§>an IffnmriHro iliemorml #>0«u?ntr April IB, 19BB Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2015 https://archive.org/details/sanfranciscooffiOOunse | foreword be pleasure we take in issuing this Souvenir is mixea with sorrow and regret for tbe occasion wbicb calls it forth. San Trancisco and its sister cities are great heaps of ruins. Words cannot describe the awful desolation wrought by the dreadful disaster. » We have sought to embalm the sorrowful scenes in pictures which are eloquent beyond the power of speech. Cbc Publishers Che Radial £o. no. 515 mason Building Cos nngeles, California Copyrighted 1 906 H l)i$torv of $an ?ranci$co B IWING to the great calamity that has recently befallen the beautiful City of the Golden Gate, there is a demand at the present day for an outlined description of California’s Metropolis, which is here given in a simple and direct manner — a brief history of the city’s romantic career of a century and a quarter and a concise description of its recent de- struction. The voluminous annals of San Francisco by Soule, Theodore H. Hit- tell’s ‘‘History of California,” John S. Hittell’s “History of San Francisco,” and other authentic works have been consulted, but the descriptive portion of this account is chiefly the result of personal observation during the past twenty years up to the memorable day of April 18, 1906. It is hard to realize that during the eventful year of 1776, while our ances- tors were making the immortal Declaration which gave birth to the American nation, the Spanish Padres, knowing nothing of the momentous conflict across the land fraught with such deep meaning both for America and Spain, were establishing the humble mission of San Francisco for the conversion of a few Indian souls. Francis Drake, one of the most daring pirates of the English buccaneers, sailed up and down the bays of the west coast waiting to plunder the treasure ships of the Spanish plying between the Philippine Islands and the Mexican port of Acapulco. It was in the year of 1579 that he landed in the bay which today bears his name and took possession of the territory, calling it New Albion and holding there, before a wondering band of Indians, the first Protestant service on the Pacific shore. A stone cross has only recently been erected in Golden Gate Park to commemorate this event. In 1774 Father Serra, one of the early Spanish missionaries, after founding Monterey, San Antonio, San Gabriel, San Luis Obispo and San Juan Capistrano, persuaded Lieutenant Fages to further explore the Bay of San Francisco with a view to locating a Mission. A third party continued this work in the year 1774 and at Point Lobos, on a hill overlooking the Golden Gate and the Seal Rocks, SAN FRANCISCO IN FLAMES. set up a cross to commemorate their work. The next year, when the “San Carlos” sailed into Monterey Bay with supplies for the Mission it brought the welcome news that orders had been given to send a patry of settlers from Mexico to establish the new presidio of San Francisco. He was the first navigator to penetrate the majestic waters of San Fran^jsco harbor and to select an island for his headquarters which is now known as Angel Island. The first party of emigrants for San Francisco started at about the same time from Sonora, in Mexico, on the long and weary march over a desolate region without roads and across unknown deserts. This party was composed of about two hundred soldiers and settlers with their wives and children, driving their herds of cattle before them. They were under the leadership of Jose Moraga, and, after months of weary marching enduring untold hardships, this little band of intrepid Spaniards and Indians arrived upon the hills flanking the Golden Gate, where they set about building rude, temporary dwellings and a chapel which they deemed of more immediate importance than a fort. Thus was built the first settlement of San Francisco. This sturdy little colony was employed from early morn till late at night, some of them toiling in the grain fields, others becoming expert vaqueros rid- ing after cattle and rounding up the herd, while still others were trained as boat- men, handling big barges on the treacherous waters of the bay. The women spun the wool and wove blankets and fabrics. They sewed garments and were busied in making drawn work altar cloths and doing other handiwork. With the help of the Indians, low mission buildings of adobe, covered over with plaster and roofed with tile, were constructed about the church to serve as workshops and dwellings. A flourishing trade in hides and tallows grew up between the Padres and the Yankee skippers from around the Horn, and this, together with contributions from the “Pious Fund,” made the Mission prosper. In 1785 the establishment was reputed to own 80,000 sheep, a thousand tame horses, as well as h%s, oxen and a large store of wheat, merchandise and about twenty- five thousand dollars in coin. Such was the prosperity