the soldiers were stopping all pedestrians without the official pass which showed that they were on relief business, and putting them to work heaving bricks off the pavement. Two dapper men with canes, the only clean people I saw, were caught at the corner by a sergeant, who showed great joy as he said:
“‘I give you time to git off those kid gloves, and then hustle, damn you, hustle!’ The soldiers took delight in picking out the best dressed men and keeping them at the brick piles for long terms. I passed them in the shelter of a provision wagon, afraid that even my pass would not save me. Two men are reported shot because they refused to turn in and help.”
Many of the dead, of course, will never be identified, though the names were taken of all who were known and descriptions written of the others. A story comes to us 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 on 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 the body rested for a day at the Presidio, waiting burial. With many others, she wept on the border of the burned area, while the women cared for her.
VICTIMS TAKEN FROM THE RUINS.
On Friday eleven postal clerks, all alive, were taken from the debris of the Post Office. All at first were thought to be dead, but it was found that, although they were buried under the stone and timber, every one was alive. They had been for three days without food or water.
Two theatrical people were in a hotel in Santa Rosa when the shock came. The room was on the fourth floor. The roof collapsed. One of them was thrown from the bed and both were caught by the descending timbers and pinned helplessly beneath the debris. They could speak to each other and could touch one another’s hands, but the weight was so great that they could do nothing to liberate themselves. After three hours rescuers came, cut a hole in the roof and both were released uninjured.
Even the docks were converted into hospitals in the stringent exigency of the occasion, about 100 patients being stretched on Folsom street 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, the fire at this point not being permitted to creep farther east than Main Street. Another series of fatalities occurred, caused by the stampeding of a herd of cattle at Sixth and Folsom Streets. Three hundred of the panic-stricken animals ran amuck when they saw and felt the flames and charged wildly down the street, trampling under foot all who were in the way. One man was gored through and through by a maddened bull. At least a dozen persons’, it is said, were killed, though probably this is an overestimate. One observer tells us that “the first sight I saw was a man with blood streaming from his wounds, carrying a dead woman in his arms. He placed the body on the floor of the court at the Palace Hotel, and then told me he was the janitor of a big building. The first he knew of the catastrophe he found himself in the basement, his dead wife beside him. The building had simply split in two, and thrown them down.”
In the camps of refuge the deaths came frequently. Physicians were everywhere in evidence, but, without medicine or instruments, were fearfully handicapped. Men staggered in from their herculean efforts at the fire lines, only to fall gasping on the grass. There was nothing to be done. Injured lay groaning. Tender hands were willing, but of water there was none. “Water, water, for God’s sake get me some water,” was the cry that struck into thousands of souls of San Francisco.
The list of dead was not confined to San Francisco, but extended to many of the neighboring towns, especially to Santa Rosa, where sixty were reported dead and a large number missing, and to the insane asylum in its vicinity, from the ruins of which a hundred or more of dead bodies were taken.
THE FREE USE OF RIFLES.
A citizen tells us that “in the early part of the evening, and while the twilight lasts, there is a good deal of trafficking up and down the sidewalks. Having finished their dinners of government provisions, cooked on the street or in the parks, the people promenade for half an hour or so. By half-past eight the town is closed tight. A rat scurrying in the street will bring a soldier’s rifle to his shoulder. Any one not wearing a uniform or a Red Cross badge is a suspicious character and may be shot unless he halts at command. Even the men in uniform do well to stop still, for it is hard to tell a uniform in the half light thrown up by the burning town and the great shadows.
“Last night two of us ventured out on Van Ness Avenue a little late. There came up the noise of some kind of a shooting scrape far down the street. We hurried in that direction to see what was doing. An eighteen-year-old boy in a uniform barred the way, levelled his rifle and said in a peremptory way:
“‘Go home.’
“We took a course down the block, where an older soldier, more communicative but equally peremptory, informed us that we were trifling with our lives, news or no news.
