TWENTY SQUARE MILES OF WRECK AND RUIN.
=Fierce Battle to Save the Famous Ferry Station, the
Chief Inlet to and Egress from San Francisco--Fire Tugs
and Vessels in the Bay Aid in Heroic Fight--Fort Mason,
General Funston's Temporary Headquarters, has Narrow
Escape--A Survey of the Scene of Desolation.=
When darkness fell over the desolate city at the end of the fourth day
of terror, the heroic men who had borne the burden of the fight with
the flames breathed their first sigh of relief, for what remained of
the proud metropolis of the Pacific coast was safe.
This was but a semi-circular fringe, however, for San Francisco was a
city desolate with twenty square miles of its best area in ashes. In
that blackened territory lay the ruins of sixty thousand buildings,
once worth many millions of dollars and containing many millions more.
The fourth and last day of the world's greatest conflagration had been
one of dire calamity and in some respects was the most spectacular of
all. On the evening of the third day (Friday) a gale swept over the
city from the west, fanned the glowing embers into fierce flames and
again started them upon a path of terrible destruction.
The fire which had practically burnt itself out north of Telegraph
Hill was revived by the wind and bursting into a blaze crept toward
the East, threatening the destruction of the entire water front,
including the Union ferry depot, the only means of egress from the
devastated city.
The weary firemen still at work in other quarters of the city were
hastily summoned to combat the new danger. Hundreds of sailors from
United States warships and hundreds of soldiers joined in the battle,
and from midnight until dawn men fought fire as never fire had been
fought before. Fire tugs drew up along the water front and threw
immense streams of water on to the flames of burning factories,
warehouses and sheds.
Blocks of buildings were blown up with powder, guncotton, and
dynamite, or torn down by men armed with axes and ropes. All night
long the struggle continued. Mayor Schmitz and Chief of Police Dinan,
although without sleep for forty-eight hours, remained on the scene
all night to assist army and navy officers in directing the fight.
At 7 o'clock Saturday morning, April 21, the battle was won. At that
hour the fire was burning grain sheds on the water front about half a
mile north of the Ferry station, but was confined to a comparatively
small area, and with the work of the fireboats on the bay and the
firemen on shore, who were using salt water pumped from the bay,
prevented the flames from reaching the Ferry building and the docks in
that immediate vicinity.
On the north beach the fire did not reach that part of the water front
lying west of the foot of Powell street. The fire on the water front
was the only one burning. The entire western addition to the city
lying west of Van Ness avenue, which escaped the sweep of flame on
Friday, was absolutely safe.
Forty carloads of supplies, which had been run upon the belt line
tracks near one of the burned wharves, were destroyed during the
night.
A survey of the water front Saturday morning showed that everything
except four docks had been swept clean from Fisherman's wharf, at the
foot of Powell street, to a point around westerly, almost to the Ferry
building.
This means that nearly a mile of grain sheds, docks and wharves were
added to the general destruction. In the section north of Market
street the ruined district was practically bounded on the west by Van
Ness avenue, although in many blocks the flames destroyed squares to
the west of that thoroughfare. The Van Ness avenue burned line runs
northerly to Greenwich street, which is a few blocks from the bay.
Then the boundary was up over Telegraph Hill and down to that portion
of the shore that faces Oakland. Practically everything included
between Market, Van Ness avenue, Greenwich, and the bay was in ashes.
On the east side of Hyde street hill the fire burned down to Bay
street and Montgomery avenue and stopped at that intersection.
Fort Mason was saved only by the most strenuous efforts of soldiers
and firemen. It stands just north of the edge of the burned district,
the flames having been checked only three blocks away at Greenwich
street.
All south of Market street except in the vicinity of the Pacific Mail
dock, was gone. This section is bounded on the north by Market street
and runs out to Guerrero street, goes out that street two blocks,
turns west to Dolores, runs west six blocks to about Twenty-second,
taking in four blocks on the other side of Dolores. The fire then took
an irregular course southward, spreading out as far as Twenty-fifth
street and went down that way to the southerly bay shore.
Maj. C. A. Devol, depot quartermaster and superintendent of the
transport service, graphically described the conquering of the fire on
the water front, in which he played an important part:
"This fire, which ate its way down to the water front early Friday
afternoon, was the climax of the whole situation.
"We realized at once that were the water front to go, San Francisco
would be shut off from the world, thus paralyzing all transportation
faculties for bringing in food and water to the thousands of refugees
huddled on the hillsides from Fort Mason to Golden Gate Park. It would
have been impossible to either come in or go out of the city save by
row boats and floats, or by the blocked passage overland southward.
"This all-important section of the city first broke into flames in a
hollow near Meiggs wharf, about 2 o'clock in the afternoon. The tugs
of our service were all busy transporting provisions from Oakland, but
the gravity of the situation made it necessary for all of them to turn
to fire-fighting.
"The flames ate down into the extensive lumber district, but had not
caught the dock line. Behind the dock, adjacent to the Spreckels sugar
warehouse and wharf, were hundreds of freight cars. Had these been
allowed to catch fire, the flames would have swept down the entire
water front to South San Francisco.
"The climax came at Pier No. 9, and it was here that all energies were
focused. A large tug from Mare Island, two fire patrol boats, the
Spreckels tugs and ten or twelve more, had lines of hose laid into the
heart of the roaring furnace and were pumping from the bay to the
limit of their capacities.
"About 5 o'clock I was told that the tugs were just about holding
their own and that more help would be needed. The Slocum and the
McDowell were at once ordered to the spot. I was on board the former
and at one time the heat of the fire was so great that it was
necessary to play minor streams on the cabin and sides of the vessel
to keep it from taking fire. We were in a slip surrounded by flames.