of the Mission of San Francisco at the time when Mexico gained independence from Spain, but all this temporal power of the Franciscans proved but a passing phase in the working out of a greater destiny for the city by the Golden Gate. The real birth of San Francisco, as we know it today, did not begin until after the treaty with Spain in 1848, when the country became American territory and the obstacles to immigration of American pioneers were removed. The discovery of gold in California followed immcidiately. In January of the same year, news reached San Francisco which ere long set the whole world in a fever IN RUINED DISTRICT, SAN FRANCISCO. of excitement. James W. Marshall, an employee of Captain Sutter, the Swiss settler, had discovered gold in large quantities in the sand of the American River, a tributary of the Sacramento. When the report was confirmed by the shipment of considerable quantities of the coveted dust to San Francisco, a wild scramble to the spot ensued. The news spread in all directions like an epidemic, and, despite the remoteness of the land, ships carried it to the four corners of the Pacific. From Chili and Peru came the dark-eyed “mestizos.” Whalers and traders brought their quota of Kanakas and Marquesans. It is said that the Hawaiian Islands were so stirred by the news of gold in California that by the month of November, 1848, twenty-seven vessels had sailed for San Fran- cisco carrying over six hundred, people, while four thousand persons are reported to have gone from Chili that year^to work in the mines of the New Dorado. The city of San Francisco grew almost in a day; it was a city of tents and gambling houses — a raw, crude, lawless place with the most cosmopolitan popu- lation the world had ever seen. Here, if anywhere, was a confusion of tongues that would rival Babel. The scenes depicted were not .unlike those witnessed today in Golden Gate Park. In 1849 a destructive fire struck the town, and, fanned by a high wind, licked up the flimsy houses of frame and canvas. This was but the first of a series of disastrous conflagrations which again and again razed the city in its early years. During the three years from 1849 to 1851, six fires devastated the city, involving a loss amounting to millions, but, with the same wonderful energy and courage that now possess these people, they went to work each time to rebuild, improving with every bitter experience as they will now, when they will doubtless put up buildings that will withstand the fearful ravages of the flames. Thus the Argo- nauts brought out of chaos and the strenuous life of the frontier, the beautiful and modern San Francisco. Oh, the bewilderment of a first view of this big hustling American city, as we love best to picture it. To be dropped off the ferry into the very center of the maelstrom of life, where every mortal is bent upon his own task, where streams and counterstreams of humanity hurry in and out and round about, and all seem at first glance like the chaos of life. They go their way, cursing and praying, weeping and singing, fighting and loving, but on the whole ad- vancing from the beast to the angel. The first building to command the view as you arrived at the foot of Market Street was the long, low Ferry Building of gray Colusa stone. To the right and left stretched the water-front street where big’ docks and wharves were lined with shipping. Heavy freight vans rattled and banged over the cobble stones, bells RUINS ON O’FARRELL STREET, SAN FRANCISCO LOOKING DOWN O’FARRELL STREET, SAN FRANCISCO. clanged on the cable cars, news boys were piping the sensation of the hour, while an undertone of many voices, and scuffling of thousands of feet on the cement walks were heard, while the crowds hustled for first place on the cars. Nearly every one seemed bound up Market Street, either a-foot or a-cable, so you followed the crowd. Jumping on the first car to start, you probably found an outside seat on the dummy, the bell rang, the gripman threw back his lever, clutching the cable, and off you went amidst the confusion of traffic. Wholesale houses and office buildings lined the way — landmarks of the old regime, yet here and there modern buildings of stone or terra cotta stood out as monuments of the modern city. There was the fine Crocker Building between Post and Market, while across the way a whole block was taken up by the Palace Hotel which connected, by a sort of Bridge of Sighs across New Montgomery Street, with the Grand Hotel. Up Montgomery Street, past the Lick House and the Occidental Hotel, was the mag- nificent Mills Building, one of the most substantial and well proportioned struct- ures of the city, while a block beyond stood the massive Hayward Building. Another block of navigation brought you to the corner of Third, Kearny and Geary Streets, the center of the busy life of the city. Here were the homes of the three morning papers, the Chronicle Building, of red sandstone and brick, with