“‘We’ve shot about 300 people for one thing or another,’ he said. ‘Now, dodge trouble. Git!’ That ended the expedition.”
THE LOSS IN WEALTH.
If we pass now from the record of the loss of lives to that of the destruction of wealth, the estimates exceed by far any fire losses recorded in history.
The truth is that when flames eat out the heart of a great city, devour its vast business establishments, storehouses and warehouses, sweep through its centres of opulence, destroy its wharves with their accumulation of goods, spread ruin and havoc everywhere, it is impossible at first to estimate the loss. Only gradually, as time goes on, is the true loss discovered, and never perhaps very accurately, since the owners and the records of riches often disappear with the wealth itself. In regard to San Francisco, the early estimate was that three-fourths of the city, valued at $500,000,000, was destroyed.
But early estimates are apt to be exaggerated, and on Friday, two days after the disaster, we find this estimate reduced to $250,000,000. A few more days passed and these figures shrunk still further, though it was still largely conjectural, the means of making a trustworthy estimate being very restricted. Later on the pendulum swung upward again, and two weeks after the fire the closest estimates that could be made fixed the property loss at close to $350,000,000, or double that of the Chicago fire. But as the actual loss in the latter case proved considerably below the early estimates, the same may prove to be the case with San Francisco.
Special personal losses were in many cases great. Thus the Palace Hotel was built at a cost of $6,000,000, and the St. Francis, which originally cost $4,000,000, was being enlarged at great expense. Several of the great mansions on Nob’s Hill cost a million or more, the City Hall was built at a cost of $7,000,000, the new Post Office was injured to the extent of half a million, while a large number of other buildings might be named whose value, with their contents, was measured in the millions.
It was not until May 3d that news came over the wires of another serious item of loss. The merchants had waited until then for their fire-proof safes and vaults to cool off before attempting to open them. When this was at length done the results proved disheartening. Out of 576 vaults and safes opened in the district east of Powell and north of Market Street, where the flames had raged with the greatest fury, it was found that fully forty per cent. had not performed their duty. When opened they were found to contain nothing but heaps of ashes. The valuable account books, papers and in some cases large sums of money had vanished, the loss of the accounts being a severe calamity in a business sense. As all the banks were equipped with the best fire-proof vaults, no fear was felt for the safety of their contents.
LOOTERS IN CHINATOWN.
Chinatown suffered severely, the merchants of that locality possessing large stocks of valuable goods, many of which were looted by seemingly respectable sightseers after the ruins had cooled off, bronze, porcelain and other valuable goods being taken from the ruins. One example consisted in a mass of gold and silver valued at $2,500, which had been melted by the fire in the store of Tai Sing, a Chinese merchant. This was found by the police on May 3d in a place where it had been hidden by looters.
But with all its losses San Francisco does not despair. The spirit of its citizens is heroic, and there are some hopeful signs in the air. The insurances due are estimated to approximate $175,000,000, and there are other moneys likely to be spent on building during the coming year, making a total of over $200,000,000. Eastern capitalists also talk of investing $100,000,000 of new capital in the rebuilding of the city, while the San Francisco authorities have a project of issuing $200,000,000 of municipal bonds, the payment to be guaranteed by the United States Government. Thus, two weeks after the earthquake, daylight was already showing strongly ahead and hope was fast beginning to replace despair.
Shuddering under the memories of what seems more like a nightmare than actual reality to the survivors of this frightful calamity, they have tried to picture in words far from adequate the days of terror and the nights of horror that fell to the lot of the people of the Golden Gate city and their guests.
They recount the roar of falling structures and the groans and pitiful cries of those pinned beneath the timbers of collapsing buildings. They speak of their climbing over dead bodies heaped in the streets, and of following tortuous ways to find the only avenue of escape—the ferry, where men and women fought like infuriated animals, bent on escape from a fiery furnace.
