The history of the San Francisco disaster and Mount Vesuvius horror

Front matter

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Preface

Strike one section of the world a terrible blow and all other sections have their deepest sympathies immediately centered in that spot. It is this fact that keeps alive man's belief in the universal brotherhood of the race.

A tragedy such as that which now overtops all others of its kind, and which in the short space of its action transformed San Francisco from the most beautiful American city into a wilderness of woe and desolation, must stir every human heart to deepest pity. In the soft dawn of the morning a series of seismic waves ran down the coast line from the north, their force culminating at San Francisco Bay. As a result more than one thousand lives were lost, several thousand men, women and children wounded, and three hundred thousand people rendered homeless.

The scenes of terror that followed the breaking loose of so much force and fire in one spot cannot be realized by any single intelligence. To describe it in words would be to picture all that has ever been dreamed of Heaven and Hell.

But the great throbbing heart of humanity that has felt this indescribable tragedy, the great Christian world listens for the voice that shall tell of the suffering and sacrifice, the woe and the goodness born of that woe, the pathetic tale of the destruction of San Francisco.

8 PREFACE

Following close upon the eruption of Vesuvius on the other side of the world the San Francisco disaster found the country busy raising funds for the homeless Neapolitans. The Golden Gate city was engaged in this work when of a sudden it became the subject of the world's bounty.

And well has the world responded. The tremors of the earth under the devastated city were not stilled when trains and boats were on their way to relieve the distress caused by this unparalleled catastrophe. And the energy born of pity and brotherhood is not ephemeral; it is a continuous force and will not cease to act while there is one homeless family, or one destitute person within the ruined circle of what was until this disaster the happiest of American cities.

From such great disasters man discovers his own helplessness. With all his ingenious inventions he is more helpless than the wild animals he affects to despise. For they have an instinctive sense of approaching danger, a faculty scarcely known to man. It is the recognition of this truth that moves men to lean upon one another; to accept kindness without question and to in turn be helpful. The selfish have the most cause to fear, for they cannot know what hour fate may strip them of everything and leave them naked and destitute.

Nature does nothing by rule. All creation is one continual surprise. A leaf is formed and the, pattern broken so that its exact counterpart will never appear again. But Truth, the great underlying principle upon which is formed the character of man, is unalterable. And out of that Truth comes the quality of helpfulness.

PREFACE 9

It is this world-wide quality of sympathy shown instantly upon the reports that San Francisco was being destroyed, that softens the horror of that unequalled calamity, and makes the record of the disaster a prophecy of good, rather than evil. It is the purpose of this book to give not only a correct account of the destruction of San Francisco, but of the super-generous efforts of the world to feed and clothe the hundreds of thousands of homeless and destitute, to give cheer and encouragement to the wounded and helpless, and to assist in rebuilding upon the beautiful bay a greater and more magnificent city.

The authors wish to acknowledge the great debt of gratitude they are under to the officials in charge at San Francisco, the press and telegraph, as well as the courtesy of hundreds of individuals who assisted in the gathering of information to make this book complete and accurate. Other writers besides those given credit in the text, who have lent great assistance, are Mr. Charles Ulrich, Mr. Edward W. Pickard, and Mr. Samuel C. Andrews, the latter having passed a large part of his life among the great volcanoes.

To tell the correct story of the great earthquake has not been all our ambition, but to incorporate in these pages the sublime spirit of America. It is not alone the cities of the United States that give utterance to the spirit of idealism that is making the nation great. It is in the farm and the garden as well as the mill, the store and workshop. It is this spirit that will rebuild and beautify San Francisco.

THE AUTHORS.

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LOOKING DOWN KEARNY STREET TO MARKET.

This view shows the Claus Spreckels building in the background. The disaster left it all a mass of ruins.

