The First Day of the San Francisco Fire, 1906
"Then the fire, like a vast living presence of doom, took possession of that great central mart, where, for so many years, the tide of business and pleasure had swept…
From: 1906 C.E. To: 1906 C.E.
Location: Market Street, San Francisco, California, United States
Note: This article has been excerpted from a larger work in the public domain and shared here due to its historical value. It may contain outdated ideas and language that do not reflect TOTA’s opinions and beliefs.
From San Francisco Through Earthquake and Fire by Charles Augustus Keeler, 1906.
The First Day of the Fire
Residents in the district north of Market Street were startled by an explosion just after the earthquake. The gas works had blown up. Then fire-engines and hook-and-ladders thundered down the streets, gongs clanging and bells jangling. On looking to the south, curling clouds of smoke were seen ascending from the lowlands beyond Market Street and from several points on the water-front. Flames seemed to be springing up here and there all over town, and soon fifty-two separate fires were blazing simultaneously.
One by one they were extinguished by the alert firemen, and the townsfolk, with nerves already racked by the terrors of the earthquake, began to grow more composed.
But what means the measured tramp of soldiers marching from the Presidio in the direction of town? Why the clattering hoofs of cavalry hurrying along the peaceful streets? That smoke-cloud ''South of Market'' and along the water-front was rising higher and darker and more ominous, and at its base could be seen angry-looking flames.
Strangely terrible was the scene on those downtown streets between six and seven o'clock that morning. The fire gained tremendous headway among the flimsy rookeries along the water-front, and in the quiet of morning was forging its way up toward the business quarter. The streets, littered with debris, were lonely and deserted. An awed policeman stood watching the angry flare, the ashes sifting down upon his helmet. Round about him whole blocks were igniting, and what a puny helpless thing seemed a solitary man, in the presence of that onrushing tide of flame!
“South of Market" was in the throes of destruction. Rumor leaped swifter than the flames that the disaster was world-wide. Portland, Los Angeles, Chicago—all were shaken down or engulfed, said report. It was easy to give ear to such tales when viewing awful scenes on every hand!
Numbers of ignorant people believed the end of the world had come, and men and women rushed witlessly up and down the streets. Lost children fled bewildered before the flames, crying for help, yet, no one heeded them. One man, crazed, with the awfulness of the scene, rushed down betwixt burning walls cursing the fire and defiantly shaking his fist at the flames. Suddenly a veering gust swept the smokecloud about him and he was given up for lost. Presently the cloud lifted and he came staggering forth like a veritable salamander, still gesticulating and shouting to the fire: “Burn me if you dare!"
Among the flimsy rooming-houses many were imprisoned by falling walls. Mingling with the cries of the injured were heard the reassuring voices of those who were caught in the wreckage.
''I'm all right,”' called one man to his companion, "if I can only get this timber out of the way;" and the other answered: "I'm not hurt,—only caught by the wrist so I can't stir."
Even while they spoke the fire was creeping nearer, and in spite of the desperate efforts of policemen, firemen and bystanders to release them, the flames swept on, leaving no trace of tragedy in their path. A hose-line was carried nearly a mile up-town from one of the fire-tugs which had rushed down from the Mare Island Navy Yard. Three midshipmen, hearing that some drunken men were asleep in a room, ascended the burning stairs and carried the besotted inmates safely out on their backs. No one will ever call the roll of those who perished in the cheap lodging-houses and homes of the poor. Many unrecognizable bodies were afterwards recovered, but more were incinerated in that awful crematory, and their ashes were drawn up into the city's shroud.
Now troops of artillery are hurrying down Montgomery Street with rattling caissons. Boom!—a dull muffled roar sounds from the midst of the fire. It is the first charge of dynamite. The firemen, working like mad, rushing hose-lines up to the very brink of destruction, had suddenly found the water streaming more feebly out of the nozzles. A little longer and it had failed altogether. The terrible truth flashed upon them. San Francisco was without water in this her greatest hour of need—dynamite was the only resort!
While the firemen were thus making their first determined stand against such overwhelming odds, hospital vans and automobiles were speeding hither and thither, carrying the wounded to places of refuge. The greatest number made for the Central Emergency Hospital in the City Hall. This being found in ruins the big barn-like Mechanics' Pavilion just opposite was pressed into service. Automobiles and wagons gathered mattresses tossed from windows along the way, and as the line of ambulances reached the improvised hospital, doctors, nurses, policemen, and priests, assembled as if by magic, were in waiting to receive the wounded.