These refugees tell of the great caravan composed of homeless persons in its wild flight to the hills for safety, and in that great procession women, harnessed to vehicles, trudging along and tugging at the shafts, hauling all that was left of their earthly belongings, and a little food that foresight told them would be necessary to stay the pangs of hunger in the hours of misery that must follow.
We give below an especially accurate picture from the description of the well-known writer, Jane Tingley, who, an eye-witness of it all, did so much to help the sufferers, and who, with all the unselfishness of true American womanhood, sacrificed her own comfort and needs for those of others.
“May God be merciful to the women and children in this land of desolation and despair!” she wrote on April 21st.
“Men have done, are doing such deeds of sublime self-sacrifice, of magnificent heroism, that deserve to make the title of American manhood immortal in the pages of history. The rest lies with the Almighty.
“I spent all of last night and to-day in that horror city across the bay. I went from this unharmed city of plenty, blooming with abounding health, thronged with happy mothers and joyous children, and spent hours among the blackened ruins and out on the windswept slopes of the sand hills by the sea, and I heard the voice of Rachel weeping for her children in the wilderness and mourning because she found them not.
“I climbed to the top of Strawberry Hill, in Golden Gate Park, and saw a woman, half naked, almost starving, her hair dishevelled and an unnatural lustre in her eyes, her gaze fixed upon the waters in the distance, and her voice repeating over and over again: ‘Here I am, my pretties; come here, come here.’
“I took her by the hand and led her down to the grass at the foot of the hill. A man—her husband—received her from me and wept as he said: ‘She is calling our three little children. She thinks the sounds of the ocean waves are the voices of our lost darlings.’
“Ever since they became separated from their children in that first terrific onrush of the multitude when the fire swept along Mission Street these two had been tramping over the hills and parks without food or rest, searching for their little ones. To all whom they have met they have addressed the same pitiful question: ‘Have you seen anything of our lost babies?’ They will not know what has become of them until order has been brought out of chaos; until the registration headquarters of the military authorities has secured the names of all who are among the straggling wanderers around the camps of the homeless. Perhaps then it will be found that these children are in a trench among the corpses of the weaklings who have succumbed to the frightful rigors of the last three days.
“Last night a soldier seized me by the arm and cried: ‘If you are a woman with a woman’s heart, go in there and do whatever you can.’
“‘In there’ meant behind a barricade of brush, covered with a blanket that had been hastily thrown together to form a rude shelter. I went in and saw one of my own sex lying on the bare grass naked, her clothing torn to shreds; scattered over the green beside her. She was moaning pitifully, and it needed no words to tell a woman what the matter was, I bade my man escort to find a doctor, or at least send more women at once. He ran off and soon two sympathetic ladies hastened into the shelter. In an hour my escort returned with a young medical student. Under the best ministrations we could find, a new life was ushered into this hell, which, a few hours before, was the fairest among cities.
“‘There have been many such cases,’ said the medical student. ‘Many of the mothers have died—few of the babies have lived. I, personally, know of nine babies that have been born in the park to-day. There must have been many others here, among the sand hills, and at the Presidio.’”
“Think of it, you happy women who have become mothers in comfortable homes, attended with every care that loving hands can bestow. Think of the dreadful plight of these poor members of your sex. The very thought of it is enough to make the hearts of women burst with pity.
“To-day I walked among the people crowded on the Panhandle. Opposite the Lyon Street entrance, on the north side, I saw a young woman sitting tailor-fashion in the roadway, which, in happier days, was the carriage boulevard. She held a dishpan and was looking at her reflection in the polished bottom, while another girl was arranging her hair. I recognized a young wife, whose marriage to a prominent young lawyer eight months ago was a gala event among that little handful of people who clung to the old-time fashionable district of Valencia Street, like the Phelan and Dent families, and refused to move from that aristocratic section when the new-made, millionaires began to build their palaces on Nob Hill and Pacific Heights. I spoke to the young woman about the disadvantages of making her toilet under such untoward circumstances.