DEDICATED

to

SYMPATHETIC HUMANITY

WHICH AGAIN IN A SPONTANEOUS

OUTBURST OF UNSTINTED LOVE HAS PROVED

THAT MERCY

IS A LIVING FOUNTAIN IN THE

HEART OF MAN AND THAT

ALL HEARTS ARE

ONE

Chapter I Destruction Of San Francisco

Golden Gate City Wiped Out by Earthquake and Fire— First Shock Comes in Mysterious Twilight of the Dawn — Whole Population Rush Half-Clad Into the Streets to Find Themselves Helpless in the Presence of Fate — Great Sky Scrapers Topple to Ruin, Burying Hundreds in the Debris — Immense Conflagration Completes " The Wreck of Matter and the Crash of Worlds"— The Most Beautiful and Historic City of America Swept Into Oblivion 23

CHAPTER 1 1

AWFUL RESULTS OF FIRST SHOCKS

Earthquake Topples Over Great Buildings — Thousands Buried in Debris — Cataclysm Comes Without Warning — Magnificent City Hall Wrecked — Terror-stricken Population Rushes Into the Streets — Poorer Residence Districts Razed — Famous Cliff House and Sutro Baths Escape 30

Chapter III Flames Sweep The Doomed City

Conflagrations Break Out at Scores of Points — Fire Department Helpless — Water Mains Broken by Quake — Many Buildings Blown Up by Dynamite in Effort to Check Flames — Government Troops Batter Down Blocks With Cannon — Fire Spreads Remorselessly to Residence Districts Until Almost the Entire City is Consumed......... 38

Chapter I V Reign Of Terror

Mad Panic Seizes the Citizens — Martial Law is Proclaimed — General Fred Funston Takes Charge — Government and State Troops Patrol Streets — Shooting of Ghouls and Thieves — Hunger, Thirst and Fears of Epidemic — Lunatics From Shattered Asylum Tied to Trees 58

CHAPTER V

BRINGING ORDER OUT OF CHAOS

Magnificent Work Done by General Funston and His Soldiers — Maddened Community Protected From Itself — Camps Established, Sanitation Enforced, Food and Shelter Provided — Difficult Problems Vigorously Solved — Devotion of Mayor Schmitz and His Aids — Police and Militia Earn Praise — Restoration of More Normal Conditions 74

CHAPTER V I

THE HEART OF THE WORLD IS STIRRED

Millions of Dollars for Relief of the Stricken City — Trains of Provisions Rushed From Sacramento and Los Angeles While the Fire Rages — The National Government Makes Available a Million Dollars for the Homeless — New York Subscribes $500,000 the First Day — Chicago, Remembering Its Own Holocaust. Quickened to Heroic Action — Every City of the Country Swells the Relief Fund — Even the Poor Give Liberally from Their Slender Store — The Nations of the Earth Send Messages of Sympathy 89

CHAPTER VII

PEN PICTURES OF DESOLATION

Scenes Amid the Ruins — Remnant of City Like Crescent Moon Set About Black Disk of Shadows — Doleful Streams of Refugees — Horrors Breed Insanity — Drunken Orgies Held by Denizens of "The

16 CONTENTS

Barbary Coast" — Soldiers Sternly Enforce Martial Law — Eflsobedience Brings Instant Death 101

CHAPTER VIII

DEEDS OF HEROISM AND VALOR

Personal Experiences by Survivors — How It Feels to Be Awakened by an Earthquake — A Woman Writer Makes Her Way Through the Still Rocking City — Millionaires Breakfast on the Grass Before the Ruins of Their Palaces — Automobiles Shriek and Toot Among the Falling Buildings , 115

CHAPTER IX

TALES TOLD BY SURVIVORS

Guests Who Escaped Safely From the Hotels Relate Thrilling Experiences — Saw Buildings Sway, Collapse and Burst Into Flames — Mad Rush to the Ferry Docks — Grand Opera Stars in Deadly Peril — Spend Night in Open Air Camps with Other Refugees — Olive Fremstad, Refusing to Flee, Aids Injured and Destitute — Soldier Shoots Man to Save Him from Death in Flames 133

CHAPTER X

GREAT UNIVERSITY WRECKED

Earthquake Shocks Lay Low Beautiful Buildings of Stanford University at Palo Alto — Pride of Golden State in Ruins — Students Are Killed and Injured — Story of the Founding of the Institution of Learning — University of California at Berkeley Not Damaged 145