The floor of the great Pavilion was crowded with patients and attendants. As people were carried one by one into the room screaming and moaning, an injection of morphine quieted each, and they were hurriedly placed upon operating-tables for emergency treatment. Not a few were delirious from terror. Many had been buried under falling walls and were blackened from bruises. Others suffered from scalp wounds, burns, gashes, contusions, and broken limbs. A paralytic had dragged himself over burning embers and was fearfully seared. Doctors washed burns in picric acid, stitched up wounds and fastened splints on broken limbs. Red Cross nurses were busy carrying buckets of water, running for supplies, and assisting in minor operations. Priests consoled the wounded and administered extreme unction to the dying.
By ten o'clock the policemen outside glanced uneasily at the increasing shower of ashes sifting down on them. Presently the roof caught fire from bits of lighted charcoal falling round-about, but a bucket brigade quickly put out the incipient blaze. Still the danger crept nearer, moment by moment. Ere noon came the warning to leave. Without haste or confusion the hundreds of injured were carried to the line of automobiles, vans and wagons, and in fifteen minutes all were moving toward the Golden Gate Park and Presidio Hospitals. It was none too soon, for hardly had the Pavilion been abandoned ere the crackling flames beat down upon the erstwhile refuge, leaving desolation in its path.
We dwellers in the Berkeley Hills on the east shore of San Francisco Bay did not escape the earthquake; but on looking across the water to the city, an ominous cloud, sulphurous and explosive in character, told of greater disaster yonder. I hurried cityward on one of the early boats. From the deck we could see licking tongues of flame all along the water-front beneath the great folds of smoke-cloud mounting high in heaven.
On nearer approach the scene was one of unforgettable terror. Over the whole city rose this cloud pillar, spreading above like a colossal mushroom. Just back of the ferry-tower and the stately rigging of the ships the flames were running riot along the shore. Could we land? Would we not soon be driven into the sea if we did? The mast on the ferry-tower was bent, stone had fallen from its walls, and the great clock pointed silently the hour of fate— quarter past five.
The big ferry bumped into its slip and we hurried through the dark stone building to the foot of Market Street. Up and down the water-front the flimsy rookeries were roaring and crackling. Wellman-Peck's big modern grocery house a block north was enveloped in a perfect whirlwind of flame. The new Terminus Hotel on the north of Market was just igniting, while Smith's Cash Store opposite was burning furiously.
In the open street about the Ferry Building were crowds of dazed people, many with bundles of clothes or traveling-bags. They seemed but little interested in the burning city, and were bewildered rather than excited. They stood in the presence of an overpowering reality and seemed unable to grasp its meaning. When, at quarter past eight, another rather sharp earthquake occurred, people rushed screaming from the walls, but in an instant the shock was over, and the crowds lapsed into their state of dazed stupor. Many took the ferry for Oakland, but others believed the east shore was in ruins, and feared to leave the terrors around them for unknown perils beyond.
I hurried north along the docks, hat against face as screen from the scorching heat. Up in the Latin Quarter saloons had already been looted, and people were making ready to leave—bargaining with extortionate expressmen throwing clothes and furniture out of windows, and dragging trunks, children's express wagons, loaded baby buggies, or, in fact, anything on wheels or casters. Others, incredulous that the fire would reach them, sat passively on their doorsteps.
Doubling on my tracks I turned down Montgomery Street into the heart of the business district. Troops of regulars were swinging down the pavement, passing the surging throng of dumbfounded people. Here and there plate-glass windows had been broken, leaving stores exposed, and in front of all such, paced sentries. A company of infantry was drawn up before the Sub-Treasury Building. There was no confusion or disorder at any point, the immensity of the peril casting a spell of solemn quiet over the crowds.
Looking down the narrow alleyways toward the wholesale district, I saw dead horses and demolished wagons amid piles of brick. A two-story brick building stood divested of its front wall, showing all the secrets of its interior to the curious crowd, and, as I passed it, Browning's lines popped into my brain:
“I have mixed with a crowd and heard fine talk
In a foreign land where an earthquake chanced
And a house stood gaping, naught to balk
Man's eye wherever he gazed or glanced.
“The whole of the frontage shaven sheer,
The inside gaped: exposed to day,
Right and wrong and common and queer,
Bare, as the palm of your hand, it lay."
True to life was this description, but houses thus injured were rare exceptions. All modern buildings of good construction stood practically intact, although on the facade of the Mills Building I noticed that corners of granite and terra-cotta had been nicked out of smooth wall surfaces as if by a mason's chisel. Meeting Weather Forecaster McAdie on the street, he pointed up at Old Glory fluttering proudly from the signal station atop the Mills Building.
