The Call-chronicle-examiner. [volume], April 19, 1906, Page 2, Image 2

About The Call-chronicle-examiner. [volume] (San Francisco, Calif.) 1906-1906

Image provided by: University of California, Riverside; Riverside, CA

                
2
AT LEAST 500 ARE DEAD
NO HOPE LEFT FOR SAFETY
OF ANY BUILDINGS
(Continued From Page 1.)
the fire away from the swept section toward Mission street, they
made their way to the point of the hotel until the old place began
to crumble away in the blaze.
The City Hall Is a complete wreck The entire part of the
btsflding from Larkin street down City Hall avenue to Leaven
worth, down from top of dome tothe steps is ruined. The colossal
pfflars- supporting the arches at the entrance fell into the ave
nue £ar oat across the car tracks and the thousands of tons of
bricks and debris that followed them piled into a mountain
ous heap.. The west wing sagged and crumbled, caving into a
rnftrai, At the last every vestige of stone was swept
sway by the shock and the building laid bare nearly to its Mc-
AliUter street side. Only a shell remained to the north, and the
huge steel frame stood gaping until the fire that swept from the
Hayes Valley set the debris ablaze and hid the structure in a
doad of smoke. Every document of the City government is de
stroyed. Nothing remains but a ghastly past of the once beauti
\u25a0
fal structure. It will be necessary to entirely rebuild the Hall.
Mechanics* Pavilion, covering an entire block, went before the
flumes in a quarter of an hour. . The big wooden structure burn
ed like tinder and in less time than it takes to write it was flat
upon, the ground.
The flames h?d come from the west, this time fanned by a
lively wind. Down from Hayes Valley they swooped, destroying
residences in entire rows, sending to cinders the business
houses and leaping the gaps caused by the dynamiting of homes.
They had stolen their way out from the Mission while a dense
crowd blocked that street. So quickly did they make their way
to tile north of Market that their approach was not noticed. When
it was realized that the danger had come to this particular res
idence section, the police and the cavalry drove the crowd back
in haste to the north and out of harm's way. Down Hayes
street playing the cross streets coming on like a demon, the fire
swept over St. Ignacious Church, leveled barns and houses, and,
a» If accomplishing a purpose long desired, blazed down to the
front of Mechanics* Pavilion. O nly shortly before the patients
in this crude hospital had been removed to other hospitals ;n
outlying districts.
From the big shed the names spread to the north, east,
south and west, everywhere. Confusion reigned. Women faint
ed and men fought their way into the adjoining apartment
houses to rescue something from destruction — anything, if only
enough to cover their wives and their babies when the cold of
- tho night came on. There was a scene that made big, brave men
cry. There were the weeping tots in their mothers* arms
wnnfng with fear of die awful calamity; salesmen and soldiers
fighting to get the women out of harm's way through the crowd;
heroic dashes in the ambulances and the patrol wagons after the
rick end injured and willing men, powerless as the mouse in the
cloth of tho lion, ready to fight the destroyer, but driven back
step by step while their homes went down before them.
It W2s when die terrible shock of the first big nimbler was
passing off, that San Frandsc cans, sent scurrying into the
streets in their nightdothes, turned to the east and south and
first saw the pillars of flame that have bred such wicked de
struction.
Down In the wholesale (Us trtct south of the cable and along
through the section facing the city's front, the flames appeared.
Fire shot into the air from ever corner. Before the first alarm
was sent in the fire was beyond control. The city was beyond
saving from the time that the first blaze broke toward the heav
ens.
Gradually the flames stole along Mission and Howard streets,
and then rapidly they made the ir way from building to building
until Seventh street was reached. Out into ths warehouse dis
trict bounded by Sansome on the west and the bay on the north
and east they went and such structuies as the Wellman Peck
Building and the TiUman, Bend el building were made into whit
ened wills, left tottering in the breeze that was blowing. Every
-*— »•*» scenes of horror. People rushed 'frantically through
SAN FRANCISCO, THURSDAY, APRIL 19, 1906
the streets, looking for missing relatives and reecue parties
parties were formed to go into the burning blocks to save life.
Here and there the grim-faced men dug out the unfortunates
Who had gone down into the shapeless piles of debris when the
big shock came. Man fought to save man and many times did
the sickened crowds turn away as they saw the rescuers driven
back by the flames that reached down through the ruins ti claim
Steadily the fire found its way into the uptown retail dis
tricts. From the^sout hand east the south side of Market was
attacked. One by one the familiar buildings went down. Levi
Strauss and Company, Zellerbach and Company, Holbrook, Mer
rill and Stetson, Hicks-Judd Company, D. N. and E. Walters,
W. W. Montague the Donohde estate building, Uhl Brothers,
the Bancroft Building, — all the places that have made the San
Francisco business district.. Everyone of them went.. They
can't be enumerated.. The work of the fire demon was too com
plete to make that necessary. .From Mission to Market and east
to Ninth the many-storied struc tures were gutted. True, many
of these places had crumbled when the earth shook, but evidence
of this was remooved in the path ff the flames.
From Second to Third streets Market street held its own
until late in the afternoon. The Call Building was ablaze, but