CHAPTER XI

CHINATOWN IS DEVASTATED

District Familiar to the World's Travelers Falls Prey to Quake and Flame — Hundreds of Orientals Perish and Throw Themselves to Death — Famous Joss Houses, Theaters and Crowded Rookeries Collapse — Panic Stricken Chinese Have No Time to Placate the Dragon of Evil in Earth's Center 155

CHAPTER X 1 1

NOTED LANDMARKS GONE

Palaces of Pioneers, Great Hotels and Famous Buildings Destroyed in the Cataclysm — Stanford, Flood, Huntington and Crocker Mansions Wiped Out — Well Known Restaurants and Bohemian Resorts Burned — Fine Theaters, Newspaper Offices and Mammoth Department Stores Go Down in Ruin — Government Mint Alone is Saved. . 165

CHAPTER XIII

RUIN OF SAN JOSE AND SANTA ROSA

Two of California's Prettiest Cities Destroyed by the Earthquake — Business Districts Leveled by the Shock and Dwellings Shattered — Flames Sweep the Wreckage — Many Persons Perish — Fatal Landslide on Loma Prieta Mountain — Score of Towns Along Coast Suffer Severely 175

CHAPTER X I V

DESTRUCTION OFTEN PREDICTED

San Francisco Many Times Shaken by Earthquakes — Geologists Had Expected Disaster Because of City's Dangerous Location — Two Hundred and Fifty Shocks in Fifty Years, Though Loss of Life Was Infrequent — Dire Prophecies of Seers — Serious Fires in Golden Gate City's Earlier Days 186

CONTENTS , 17

CHAPTER XV

IMMENSE FINANCIAL LOSSES

Property Destroyed in San Francisco Alone Valued at $400,000,000— Insurance Companies Liable for Over $100,000,000 — European Concerns Are Hard Hit — Prompt Payment on Liberal Lines, Involving Assessments on Stockholders — Property Damage in Other Cities Shaken by Earthquake Estimated at $12,000,000 , 201

CHAPTER X V I

THE RISE OF A NEW CITY

Rebuilding of San Francisco Assured Before Its Ashes Are Cool — Indomitable Spirit of Pioneers Arises to Meet the Crisis — Quick Revival of Hope and Confidence — Reconstructed City Will be Handsomer and Safer Than the Old — Architect Burnham's Plans for Magnificent Metropolis Adopted — Beautiful Boulevards and Parks. . 209

CHAPTER XVII

GREAT THEATRICAL BENEFITS

Unparalleled Performance Given in the Bernhardt Tent in Chicago — Mighty Concourse of Stage Stars, Including Bernhardt, Willard, Sothern and Julia Marlowe — Thousands Under Canvas — Actors' Fund Benefit Given for San Francisco Sufferers — Countless Performances All Over the Country Swell the Monster Relief Fund 231

CHAPTER XVIII

WHAT 'FRISCO HAS LOST

It Was a Group of Individuals, but a Single Soul — Its Early Lack of Books Inspired a New Literature — Some Characteristics of the Old San Francisco — An Englishman's Experience With John Phoenix, the First American Humorist to Gain Fame — San Francisco Compared to Chicago — It Was a Forest of Arden That Must Now Become a Steel Metropolis 243

CHAPTER XIX

EARLY HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO

First Settlement by Spanish Missionaries in the Year 1776 — A Mission of Mercy — The Early Days of '49 — Growth and Development of the Golden Gate — Literature and Art — Oriental Trade — Wonderful Development of Industries — Agricultural Period — Great Fruit Growing — Pre-eminent for Its Wines 253

CHAPTER X X

THE PARIS OF AMERICA

San Francisco Was One of the Most Beautiful Cities in the World and the Pride of the Pacific Coast — Handsome Buildings, Hotels, City Hall, Magnificent Residences, Beautiful Churches and Parks the Delight of Every Visitor — Nob Hill, the Home of the Comstock Kings, Art, Refinement and Riches— Growth of the City Phenomenal During the Agricultural and Manufacturing Periods Which Succeeded the Golden Age — Business Receives Impetus by Declaration of War With Spain— Rivalry of Other Coast Cities 269