''I put it at half-mast first,” he said, ''but soon after raised it to cheer people.” Then he told how San Francisco was cut off from telegraphic communication with the world, and of how he was trying to reach Washington by Manila cable.
The Mutual Life Insurance Building—a modern structure of terra-cotta, on California and Sansome Streets, was blazing fiercely, but no one appeared to heed it. At the corner of Montgomery and Market Streets, the heart of the business district, buildings showed little trace of damage. The Call Building, like a peerless white sentinel, watched over the burning city. The lofty new red-brick Chronicle tower was intact, the Palace Hotel seemed undamaged, and the Crocker Building held its gore defiantly.
On crossing Market Street I was stopped and turned back by soldiers. Behind the Palace Hotel angry smoke-clouds rolled up, and there was a burst of flame leaping amid the buildings to the rear of San Francisco's world-famed landmark. Far up the street on the southern side another dark column lowered, and down toward the ferries was a continuous wall of fire.
"The city is doomed,” was heard on every lip. The ominous boom of dynamiting sounded intermittently. A company of cavalry clattered down Market Street from the direction of the smoke-cloud, driving the crowds off into the side streets.
Then the fire, like a vast living presence of doom, took possession of that great central mart, where, for so many years, the tide of business and pleasure had swept back and forth along the way. On the rear block the Grand Opera House, which a few hours since had rung with the bewildering strains of ''Carmen,'' was a roaring, crackling pit. One hose-line still spouted a full stream, and the firemen stood upon the Market Street curb directing a hopeless charge of water against the raging flames. Walls were crashing near them, death and destruction was round-about, but they held their ground until the fire had claimed for its own everything on the south side of the street.
From the windows of the Call Building, faint wisps of smoke were floating. Then in a flash, high and low, flames burst out of the shattered windows of the stately tower, and a mighty smoke-cloud rolled in one mass high into the heavens. The Examiner Building opposite became a terrific furnace, its floors collapsed, its festive Spanish front crumpled, and only a fragment of its walls marked the spot.
Regulars with cases of dynamite on their shoulders ran to the unfinished Monadnock Building, but neither earthquake, blasting nor fire seemed to make much impression on this structure. Its upper floors contained no inflammable matter and the fire might have been stayed at this point had not another conflagration been moving from the rear upon the Grand and Palace Hotels. How the flames invaded that historic landmark—''The Palace” with its great court and hospitable banquet halls! How they raged through its multitude of rooms, licking off its bow windows, bellowing through its corridors and chambers, while floor crashed on floor!
So the fire traveled from building to building, from block to block, from street to street, smoke-clouds belching from roofs and windows, granite cracking and crumbling, plate glass shivered to fragments, or melted as by a blow-pipe, steel plates bending and twisting, impotent to withstand the advancing holocaust. Automobiles rushed madly back and forth with artillery officers carrying loads of dynamite. In vain they blasted building after building, for out of the very ruins sprang the hungry flames to continue the work of devastation.
Many were the deeds of heroism enacted amid that cataclysmic sweep of flame. Surrounded on all sides by the burning city, hemmed in by a roaring sea of fire, a devoted band of employees of the United States Mint, under the leadership of Superintendent Frank A. Leach, and aided by a guard of regular soldiers, and ex-Chief Kennedy of Oakland, fought against the overwhelming odds. For seven hours were they besieged in that fearful oven, choked with smoke, faint with the heat and exertion, yet undismayed.
Nearly two hundred million dollars were in their custody. With a hand-pump forcing water from the basement well through an inch hose, they wet down the roof and upper story, but despite their heroic stand the fire burst through the windows and they were forced to the lower floor where iron shutters stayed the flame. Harold French, an employee of the Mint, and one of its defenders, has described the terror of that siege of fire, the tumult and commotion of shattered glass, of bursting blocks of granite, of walls crashing about them with deafening roar.
The whirlwind of destruction swept by, and again they rushed to the top story and the roof where the woodwork was burning. By four o'clock in the afternoon the fire was extinguished and the Mint was saved, the soldiers standing guard over its treasure, the building intact, and round about a far-spread ruin.