its clock tower, a well known landmark of the city, the Examiner Building, in Spanish style with its simple plastered walls, deep portico at the top and tiled roof, and the Call tower, that rose fifteen stories to a fine dome, the most com- manding architectural feature of the business district. At this corner stood Lotta’s drinking fountain, a token of which San Franciscans were fond because of its association with the soubrette who, in early days, made fame and fortune here by winning the hearts of the pioneers. As you travelled up Geary or continued on Market, blocks upon blocks of great substantial steel-frame structures of stone and terra cotta met your view. There was the new Mutual Bank Building at the corner of Market and Geary, while facing Union Square a block away was the big modern building of the Spring Valley Water Company, the New St. Francis Hotel just finished, and in the center of this beautiful plaza stood the stately Dewey Monument, the corner stone of which was laid by McKinley, and which was only recently finished. Over on Market Street at the corner of Powell, once the site of the old Bald- win Hotel, stood the immense Flood Building, one of the city’s newest and most pretentious buildings. Opposite this was the great stone Emporium, one of the largest and costliest buildings in the city, erectqd for store and office purposes. These are but a few of the more striking business buildings, to which may be MOVING OUT, SAN FRANCISCO. added the new Post Office on Mission, the great City Hall which took twenty years to complete, the Merchants Exchange, the beautiful Fairmount Hotel on Knob Hill, Trinity Church and hundreds of others. San Francisco is commonly divided into North and South of Market Street. In the early days of the city, the aristrocratic part of town was in Happy Valley and on Rincon Hill to the South but when a citizen, Mr. A. S. Hallidie, successfully solved the problem of climbing the steep hills north of Market by inventing the cable car, people flocked to the heights commanding a view of the bay and the Golden Gate. Then it was that California Street became the Knob Hill, where palaces were built by the Stanfords, Hopkins, Crockers, Floods, and other millionaires, while the people of more moderate means settled upon the adjacent hills and slopes. The South of Market section became the home of the artisans for the most part, and certain cross streets, notably Third, Sixth and Eighth, later developed into secondary shopping centers, while Mission Street, the first thoroughfare south of Market, became the great wholesale street of the city, where numbers of splendid, modern structures were built. Van Ness Avenue, considered the most beautiful street of the city paved with asphalt, was lined with costly homes and large church edifices. Many of the houses were truly palatial in size and sUde, showing the air of wealth that per- vaded the thoroughfare, while down the side streets on the lower hills the city roofs were crowded in a gray mass. For a bird’s eye view of the city, no point of vantage was more commanding than the summit of Telegraph Hill. Flights of steps or broad chicken ladders led up to houses perched on rocky heights. It was a famous place for goats which fed on old newspapers and shavings, and looked at one with a wistful expression on their bearded countenances. But the city, oh, the city, how it crowded the hills with a wilderness of gray walls and windows cleft here and there by the lines of parallel streets which dared to climb to almost forbidden heights. Thus we And this chaos of thousands of houses, thrilling with life, each en- closing its family history, its triumph or tragedy, but all so immovable and unindividual as one looked upon the mass, little dreaming as night fell over the great city of the tragedy that would be enacted before the sunrise of another day. The most terrible disaster in the history of San Francisco occurred at 5:16 on the morning of April 18, 1906. An earthquake shock, so violent and pro- longed that it damaged every building on the peninsula in some degree — the dam- age ranging from cracks in the walls, toppled chimneys and cornices to the com- plete collapse of hundreds of buildings — rocked ,the earth for fully two minutes. It was like a cataclysm; people cried out to each other; it seemed the coming SAN FRANCISCO CITY HALL, SHOWING DOME ONLY INTACT PINE, DAVIS AND MARKET STREETS. OFFICE OF JUDSON POWDER WORKS. of the end of the world. The oscillation was north to south in a succession of increasing and apparently renewed shocks, with a twisting movement that threw people out of their beds. In those two minutes the great city was ruined. More than a thousand people were killed or injured in the shattering of buildings followed by confusion and fire; no one may estimate the number of deaths; no part of the city escaped from the wreck, fire and death. Gas, water and electric power were suddenly cut off; the whole