CHAPTER XXI

THE BAY OF SAN FRANCISCO

The Golden Gate at Sunset— A Harbor Sufficient to Float the Navies of the World— Panoramic View From the Coast Superb— Flowers of a Thousand Hues Bloom Upon the Hillsides— Winter Scenes the Most Charming— The Great Ferry— A Vision of Loveliness 281

18 CONTENTS

CHAPTER XXII

GOLDEN GATE PARK

Chief Pride and Joy of San Francisco — Built on Sand Dunes — Grand Pleasure Ground for the People — Beautiful Trees and Flowers, Conservatories, Aviaries, Japanese Garden, Museum and Music Stand — Great Celtic Cross^Cliff House and Sutro Baths 293

CHAPTER XXIII

CITY OF BEAUTIFUL SUBURBS

Country Around San Francisco Like a Great Garden, Dotted With Charming Towns — Lovely Hills and Valleys of San Mateo County — Magnificent View from Mt. Tamalpais, the Watch Tower of the Pacific — Oakland the Prosperous and Berkeley the Fascinating 305

CHAPTER XXIV

WHY SAN FRANCISCO IS GREAT

Story of the City's Awakening to New Life and Prosperity After the Spanish War — Gateway to the Orient — What the Acquisition of the Philippines and Opening of China Mean to It — Metropolis of a Marvelously Rich but Strangely Isolated Country — Natural Resources and Climate Unsurpassed 314

CHAPTER XXV

VOLCANIC UPHEAVAL IN ITALY

The Eruption of Vesuvius of April, 1906, Destructive to Life and Property — Calabrian Earthquakes Foreshadow the Catastrophe — Panic Follows Outbreak — Bosco Trecase Overwhelmed and Destroyed — People Flee From the Destroyer in Terror — Pathetic Scenes Witnessed — Cone of Vesuvius Collapses 337

CHAPTER XXVI Ancient History of Vesuvius » 352

CHAPTER XXVII

THE VOLCANO KRAKATOA IN JAVA

The Most Terrible Volcanic Explosion in the World's History 357

CHAPTER XXVIII

ST. PIERRE, MARTINIQUE, ANNIHILATED

Story of the Swift Destruction of a Beautiful City in the Lesser

Antilles 366

CHAPTER XXIX

VOLCANOES OF HAWAII

Haleakala, Large Extinct Crater, and Mauna Loa, Most Active of Live Volcanoes • 374

CHAPTER XXX

Lesser Disasters in the United States 397

CHAPTER XXXI

How Earthquakes Affect the Globe 404

CHAPTER XXXII

SOME FACTS ABOUT VOLCANOES AND EARTHQUAKES

Cause of Earthquakes and Volcanic Phenomena — "Downthrows" 422

CHAPTER XXXIII

LEGENDARY ROMANCES OF CRATERS

The Mythology of Volcanoes 435

ILLUSTRATIONS

San Francisco From Nob Hill.

Great Buildings Fall Prey to Flames.

Looking Down Kearny Street to Market.

San Francisco a Blazing Furnace.

The Business District in Flames.

The Fire on the First Day.

In the Wholesale Fruit District.

Scene on Mission Street.

Wrecked by Earthquake and Doomed by Fire.

Twenty Square Miles of Fierce Blazing Fire.

In the Path of the Flames.

The Magnificent City Hall Wrecked by Earthquake.

The Burning of the City as Viewed from Nob Hill.

Ruins of Grace Church.

Chinatown — San Francisco.

The Valencia Hotel Destroyed by Earthquake.

Market Street Looking Toward the Ferry.

Pine and Market Streets After the Earthquake.

Fire, Death, Ruin and Desolation.

Refugees in Golden Gate Park.

Crack in the Earth in Golden Gate Park.

Chinese Refugees Huddled in Washington Park.

Fireman Fighting the Flames.

Ruins of the Residence District.

Market Street Before the Disaster.

Looking Down Market Street.

St. Francis Hotel and the Dewey Monument.

Montgomery Street.

City Hall.

Crocker Building.

The Court and Palm Gardens, Palace Hotel.

Cliff House and Seal Rocks.

Ferry Building.

The United States Mint.