By similar efforts of small devoted bands of employees, firemen and soldiers, fighting with bucket-brigades, wet blankets and small hose pipe, the splendid new Postoffice Building was saved (though afterwards badly damaged by dynamiting), and the fire was turned aside from the Appraisers' Building, the Branch Postoffice on Sansome and Jackson Streets, and the Montgomery Block at the comer of Montgomery and Washington Streets, where a large part of the Sutro Library with its priceless old tomes was stored. These still remain like oases amid the universal devastation—monuments to the unrecorded deeds of heroes.
Shortly after the earthquake the Mayor hurriedly summoned Chief of Police Dinan and other officials for a conference, and a plan of action was outlined.
General Funston also put his department at the service of the city, and thus civil and military authorities cooperated from the very outbreak of the disaster. When it became evident that the city was threatened with destruction, a number of public-spirited citizens, moved as by a common impulse, sought out Mayor Schmitz to offer aid. As the Mayor's office in the City Hall was in ruins, they made their way, one by one, to the badly damaged Hall of Justice at the east of Portsmouth Square, and here they commenced to plan for the relief of the stricken city.
Suddenly someone called out: "It's time to get out of here, gentlemen!"
The air was growing oppressive and stifling. Buildings were being dynamited all about them, and the meeting adjourned to the historic square opposite, where, beside the Robert Louis Stevenson drinking fountain they continued their deliberations. Presently Portsmouth Square became untenable and they moved again, this time going up through Chinatown to the Fairmont Hotel on the summit of Nob Hill. This splendid structure of white stone was nearing completion, but unfurnished, and was supposed to be outside the fire zone. After perfecting their organization, electing a secretary and outlining a plan for a ''Relief Committee of Fifty" the members scattered to look to the safety of their families.
The sun wheeled down to the sea, a blood-red ball of ill omen. Night came, but in lieu of darkness there was a wild unearthly glare that lit up the streets as on the day of doom. Still the business district north of Market Street and centering at Kearny remained intact, although the opposite side of the great city highway was a dismal wrack. By seven in the evening the insatiable monster began to move up Sutter and Bush Streets. Two hours to the block marked its rate of progress. Meanwhile another conflagration (said to have been started by some housewife a few blocks above the City Hall who, after the earthquake, lit a fire in her kitchen stove) was moving down-town.
By midnight the sentries along the streets were keeping the death watch, for the fire demon was charging from the east and west upon the city’s heart, and, ere morning, walls had been calcined and steel frames smelted in this peerless furnace of destruction. The unfinished Chronicle Annex came through the fire little damaged, but the old Chronicle Building, the familiar red-brick landmark watching over the crowds that for years have surged around Lotta's Fountain, was but a hollow shell.
Union Square was packed with a motley crowd—guests from the big hotels and denizens of the tenderloin, with trunks and rolls of bedding, all watching the thrilling spectacle as it moved up-town, nearer and nearer, block by block, lighting the midnight darkness with its unearthly awesome glare. The silent rain of ashes increased, and the incandescent air warned the crowd to abandon their trunks and save their lives. The park was left to the presiding genius of the place—the figure atop the shaft commemorating Dewey's victory in Manila Bay—and the flames worked their will, first to the east, then advancing on the north and south sides. The tall St. Francis Hotel was spared until the early morning watch, when it, too, ignited, and was soon divested of its splendid trappings.
Chinatown was ablaze early in the evening and burned throughout the night, the fire sweeping fiercely through the flimsy oriental city, scattering the inhabitants hither and yon in helpless bands. Out of the narrow alleyways and streets they swarmed like processions of black ants. With bundles swung on poles across their shoulders they retreated, their hapless little women in pantaloons following with the children, all passive and uncomplaining.
In every quarter the night was full of terror. The mighty column of smoke rose thousands of feet in air, crimsoned by the wild sea of flame below it. Scarce a soul ventured to sleep. A procession of weary refugees moved continuously toward Golden Gate Park, the Presidio and the cemeteries. Homeless throngs rallied about the great cross on Lone Mountain, and many a footsore, heartsick mother with her little ones leaned against overturned tombstones.
From the heights, the calm starlit night was intensely black in contrast to the vast crater, whence flames leaped in fantastic shreds high above the burning city. There was a ceaseless crash as buildings and homes shuddered and fell in the fiery maelstrom, and the boom of the dynamiting sounded throughout the night. Nearly five hundred were known to have been killed by earthquake and fire, a hundred more were missing, and the homes of thousands were blazing every hour.
“Your home will be the next to go, dear heart, and mine! Who knows what the end will be?” So they whispered one to another through that awful night.
Keeler, Charles Augustus. San Francisco Through Earthquake and Fire. P. Elder and Co. 1906.
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