Complete Story of the San Francisco HorrorWhite, Trumbull
History
Complete Story of the San Francisco Horror
White, Trumbull
Disasters; Earthquakes; San Francisco Earthquake and Fire, Calif., 1906; Vesuvius (Italy) -- Eruption, 1906; Volcanoes
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."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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