“‘Ah, Julia, dear, you must stay to luncheon,’ she said, extending her fingers just as though she stood in her own drawing-room.”
MISERY DRIVES SOME INSANE.
“I looked at the maid in astonishment, for I had never met the young society woman before. The maid shook her head and whispered when she got the chance:
“‘My mistress is not in her right mind.’
“‘Where is her husband?’ I asked.
“‘He has gone to try to get some food,’ said the girl. ‘She imagines that she is in her own home, before her dressing table, and is having me do up her hair against some of her friends dropping in.’
“‘She must have suffered,’ I said, ‘to cause such a mental derangement.’
“The girl’s eyes filled with tears. She told me that her mistress had seen her brother killed by falling timbers while they were hurrying to a place of safety. A little farther on I saw two women concealed as best they might be behind a tuft of sand brush, one lying face down on the ground, while the other vigorously massaged her bare back. I asked if I might help, and learned that the ministering angel was the unmarried daughter of one of the city’s richest merchants, and that the girl whom she succored had been employed as a servant in her father’s household. The girl’s back had been injured by a fall, and her mistress’ fair hands were trying to make her well again.
“Thus has this overwhelming common woe levelled all barriers of caste and placed the suffering multitude on a basis of democracy. On a rock behind a manzanita bush near the edge of Stow Lake I saw a Chinaman making a pile of broken twigs in the early morning. The man felt inside his blouse and swore a gibbering, unintelligible Asiatic oath as his hand came forth empty. Observing my escort, the Chinaman approached and said:
“‘Bosse, alle same, catchee match?’
“My escort gave him the desired article, and the Chinaman made a fire of his pile of twigs. ‘Why are you making a fire, John?’ I asked.
“‘Bleakfast,’ he replied laconically.
“I asked him where his food might be, and he gave us a quick glance of suspicion as he said briefly, ‘No sabbe.’
“We stood watching him, evidently to his great distress, and finally he made bold to say, ‘You no stand lound, bosse. You go ‘way.’
“We left him, but after making the tour around the lake came back to the same place. There sat four people on the ground eating fried pork, potatoes and Chinese cakes. In a young woman of the group I recognized one whom I had seen dancing at one of Mr. Greenway’s Friday Night Cotillion balls in the Palace Hotel’s maple room during the winter. They offered to share their meal with us, but we told them that we had just come from breakfast in Oakland. I told them about the strange conduct of their Chinaman, who was traveling back and forth from his fire to the ‘table’ with the food as it became ready to serve.
“The father of the family laughed.”
SOCIETY FOLKS COMPELLED TO CAMP.
“‘Yes,’ he said, ‘that is Charlie’s way. He has been with us many years, and when our home was destroyed he came out here with us in preference to seeking refuge among his countrymen in Chinatown. Yesterday we were without food, and Charlie disappeared. I thought he had deserted us, but toward dark he came back with a bamboo pole over his shoulder and a Chinese market gardener’s basket suspended from either end. In one of the baskets he had a pile of blankets and a lot of canvas. In the other was an assortment of pork, flour, Chinese cakes and vegetables, besides a half-dozen chickens and a couple of bagfuls of rice.’
“‘Charlie had been foraging in Chinatown for us before the fire reached that quarter. He made a tent and improvised beds for us, and he has the food concealed somewhere in the vicinity, but where he will not tell us, for fear that we will give some of it to others and reduce our own supply. Charlie boils rice for himself. He will not touch the other food. Without him we should have been starving.’”
G. A. Raymond, who was in the Palace Hotel when the earthquake occurred, says:
“I had $600 in gold under my pillow. I awoke as I was thrown out of bed. Attempting to walk, the floor shook so that I fell. I grabbed my clothing and rushed down into the office, where dozens were already congregated. Suddenly the lights went out, and every one rushed for the door.