city, from the water front to Van Ness Avenue, suffered most appallingly from the disaster. As every one knows who witnessed this greatest disaster of the Christian era, it is simply impossible to give a description of the terrible scenes witnessed during this first day of destruction. Fire broke out everywhere, in the Mission, in the Western Addition, in the heart of the city, for miles along the water front, and in various parts of the residence districts. In homes where early fires had been lighted to prepare breakfast, the fire started by the tumbling over of coal or oil stoves or the disconnecting of gas pipes ; in the saloons, dance halls, and lodging houses on the water front and Barbary Coast, where oil lamps were used, the overturned lamps caused the conflagration. In the business district, along the water front and in the Mission, the furnaces and the tremblor worked destruction together. The suddenness and awfulness of the disaster left the police and fire depart- ments powerless. General Funston with his soldiers immediately offered aid to the local authorities, and it proved a Godsend, for the police were absolutely unable to cope with the situation. Above the chief’s head, the tower on the Hall of Justice stood a ruin, being twisted with great gaps in it where bricks and ornaments had fallen out; and the gilt hand of the clock at the top, motion- less, marked the moment of the visitation. The City Hall was wrecked, the domed roofs of the wings tumbled in, and the high central dome still stood a mere skeleton at seven o’clock that morning. Although no one as yet realizes the full extent of what has happened, the most meagre knowledge of the terrible disaster which has befallen San Francisco leaves one speechless. Though the beautiful city is temporarily in ruins, and the people are for the time discouraged, our fair metropolis will rise again to be even greater and more prosperous than before this awful disaster. The air of the entire State is filled with gloom and depression but despair is still furthest from the minds of our own people. After a brief struggle San Francisco will be her old self again, arrayed in new clothes, it is true, but ready to prove to the world that she is not peopled with men and women who cower down before the most terrible of experiences. Like the phoenix, from the ashes she will rise again the most beautiful city in the Western Hemisphere, the Paris of America, and the Metropolis of the Pacific Coast. CORNER OF BUSH, MARKET AND BATTERY STREETS, SAN FRANCISCO. VICTORY THEATRE, FIRST STREET, SAN JOSE, CAL LOOKING DOWN MARKET STREET, SAN FRANCISCO, BEFORE TH E^T DISA STER. A VAN NESS AVENUE RESIDENCE, SANIFRANCISCO, BEFORE THE DISASTER, THE CITY HALL, SAN FRANCISCO, BEFORE THE DISASTER. GRAND AND PALACE HOTELS, SAN FRANCISCO. VIEW OF THE SITE OF THE BALDWIN ANNEX, TAKEN ON MARKET STREET, LOOKING NORTHEAST BB RELIEF CAMP AT JEFFERSON SQUARE, SAN FRANCISCO. mmm laii RELIEF CAMP, SAN FRANCISCO. 1. J- J. Jeffries and friends seliing oranges on street for the relief fund. 2. Girls selling flowers and fruits at benefit ball game for relief fund. 3. Feeding refugees at Arcade depot. SCENES IN LOS ANGELES IN SYMPATH 4 Ladies making clothes at Kromer’s Hall for San Francisco sufferers, 5. Ladies making clothes for San Francisco sufferers. 1 6. Examiner Nurses at depot ready to start for San Francisco. i WITH THE SAN FRANCISCO DISASTER. 7. Examiner Nurses aboard Examiner Special leaving for San Francisco. 8. Officers at Burbank Camp. 9. Grand Avenue school children send food to San Francisco. 10 Loading and packing food supplies at Native Sons’ headquarters. 11. Selling flowersat Broadway Department Store for relief futid 12. Examiner Special leaving Los Angeles for San Francisco with food and supplies. CHINATOWN IN RUINS, SAN FRANCISCO. HALSEY BANKERS, ON CALIFORNIA STREET, NEAR KEARNY. GUARDING BANK ON CALIFORNIA STREET NEAR KEARNY STREET, SAN FRANCISCO. STREET. SUNK FIVE FEET FROM CURB, SAN FRANCISCO. IMPROVISED SHELTER ON THE SITE OF FORMER HOME SAN FRANCISCO. [DESTROYED IRON FRAMEWORK, SAN FRANCISCO. RUINS OF MEMORIAL LIBRARY, LELAND STANFORD, JR., UNIVERSITY, PALO ALTO, CAL LOOKING DOWN PINE STREET, SAN FRANCISCO. MEMORIAL COURT AND ARCH, LELAND STANFORD, JR., UNIVERSITY, PALO ALTO, CAL. LOOKING DOWN O’FARRELL STREET, SAN FRANCISCO. GOING TO THE FERRY, SAN FRANCISCO LOOKING DOWN CALIFORNIA STREET, SAN FRANCISCO. m m m COURT HOUSE, SAN JOSE, CAL. VIEW OF THE CITY HALL, SAN FRANCISCO. ST. JAMES PARK, SAN JOSE, CAL H PROCESSION TO THE FERRY, SAN FRANCISCO. mm rasan AGNEWS INSANE ASYLUM, NEAR SAN JOSE, CAL. MAIN BUILDING AT AGNEWS INSANE ASYLUM, NEAR SAN JOSE. LEAVING THE BREAD LINE AT THE PRESIDIO, SAN FRANCISCO RUINS OF AGNEWS INSANE ASYLUM, NEAR SAN JOSE. SCENE AT AGNEWS INSANE ASYLUM, NEAR SAN JOSE. PREPARING TO EXIST IN THE OPEN AIR— AGNEWS INSANE ASYLUM, NEAR SAN JOSE. SCENE AT AGNEWS INSANE ASYLUM, NEAR SAN JOSE. •V PRICE 50c OOPYRIGHTEO. 1906. BY THE RADIAL CO.