"Our lines of hose once laid to the dockage, we found willing hands of
volunteers waiting to carry the hose forward. I saw pale, hungry men,
who probably had not slept for two days, hang on to the nozzle and
play the stream until they fell from exhaustion. Others took their
places and only with a very few exceptions was it necessary to use
force to command the assistance of citizens or onlookers.
"All night the flames raged through the lumber district, and the fire
reached its worst about 3:30 o'clock Saturday morning. Daylight found
it under control."
All that was left of the proud Argonaut city was like a Crescent moon
set about a black disk of shadow. A Saharan desolation of blackened,
ash covered, twisted debris was all that remained of three-fifths of
the city that four days ago stood like a sentinel in glittering,
jeweled armor, guarding the Golden Gate to the Pacific.
Men who had numbered their fortunes in the tens of thousands camped on
the ruins of their homes, eating as primitive men ate--gnawing;
thinking as primitive men thought. Ashes and the dull pain of despair
were their portions. They did not have the volition to help
themselves, childlike as the men of the stone age, they awaited
quiescent what the next hour might bring them.
Fear they had none, because they had known the shape of fear for
forty-eight hours and to them it had no more terrors. Men overworked
to the breaking point and women unnerved by hysteria dropped down on
the cooling ashes and slept where they lay, for had they not seen the
tall steel skyscrapers burn like a torch? Had they not beheld the
cataracts of flame fleeting unhindered up the broad avenues, and over
the solid blocks of the city?
Fire had become a commonplace. Fear of fire had been blunted by their
terrible suffering, and although the soldiers roused the sleepers and
warned them against possible approaching flames, they would only yawn,
wrap their blanket about them and stolidly move on to find some other
place where they might drop and again slumber like men dead.
As the work of clearing away the debris progressed it was found that
an overwhelming portion of the fatalities occurred in the cheap
rooming house section of the city, where the frail hotels were crowded
at the time of the catastrophe.
In one of these hotels alone, the five-story Brunswick rooming-house
at Sixth and Howard streets, it is believed that 300 people perished.
The building had 300 rooms filled with guests. It collapsed to the
ground entirely and fire started amidst the ruins scarcely five
minutes later.
South of Market street, where the loss of life was greatest, was
located many cheap and crowded lodging houses. Among others the caving
in of the Royal, corner Fourth and Minna streets, added to the horror
of the situation by the shrieks of its many scores of victims imbedded
in the ruins.
The collapsing of the Porter House on Sixth street, between Mission
and Market, came about in a similar manner. Fully sixty persons were
entombed midst the crash. Many of these were saved before the fire
eventually crept to the scene.
Part of the large Cosmopolitan House, corner Fifth and Mission
streets, collapsed at the very first tremble. Many of the sleepers
were buried in the ruins; other escaped in their night clothes.
At 775 Mission street the Wilson House, with its four stories and
eighty rooms, fell to the ground a mass of ruins. As far as known very
few of the inmates were rescued.
The Denver House on lower Third street, with its many rooms, shared
the same fate and none may ever know how many were killed, the
majority of the inmates being strangers.
A small two-story frame building occupied by a man and wife at 405
Jessie street collapsed without an instant's warning. Both were
killed.
To the north of Market street the rooming-house people fared somewhat
better. The Luxemburg, corner of Stockton and O'Farrell streets, a
three-story affair, suffered severely from the falling of many tons of
brick from an adjoining building. The falling mass crashed through the
building, killing a man and woman.
At the Sutter street Turkish baths a brick chimney toppled over and
crashing through the roof killed one of the occupants as he lay on a
cot. Another close by, lying on another cot, escaped.
[Illustration: =VIEW OF MARKET STREET, THE CENTRAL POINT OF THE
DISASTER.=
The tall building on the right is the Claus Spreckels building, in
which the plant of the San Francisco Call is located; the next
building beyond is the Examiner building and the last large building
on the right is the Palace Hotel. The tall building on the left is a
new sky scraper, erected on the old Baldwin Hotel site.]
[Illustration: Copyright 1906, by American-Journal-Examiner. All
rights reserved. Any infractions of this copyright will be prosecuted
to the full extent of the law.
=LOOKING TOWARD THE FERRY FROM VALLEJO STREET.=]
Two hundred bodies were found in the Potrero district, south of
Shannon street in the vicinity of the Union Iron works, were cremated
at the Six-Mile House, on Sunday by the order of Coroner Walsh. Some
of the dead were the victims of falling buildings from the earthquake
shock, some were killed in the fire.
So many dead were found in this limited area that cremation was deemed
absolutely necessary to prevent disease. The names of some of the dead
were learned, but in the majority of cases identification was
impossible owing to the mutilation of the features.
A systematic search for bodies of the victims of the earthquake and
fire was made by the coroner and the state board of health inspectors
as soon as the ruins cooled sufficiently to permit a search.
The body of an infant was found in the center of Union street, near
Dupont street.
Three bodies were found in the ruins of the house on Harrison street
between First and Second streets. They had been burned beyond all
possibility of identification. They were buried on the north beach at
the foot of Van Ness avenue.
The body of a man was found in the middle of Silver street, between
Third and Fourth streets. A bit of burned envelope was found in the
pocket of the vest bearing the name "A. Houston."
The total number of bodies recovered and buried up to Sunday night was
500. No complete record can ever be obtained as many bodies were
buried without permits from the coroner and the board of health.
Whenever a body was found it was buried immediately without any
formality whatever and, as these burials were made at widely separated
parts of the city by different bodies of searchers, who did not even
make a prompt report to headquarters, considerable confusion resulted
in estimating the number of casualties and exaggerated reports
resulted.