The Chronicle — Examiner — Hall of Justice, and the Mills Building.

A Joss House, Chinatown.

Mechanics' Pavilion.

20 ILLUSTRATIONS

Japanese Garden — Golden Gate Park.

Inner Quadrangle — Stanford University.

One of the Handsome Residence Districts on Nob Hill.

Golden Gate Park— Four Views.

Pioneer Building — Native Sons' Building.

Odd Fellows — Hopkins Art Institute — Masonic Temple.

St. Mary's Cathedral — St. John the Evangelist.

Map of San Francisco and Vicinity.

Map of Burnt District.

Areas of Three Great Fires.

Five Interesting Points Around San Francisco.

San Francisco in 1848 After First Discovery of Gold.

California in 1849 at the Height of the Gold Fever.

Members of the California Theatre in 1876.

Hon. Wm. Randolph Hearst.

Andrew M. Lawrence.

Men at the Head of the Relief Committees.

The Famous Bernhardt Tent Performance.

Interior of the Bernhardt Tent During Benefit Performance.

Sarah Bernhardt and Other Stars.

Eruption of Vesuvius.

Vesuvius Raining Mud and Ashes.

Vesuvius Pouring Forth Molten Lava.

The Destruction Caused by Vesuvius.

An Inactive Volcano.

Mount Kilauea, Hawaii — Largest Active Volcano in the World.

SAN FRANCISCO A BLAZING FURNACE.

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Copyright 1906 by The American — Journal — Examiner.

THE BUSINESS DISTRICT IN FLAMES.

Scene from Telegraph Hill while the conflagration was at its worst.

CHAPTER I

DESTRUCTION OF SAN FRANCISCO

Golden Gate City Wiped Out by Earthquake and Fire — First Shock Comes in Mysterious Twilight of the Dawn— Whole Population Rush Half-Clad Into the Streets to Find Themselves Helpless in the Presence of Fate — Great Sky Scrapers Topple to Ruin, Burying Hundreds in the Debris — Immense Conflagration Completes " The Wreck of Matter and the Crash of Worlds "—The Most Beautiful and Historic City of America Swept Into Oblivion.

On the morning of April 18, 1906, at 5:13 o'clock, San Francisco felt the first tremors of an earthquake shock that was destined to destroy the entire city.

In that mysterious hour of twilight that precedes the dawn of a new day the earth under the city heaved and rocked like a troubled sea.

Out of the deep sleep of the hour nearly four hundred thousand people awoke to see the result of a century of labor and genius crumble to dust and ashes as though touched by the magic wand of the Demon of Destruction.

The Golden Gate that had hitherto been the happiest of American cities was suddenly transformed into a place of woe. Shut off from the outside world, it became at once a bleeding, crying wilderness of fear, horror and death.

The San Francisco of yesterday had been peculiarly free from disaster. No great fires had leveled her buildings or pestilence invaded her homes. In the ■ early days of '49, when the discovery of gold in that region brought a heterogeneous mass of humanity to 'Frisco, the wooden shacks which served at the time for business houses, and the tents that were the residences of the hardy adventurers of pick and shovel, were thrice swept away in conflagration. But the loss was ephemeral. The constant stream of gold that flowed into the town, and the liberality with which it was scattered soon overcame the temporary difficulties, and buildings of some pretentions went up at once over the ruins.

But during the last generation, while the city has grown with marvelous strides, the elements have been kind. Several incipient earthquakes have kept the people in mind of the chained force that crouched under the shell of earth and rock on which the city was built; but these served only to accustom the people to the danger and " come out and have a shake with me," became a familiar form of invitation from citizens to their eastern friends.

The New San Francisco rose white and graceful above the blue of the bay. Her palaces were the pride of the coast; her men brave, fearless, enterprising, noble and imaginative; her women beautiful, talented, and both men and women intensely human.

And now, at a moment when the eastern sky was tender with the coming dawn, when all the winds were gentlest and all the skies softest, at the very birth of new hopes and aspirations and activities, it seemed doubly cruel that an unseen enemy should stretch out a hand of doom to blacken and torture and slay her sleeping children.