“Outside I witnessed a sight I never want to see again. It was dawn and light. I looked up. The air was filled with falling stones. People around me were crushed to death on all sides. All around the huge buildings were shaking and waving. Every moment there were reports like 100 cannon going off at one time. Then streams of fire would shoot out, and other reports followed.
“I asked a man standing by me what had happened. Before he could answer a thousand bricks fell on him and he was killed. A woman threw her arms around my neck. I pushed her away and fled. All around me buildings were rocking and flames shooting. As I ran people on all sides were crying, praying and calling for help. I thought the end of the world had come.
“I met a Catholic priest, and he said: ‘We must get to the ferry.’ He knew the way, and we rushed down Market Street. Men, women and children were crawling from the debris. Hundreds were rushing down the street, and every minute people were felled by falling debris.
“At places the streets had cracked and opened. Chasms extended in all directions. I saw a drove of cattle, wild with fright, rushing up Market Street. I crouched beside a swaying building. As they came nearer they disappeared, seeming to drop into the earth. When the last had gone I went nearer and found they had indeed been precipitated into the earth, a wide fissure having swallowed them. I worked my way around them and ran out to the ferry. I was crazy with fear and the horrible sights.
“How I reached the ferry I cannot say. It was bedlam, pandemonium and hell rolled into one. There must have been 10,000 people trying to get on that boat. Men and women fought like wild cats to push their way aboard. Clothes were torn from the backs of men and women and children indiscriminately. Women fainted, and there was no water at hand with which to revive them. Men lost their reason at those awful moments. One big, strong man, beat his head against one of the iron pillars on the dock, and cried out in a loud voice: ‘This fire must be put out! The city must be saved!’ It was awful.”
TERRIBLE SCENE AT THE FERRY.
“When the gates were opened the mad rush began. All were swept aboard in an irresistible tide. We were jammed on the deck like sardines in a box. No one cared. At last the boat pulled out. Men and women were still jumping for it, only to fall into the water and probably drown.”
The members of the Metropolitan Opera Company, of New York, were in San Francisco at this time, and nearly all of these famous singers, known all over the world, suffered from the great disaster.
All of the splendid scenery, stage fittings, costumes and musical instruments were lost in the fire, which destroyed the Grand Opera House, where the season had just opened to splendid audiences.
Many of the operatic stars have given very interesting accounts of their experiences. Signor Caruso, the famous tenor and one of the principals of the company, had one of the most thrilling experiences. He and Signor Rossi, a favorite basso, and his inseparable companion, had a suite on the seventh floor and were awakened by the terrific shaking of the building. The shock nearly threw Caruso out of bed. He said:
“I threw open the window, and I think I let out the grandest notes I ever hit in all my life. I do not know why I did this. I presume I was too excited to do anything else.”
GREAT SINGERS ESCAPE.
“Looking out of the window, I saw buildings all around rocking like the devil had hold of them. I wondered what was going on. Then I heard Rossi come scampering into my room. ‘My God, it’s an earthquake!’ he yelled. ‘Get your things and run!’ I grabbed what I could lay my hands on and raced like a madman for the office. On the way down I shouted as loud as I could so the others would wake up.
“When I got to the office I thought of my costumes and sent my valet, Martino, back after them. He packed things up and carried the trunks down on his back. I helped him take them to Union Square.”
It is said that ten minutes later he was seen seated on his valise in the middle of the street. But to continue his story:
“I walked a few feet away to see how to get out, and when I came back four Chinamen were lugging my trunks away. I grabbed one of them by the ears, and the others jumped on me. I took out my revolver and pointed it at them. They spit at me. I was mad, but I hated to kill them, so I found a soldier, and he made them give up the trunks.
“Ah, that soldier was a fine fellow. He went up to the Chinamen and slapped them upon the face, once, twice, three times. They all howled like the devil and ran away. I put my revolver back into my pocket, and then I thanked the soldier. He said: ‘Don’t mention it. Them Chinks would steal the money off a dead man’s eyes.’”
