Today In Western History: The San Francisco Earthquake Of 1906

April 18 –

 

A devastating earthquake begins to shake the city of San Francisco in the morning hours of this day in 1906.

The first of two vicious tremors shook San Francisco at 5:13 a.m., and a second followed not long after. The quake was powerful enough to be recorded thousands of miles away in Cape Town, South Africa, and its effect on San Francisco was cataclysmic. Thousands of structures collapsed as a result of the quake itself. However, the greatest devastation resulted from the fires that followed the quake. The initial tremors destroyed the city’s water mains, leaving overwhelmed firefighters with no means of combating the growing inferno. The blaze burned for four days and engulfed the vast majority of the city.

By the time a heavy rainfall tamed the massive fire, the once proud city of San Francisco was in shambles. More than 28,000 buildings burned to the ground and the city suffered more than $500 million in damages. The human toll was equally disastrous: authorities estimated that the quake and fires killed 700 people, and left a quarter of a million people homeless. The famous writer and San Francisco resident Jack London noted, “Surrender was complete.”

Jack London (at 26), writer, adventurer
Jack London (at 26), writer, adventurer

Despite the utter devastation, San Francisco quickly recovered from the great earthquake of 1906. During the next four years, the city arose from its ashes. Ironically, the destruction actually allowed city planners to create a new and better San Francisco. A classic western boom- town, San Francisco had grown in a haphazard manner since the Gold Rush of 1849. Working from a nearly clean slate, San Franciscans could rebuild the city with a more logical and elegant structure. The destruction of the urban center at San Francisco also encouraged the growth of new towns around the bay, making room for a new population boom arriving from the U.S. and abroad. Within a decade, San Francisco had resumed its status as the crown jewel of the American West.

“You ask me to say what I saw and what I did during the terrible days which witnessed the destruction of San Francisco? Well, there have been many accounts of my so-called adventures published in the American papers, and most of them have not been quite correct.” So began one of the most widely read firsthand accounts of the greatest natural disaster ever to befall a North American city. The words were those of the world’s greatest tenor, Enrico Caruso, who along with 

Enrico Caruso, Italian operatic tenor
Enrico Caruso, Italian operatic tenor

the entire traveling company  of New York’s Metropolitan  Opera, survived the devastating earthquake and fire that struck San Francisco on this day in 1906.

The previous evening had been the opening night of the Metropolitan Opera Company’s San Francisco engagement. Caruso—already a worldwide sensation—had sung the part of Don José in Bizet’s Carmen at the Mission Opera House. He went to bed that night feeling pleased about his performance. “But what an awaken- ing!” he wrote in the account published later that spring in London’s The Sketch. “I wake up about 5 o’clock, feeling my bed rocking as though I am in a ship on the ocean….I get up and go to the window, raise the shade and look out. And what I see makes me tremble with fear. I see the buildings toppling over, big pieces of masonry falling, and from the street below I hear the cries and screams of men and women and children.”

The Palace Hotel, where Caruso and many others in the company were staying, would collapse by late afternoon, but not before all of its guests managed to escape safely. Caruso—or, rather, his unbelievably devoted valet—even managed to remove the bulk of his luggage, which included 54 steamer trunks containing, among other things, some 50 self-portraits. “My valet, brave fellow that he is, goes back and bundles all my things into trunks and drags them down six flights of stairs and out into the open one by one.” That same valet would eventually find a horse and cart to carry the great Caruso and his many belongings to the water- front Ferry Building—no mean accomplishment on a day when tens of thousands were attempting to escape the fires ravaging the city.

“We pass terrible scenes on the way: buildings in ruins, and everywhere there seems to be smoke and dust. The driver seems in no hurry, which makes me impatient at times, for I am longing to return to New York, where I know I shall find a ship to take me to my beautiful Italy and my wife and my little boys.” By nightfall, Caruso was across the bay in Oakland and boarding a train headed east—news that reached anxious New Yorkers the following day.

Amadeo Peter Giannini, founder of Bank of Italy
Amadeo Peter Giannini, founder of Bank of Italy

Amadeo Peter Giannini was a survivor of the Earthquake, and his story is an interesting one.  He was born on May 6, 1870, the son of Italian immigrants.  Giannini began his stellar career working as a produce broker, commission merchant and produce dealer for farms in the Santa Clara Valley. In 1892, A. P. married the daughter of a North Beach real estate magnate.  He later became a director of the Columbus Savings & Loan, in which his father-in-law owned an interest. At that time in America, banks were run for the benefit of the wealthy and the well-connected.  Giannini observed an opportunity to service the increasing immigrant population that were without a bank.  The big banks in the town would lend money to big businesses, but not to the little man.  In 1904, in frustration because the other directors did not share his sentiment, he quit the board in frustration.  Amadeo opened up a brand new bank on a brand new concept.  A. P. Ginnanini’s bank was going to be differ-ent, they were going to be there for the little man.  And they were.  He was always there for the little man, and he also broke tradition by seeking clients.  He called his bank the Bank of Italy.  It was growing very fast, and by 1906, he had some serious investors in his bank.

After the earthquake, the city was a wide spread disaster area and all the other banks were unable to get into their vaults, because the fires and shaking had rendered the steel doors of  the banks either inoperable or impossible to open. Giannini took the money out of his vaults and took it to his home outside the fire zone in then-rural San Mateo.  It was an 18-mile trip by horse and wagon, and A. P. carried it in a garbage wagon, owned by Hayward resident Giobatta Cepollina, who was himself a native of Italy (Loano). The cargo was disguised beneath garbage to protect against theft by making it look uninvit-ing to prospective thieves.  It was Giannini’s goal to set up a temporary bank, collecting deposits, making loans, and he proclaimed that San Francisco would rise from the ashes. Giannini ran his bank from a plank across two barrels in the street.  Giannini made loans on a handshake to those interested in rebuilding. Years later, he would recount that every loan was repaid.  In 1928. A. P. merged with another bank, and the Bank of America began to grow.

 

 

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Photo courtesy of wikipedia.com