Two friars, Francisco Paulo and Pedro Cambon, in 1776, founded upon this magnificent bay a Catholic mission which became the cornerstone of the city of the Golden Gate. Could those holy fathers have looked into the future so far as to see the terror of this awful morning they must have hesitated and turned back with their little colony to Monterey, from whence they came. \But the peaceful bay with its surrounding hills robed in luxurious verdure gave no presage of the unprecedented tragedy that one hundred and thirty years later was to be enacted there.

No other American city is so rich in historical romance as San Francisco. The bravest souls of the old world and the new have lived and loved, struggled and sacrificed, and left the marks of their individual characters upon the life of all that wonderful region. In the shadow of Mt. Shasta the gold seekers of '49 pitched their tents and inaugurated a commonwealth of camaraderie new in the history of the world, and simple as it was noble. Out of this spirit sprung a distinctly American literature which added to the illustrious names of the world those of Artemus Ward, Bret Harte, Joaquin Miller, Mark Twain, and many others who have followed in their footsteps. Here alone in all the Western World Art went hand in hand with Industry, and the physical expression of that dual life was San Francisco.

And in one awful hour all the results of that aspiration, toil, energy and genius were swept into oblivion, and where on yester-night had stood a thriving metropolis the morning beheld nothing but ruin and desolation.

For several days previous to the shock in San Francisco Mt. Rainier, which rises like a mammoth mountain of snow over Puget Sound far to the north, had been in eruption. A pillar of smoke rose high into the clear air of that region from the apex of the mountain, and low rumblings were heard in the interior by isolated miners living on its side, and some fear was felt by the cities of Seattle and Tacoma. The recent Vesuvius horror caused speculation among scientists as to the probability of that far-away seismic cataclysm being the cause of the Rainier disturbance. Yet little attention was paid to the matter. Rainier is sixty miles or more from any settlement, and while it is known to be of volcanic origin it has never been considered dangerous.

So the pillar of smoke to the far north that might have proved a warning grew and swelled and faded away to no purpose. Business and pleasure filled the minds and hearts of the people of the coast cities. Ambition, greed, passion and hate fought the never-ending fight with courage, liberality, patience and love, and the everlasting blue of heaven looked on at the struggle.

Man, believing himself master of his fate, laughed and danced, argued and coaxed, bought and sold, deceived and was deceived, until worn out with conflicting emotions he laid himself down to woo the " sleep that knits up the raveled sleeve of care " and fell a-dreaming of the triumphs of the morrow.

Such was the San Francisco that the mighty wave sweeping through the earth picked out of its bed and tossed whithersoever it would. It touched the giant steel structures and left them dangling like broken skeins of yarn above their cracked and broken foundations. Its waves swelled under the great Palace Hotel and its walls fell outward as though the building were a paper toy. China Town, with its swarm of orientals, living half above and. half under ground, melted into dust and ashes, even as the visions of the opium smoker fade with his awaking. Statues that had been the pride of the city fell crashing to ruin. Churches waved their tall spires in the air and then threw them like giant spears far into the night. Telegraph wires parted, water mains burst and fire and water mingled with elemental force to complete the destruction.

And out into that groaning, tossing, tumbling chaos rushed three hundred thousand persons, a half naked and wholly crazed throng of humanity, praying, cursing, weeping, begging and denying, the children of men helpless in the presence of the forces of Nature they had thought to have made their slaves. The whole scene was so crowded with the huge and astonishing that anything beyond the simplest chronicle of the known facts would be worse than useless. From the dawn of the day of the first shock until the force of the military, working in conjunction with the civil authorities, had brought order out of chaos, there was not a moment within the confines of that poor, doomed city but had its own separate tragedy; its own act of heroism; its own sublime sacrifice.

The San Francisco quake which shook to earth most of the principal buildings of the city, and the conflagration which followed, conspire to make this catastrophe the greatest in the history of the United States. In point of property loss and loss of life only three catastrophes in the annals of America can compare with it. They are the great Chicago fire of 1871, the Galveston hurricane and tidal wave of 1900, and the Johnstown flood. In the first 200 persons lost their lives and there was a property loss of $190,000,000. In the second 7,000 persons died and $30,000,000 worth of property was destroyed. In the Johnstown flood thousands of lives were lost and many millions of dollars in property destroyed.