They say that Rossi, though almost in tears, was heard trying his voice at a corner near the Palace Hotel.
TEDDY’S PICTURE PROVES “OPEN SESAME.”
“I went to Lafayette Square and slept on the grass. When I tried to get into the square the soldiers pushed me back. I pleaded with them, but they would not listen. I had under my arm a large photograph of Theodore Roosevelt, upon which was written: ‘With kindest regards from Theodore Roosevelt.’ I showed them this, and one of them said: ‘If you are a friend of Teddy, come in and make yourself at home.’
“I put my trunks in the cellar of the Hotel St. Francis and thought they would be safe. The hotel caught fire, and my trunks were all burned up. To think I took so much trouble to save them!”
In spite of the news of all the woe and suffering which we hear, it is cheering to learn also of the many thousands of heroic deeds by brave men during the terrible scenes enacted through the four days passing since the eventful morning when the earth began to demolish splendid buildings of business and residence and fire sprang up to complete the city’s destruction. The Mayor and his forces of police, the troops under command of General Funston, volunteer aids to all these, and the husbands of terrified wives, and the sons, brothers and other relatives who toiled for many consecutive hours through smoke and falling walls and an inferno of flames and explosions and traps of danger of all kinds, often without food or water—toiling as men never toiled before to save life and relieve distress of all kinds—all these were examples of heroism and devotion to duty seldom witnessed in any scenes of terror in all time. There are brave, unselfish men and heroic women yet in the world, and all of the best of human nature has been exhibited in large dimensions in the terrible disaster at San Francisco.
The first news that the world received of the earthquake came direct from San Francisco and was confined largely to descriptions of the disaster which had overwhelmed that city. It was so sudden, so appalling, so tragic in its nature, that for the time being it quite overshadowed the havoc and misery wrought in a number of other California towns of lesser note.
As the truth, however, became gradually sifted out of the tangle of rumors, the horror, instead of being diminished, was vastly increased. It became evident that instead of this being a local catastrophe, the full force of the seismic waves had travelled from Ukiah in the north to Monterey in the south, a distance of about 180 miles, and had made itself felt for a considerable distance from the Pacific westward, wrecking the larger buildings of every town in its path, rending and ruining as it went, and doing millions of dollars worth of damage.
THE DESTRUCTION OF SANTA ROSA.
In Santa Rosa, sixty miles to the north of San Francisco, and one of the most beautiful towns of California, practically every building was destroyed or badly damaged. The brick and stone business blocks, together with the public buildings, were thrown down. The Court House, Hall of Records, the Occidental and Santa Rosa Hotels, the Athenaeum Theatre, 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.
In the residential portion of the city the foundations receded from under the houses, badly wrecking about twenty of the largest and damaging every one more or less; and here, as in San Francisco, flames followed the earthquake, breaking out in a dozen different places at once and completing the work of devastation. From the ruins of the fallen houses fifty-eight bodies were taken out and interred during the first few days, and the total of dead and injured was close to a hundred. The money loss at this small city is estimated at $3,000,000.
The destruction of Santa Rosa gave rise to general sorrow among the residents of the interior of the State. It was one of the show towns of California, and not only one of the most prosperous cities in the fine county of Sonoma, but one of the most picturesque in the State. Surrounding it there were miles of orchards, vineyards and corn fields. The beautiful drives of the city were adorned with bowers of roses, which everywhere were seen growing about the homes of the people. In its vicinity are the famous gardens of Luther Burbank, the “California wizard,” but these fortunately escaped injury.
At San Jose, another very beautiful city of over 20,000 population, not a single brick or stone building of two stories or over was left standing. Among those wrecked were the Hall of justice, just completed at a cost of $300,000; the new High School, the Presbyterian Church and St. Patrick’s Cathedral. Numbers of people were caught in the ruins and maimed or killed. The death list appears to have been small, but the property damage was not less than $5,000,000. The Agnew State Insane Asylum, in the vicinity of San Jose, was entirely destroyed, more than half the inmates being killed or injured.
