San Francisco Earthquake of 1906 – 5

Today’s installment concludes San Francisco Earthquake of 1906,
the name of our combined selection by Jack London and Herman Scheffauer. The concluding installment, is by Herman Scheffauer.

If you have journeyed through all of the installments of this series, just one more to go and you will have completed five thousand words from great works of history. Congratulations!

Previously in San Francisco Earthquake of 1906.

Time: 1906
Place: San Francisco

The tall buildings of “fireproof construction” (a term that will require considerable limitation in the future) were completely gutted of their interiors by the conflagration. The exteriors, in most instances, were not much damaged. All these buildings are now being restored and are hidden in cages of scaffolding. The pile-drivers along the water-front are setting thousands of piles and the incessant thudding of the great hammers makes a dominant note in the song the renascent city is chanting to the skies. The electric trams, crowded to the bursting-point, race recklessly along the uptorn streets and add to the mad confusion of the traffic and often to the death-roll of the inhabitants.

Over a billion dollars are to be apportioned among the various improvements that are designed to rehabilitate the city. In the first six months after the fire over $75,000,000 were spent, despite the crippled and disturbed condition of the channels of trade and industry. This amount included the structures definitely contracted for, those on which work had been commenced and those that were completed within that time, as well as the refitting of the great steel-frame buildings that had survived the flames. Six thousand temporary business buildings arose, row on row and eight thousand cheap cottages provided pleasant and cheerful homes for a part of the tent-inhabiting refugees.

The disaster has had the effect of accelerating all manner of improvements along the lines and termini of the three great railway companies. These have all been forced to treble their carrying capacity. The extensive improvements which they had been prosecuting in a rather leisurely manner are now being rushed to completion in one-half the time. The Western Pacific, a new transcontinental line that is hurrying its tracks toward this promised land, has issued a call for ten thousand additional men.

Imports and, strangely enough, exports too have increased to an extent that shatters all the records of previous years. Almost double the number of vessels are serving the port as at the corresponding date of the year before. So flow the tides of world commerce into the open portals of the Golden Gate, the Pillars of Hercules in the Western World and the greatest trade outlet of the Father of Oceans.

Never before has trade been so active and extensive as at present in San Francisco. All businesses flourish. When knowledge of the great want of the city went forth into the world, it quickened the currents of commerce in all quarters of the globe. The needy city was overwhelmed with the products of every land. Steel works in Pennsylvania and the Midlands felt the stir and cement factories in Germany; the lumber mills in the great Northwest ran night and day and a thousand vessels of sail and steam turned their prows toward the Golden Gate. The railways of the Union sent train after train to the West, all laden with the necessaries, the comforts and the luxuries of life. The inexhaustible resources of all the counties of the State were poured upon the city. Therefore, to-day in San Francisco all things are of the latest, the newest and the best. Merchants and shopkeepers cannot keep their stocks from ebbing entirely away until the next shipment arrives. A craving for lost luxuries seems to possess the people who demand not what is cheap but what is good. They who, a short time ago, were forced to obtain their daily food and drink from the municipal bread-and-milk line are to-day demanding the rarest delicacies from Paris or Strasburg. The costliest productions of the dressmakers of London, Paris or Vienna are bought up instantly and jewelry, articles of art and decoration, furniture and carpets are in undiminished demand.

The most serious inconvenience is experienced by those people who through the great scarcity of dwelling-houses are forced to live in tents and temporary shelters. Very high rents are demanded by the landlords, the rates in many cases being more than treble the former figures. The larger retail and wholesale businesses were the first to reestablish themselves after the fire and the builders began the housing of these firms before they paid any attention to private homes. The population of the city in February, 1907, was computed at 428,000, being but 72,000 less than before the fire. Of these, 100,000 still lived in basements and 50,000 in tents and wooden shanties. For a long time parts of San Francisco resembled a military encampment with the rows of white tents relieved against the charred ruins of the greenery of the parks. Many persons still five in the Tent City of Golden Gate Park, leading a free, open-air existence that has brought health and strength to nerves and bodies weakened by the ordeal of the earthquake.

The new life springs up everywhere, the old reminders of death slowly pass away. The heavens overhead are bright with hope and joy, the same heavens that were once filled with the sable smoke and the lurid splendors of the mighty conflagration. The incomparable bay basks in the sunlight and the Pacific shimmers like a plain of green and silver. The trade-winds from the ocean blow briskly, full of the vigor of the sea and toss the countless flags and banners that are hoisted over every shop and store as though the city were decorated for a festival.

This ends our selections on San Francisco Earthquake of 1906 by two of the most important authorities of this topic. This blog features short and lengthy pieces on all aspects of our shared past. Here are selections from the great historians who may be forgotten (and whose work have fallen into public domain) as well as links to the most up-to-date developments in the field of history and of course, original material from yours truly, Jack Le Moine. – A little bit of everything historical is here.

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