In San Francisco the loss of life will probably reach three thousand persons, and the loss of property amount to $500,000,000. One of the most beautiful cities in America is practically wiped out of existence. The two greatest forces known to man, vibration and fire, were joined and let loose to work this awful destruction. And following these came the gaunt figures of starvation and disease to complete the horror of the situation.

The earthquake, with its gigantic undulations that cause an indescribable sickness, passed, and fear was giving place to returning hope when the whole city seemed to burst into flames. The electric wires, torn from their fastenings had the loose ends flung high in the air to fall in a tangle, like lightning falling out of the sky. These set fire to hundreds of buildings at once and what the quake had spared the flames devoured.

Like some terrible monster with the cunning of a devil the earthquake had in advance of the fire broken the water mains and the inhabitants could only stand dumbly by, looking upon the destruction of their beautiful city, and the total dissipation of individual fortunes. It was like a nightmare from which they strove in vain to awake.

While this supreme tragedy was being enacted in San Francisco, other coast cities were falling. For hundreds of miles along the coast the people felt the shock, and some towns, like Palo Alto with the Leland Stanford University buildings, and Santa Rosa, were utterly wiped out. Oakland, across the bay, lost heavily in art treasures, most of the statues and paintings on the walls and in the public and private buildings being ruined. All stone buildings were badly damaged, but there was no loss of life. Watsonville, Redwood, Napa, Santa Cruz, San Jose, Monterey, Los Angeles, Hollister, Brawley and Berkeley were more or less damaged. The Spreckels' sugar factory at Salinas was leveled and many lives lost. As far away as Honolulu the shock was felt and for several days after the great quake lesser shocks were reported in other parts of California and Oregon.

CHAPTER 1 1

AWFUL RESULTS OF FIRST SHOCKS

Earthquake Topples Over Great Buildings — Thousands Buried in Debris — Cataclysm Comes Without Warning — Magnificent City Hall Wrecked — Terror-stricken Population Rushes Into the Streets — Poorer Residence Districts Razed— Famous Cliff House and Sutro Baths Escape.

Just as San Francisco was waking to life and work, at 5:13 o'clock, the earth swayed, and much of the city fell in ruins. Nature had unchained one of her most dreaded forces of destruction. Great buildings of stone and iron toppled over and thousands of wooden structures were shattered. For almost five minutes the awful rolling motion continued. The inhabitants, shrieking and maddened by panic, fled from their homes into the streets, unclad, only to be buried in the debris of the crashing walls. A few moments later came another terrific shock to complete the work of devastation. Great crevices opened in the streets under the very feet of the fleeing people, who knew not where to turn for safety. The roar of falling buildings, the screams of the injured, explosions of gas mains and the instant breaking out of countless fires added to the fearful scene.

The first shock came without warning save a slight reverberating roar, the motion of the earth being from east to west. The upheaval was gradual, and for a few seconds it seemed as if the entire city was being lifted slowly upward, and then, after perhaps five seconds of the sickening rising sensation the shock increased in violence.

Chimneys began to fall, the houses trembled violently, swayed, and some fell with crashes.

Buildings tottered on their foundations. Some rose and fell, and, when falling, the fronts or sides burst out as if from explosions, hurling tons of brick, mortar and timbers into the streets. Great rents opened in the ground.

Those who remained indoors generally escaped death, except in cases where the entire buildings collapsed, although hundreds were hurt by falling plaster, pictures, or flying glass.

Many of the city's finest buildings had fallen prey to the earthquake before the conflagration reached them. First in the list is the City Hall, a magnificent structure recently completed at a cost of $7,000,000, after twenty years of work. It was about the last building in San Francisco that might have been expected to yield to an earthquake shock. It was a white stone building with extensive wings and a very fine dome. This great steel-ribbed dome was stripped of its covering by the shock; the magnificent pillars fell to the ground, immense fissures appeared in the walls and the entire building was wrecked in the space of three minutes. In Market Street, near the City Hall, the earth was ripped open and a chasm six feet wide was left to show the power of the disturbance.