THE STANFORD UNIVERSITY.
The Leland Stanford, Jr., University, at Palo Alto (about thirty miles south of San Francisco), felt the full force of the earthquake and was badly wrecked. Only two lives were lost as a result of the earthquake, one of a student, the other of a fireman, but eight students were injured more or less seriously. The damage to the buildings is estimated by President Jordan to amount to about $4,000,000.
The memorial church, with its twelve marble figures of the apostles, each weighing two tons, was badly injured by the fall of its Gothic spire, which crashed through the roof and demolished much of the interior; the great entrance archway was split in twain and wrecked; so, too, were the library, the gymnasium and the power house. A number of other buildings in the outer quadrangle and some of the small workshops were seriously damaged.
Encina Hall and the inner quadrangle were practically uninjured, and the bulk of the books, collections and apparatus escaped damage.
Sacramento, together with all the smaller cities and towns that dot the great Sacramento Valley for a distance fifty miles south and 150 miles north of the capital, escaped without injury, not a single pane of glass being broken or a brick displaced in Sacramento and no injury done in the other places, they lying eastward of the seat of serious earthquake activity.
Los Angeles and Santa Barbara escaped with a slight trembling; Stockton, 103 miles north of San Francisco, felt a severe shock and the Santa Fe bridge over the San Joaquin River at this point settled several inches. The only place in Southern California that suffered was Brawley, a small town lying 120 miles south of Los Angeles, about 100 buildings in the town and the surrounding valley being injured, though none of them were destroyed.
THE EARTHQUAKE AT OTHER CITIES.
At Alameda, on the bay opposite San Francisco, a score of chimneys were shaken down and other injuries done. Railroad tracks were twisted, and over 600 feet of track of the Oakland Transit Company’s railway sank four feet. The total damage done amounted to probably $200,000, but no lives were lost. Tomales, a place of 350 inhabitants, was left a pile of ruins.
At Los Panos several buildings were wrecked, causing damage to the extent of $75,000, but no lives were lost.
At Loma Prieta the earthquake caused a mine house to slip down the side of a mountain, ten men being buried in the ruins.
Fort Bragg, one of the principal lumbering towns in Mendocino County, was practically wiped out by fire following the earthquake, but out of a population of 5,000 only one was killed, though scores were injured.
The town of Berkeley, across the bay from San Francisco, suffered considerable damage from twisted structures, fallen walls and broken chimneys, the greatest injury being in the collapse of the town hall and the ruin of the deaf and dumb asylum. The University of California, situated here, was fortunate in escaping injury, it being reported that not a building was harmed in the slightest degree. Another public edifice of importance and interest, in a different section of the State, the famous Lick Astronomical Observatory, was equally fortunate, no damage being done to the buildings or the instruments.
AT THE STATE UNIVERSITY.
Salinas, a town down the coast near Monterey, suffered severely, the place being to a large extent destroyed, with an estimated loss of over $1,000,000. The Spreckels’ sugar factory and a score of other buildings were reported ruined and a number of lives lost. During the succeeding week several other shocks of some strength were reported from this town.
Thus the ruinous work of the earthquake stretched over a broad track of prosperous, peaceful and happy country, embracing one of the best sections of California, laying waste not only the towns in its path, but doing much damage to ranch houses and country residences. Strange manifestations of nature were reported from the interior, where the ground was opened in many places like a ploughed field. Great rents in the earth were reported, and for many miles north from Los Angeles miniature geysers are said to have spouted volcano-like streams of hot mud.
Railroad tracks in some localities were badly injured, sinking or lifting, and being put out of service until repaired. In fact, the ruinous effects of the earthquake immensely exceeded those of any similar catastrophe ever before known in the United States, and when the destruction done by the succeeding conflagration in San Francisco is taken into account the California earthquake of 1906 takes rank with the most destructive of those recorded in history.