the Examiner Building, thq Palace Hotel, the Grand, and the
other structures toward Second street stood.. Two attempts
j were made to dynamite the new Monadnock Building when it
i was seen that the Hearst structure was doomed. And slowly
came the blaze from Mission street just below Third, sweeping
everything before it and igniting the Examiner Annex. Then
the main building took fire and by two o'clock only the Third
street wall was standing. Later the Palace took fire in the
rear and the flames made quick proogress to Market street. By
five o'clock Colonel Kirkpatrick' s famous hotel was no more. The
Grand went at the same time, and in a few minutes the flames had
Market street again. At SansOrnc they! combined, with -the fire
on the north side of the street but the changeable winds fcpt
the fire back from the buildings extending from this point to
At seven o'clock the entire region lying just back of the
Hall of Justice was on fire. The dynamite did no good. From
the Fairmount Hotel now could be seen the gigantic semicircle
I of flame extending from the Mission at about "Thirteenth street
down through the entire southern end of the; city proper, along
the channel, over .he hill, qjong the waterfront, through tht
I wholesale district and over onto Barbary Coast. \ .
At nine o'clock the Crocker- Woolworth Bank Building was
was on fire at the gore. Across from it is the railroad building
and Masonic Temple. Only a row of small bu'< Vrgs separate
it from the Chronicle BuOding.
Then the fire fighters prepared for the thing they hoped
would not happen. It was certain that the iire would spread
northward and join the inferno near the Hall of Justice. Dyna
mite was placed in the Hall of Justice to be sent into the air at
the signal. The flames on lower Kearny street had gained the
office buildings on the west side of the street. This means the
doom of Chinatown. Thousands on thousands of Celestials scur
ried over Nob Hill to safety.
PARDEE ISSUES
PROCLAMATION
OAKLAND, ApHM&— Governor Par
dee tonight issued a proclamation de
claring tomorrow, Thursday,' •' legal
holiday, and that all business be «ys
pended throughout the \u25a0 State. This
followed a conference held by tho
Governor with Mayor Mott, . Lieuten
ant J. Anderson, of the Adjutant Gen
eral's staff, and Judge Henry A. Mel
vin at tho Mayor's of fico. Oovornor
Pardee said he had sent Lieutenant
Anderson to San Francisco to investi
gate conditions. The? Governor came
to ; Oakland as quickly as •; possible in
order to be in touch at the nearest
point with which he could keep in
oommtmlcatlon with ftaa Frsjvtasoo,
BUILDINGS ARE
ALL RUINED
Fire Chief Nick Ball and Fire
Warden MacDoinald, are making
a tour of the City of Oak
land condemning all build
ingsn gs damaged ( by the earth-!
quake and left in a menacing con
dition. : The Y tower, of the First
Baptist church- has been ordered
torn down, and other structures
throughout the city have also
been- placed under the pfficial
/bah.-' ; ; . -' .'?.-"
EFFECTS HEROIC
RESCUE
: : The disaster brought forth hun
dreds of heroic deeds. About the
only persons in the awoke when
the tremblor occurred were the
\ mechanical workers of the news
papers, policemen and saloonmen.
Among the heroes were Emile
Dengel, foreman of "The Exam
iner" stereotyping department,
, and several of his men. After the
first crash, and upon their escape
from the building they were pass
ing Krurnm's cafe when they
heard cries for . help coming from
beneath the debris of the place.
Dengel rushed out to a passing
hose cart, seized an a::e, and with
his great strength began chop-!
ping a hole through the structure
to release its captive inmates.
i A woman's voice kept saying
from beneath the ruins, "I'm all
right, hurry and get me out." The
imprisoned people — Krurnm, the
proprietor, his wife and a waiter
— were finally released, but none
too socn for 20 minutes later
flames consumed the fallen struc
ture.
Later Dengel caught a vandal
looting the body of a dead man,
end upon Dengel seizing him the
fellow turned and made a v'xious
cut at Dengel with a key-hole
saw. He was finally overpower
ed and arrested by the police.
NEWSPAPER ROW
IS GUTTED
The Examiner and Call buildings
. gave the inferno of. flame that swept
up from the district south of Market
street a stubborn fight and prevented
the fire from sweeping up Kearny,
street. The two buildings burned!
slowly, and held out for hours, only to
be # finally gutted.
When the Winchester Hotel crum*
bled into ruins at 11 o'clock the cafe i
In the top of the twenty-story Call j
• • \u25a0 \u25a0 '\u25a0..-'•?"\u25a0 "L' % - j
building began spouting fire. At that I
time Market street as far as Seventh
street was burning as a single block
from the Behemian Cafe.
As the fire burned out in the top
stories of the Call, it descended and I
\u25a0\u25a0\u25a0\u25a0 - \u25a0 • \u25a0 • \u25a0 . . ' v \u25a0 \u25a0 \u25a0 i
turned the building into a fountain of
At 12 o'clock the annex of the Hearst
.\u25a0:."- .\u25a0\u25a0 \u25a0\u25a0'-\u25a0\u25a0 \u25a0\u25a0\u25a0-\u25a0;'!
building took. fire and a half an hour!
later the rear wall fell. Shortly after*)
wards the fire " apY>93red through tho
frieze oivthe seventh floor, where the;
editorial rooms were . located, but it
was 3 ' o'clock • before , the windows ef
the, lower, floors began to belch flames.
The fire burned out gradually, and
the building remained standing, com
pi etely gutted.
At ,4 o'clock. the ground floor of the}
Call building began to burn again with j
redoubled fury, but -\u25a0, the building stood
amid the surrounding ruins, a denuded
frame of blackened stone. \u25a0
|iYOE_ CONFERS WITH
MILITARY
(Continued From Pars 1.)
responded. Among those promptly on hand were Hartley and
Herbert iiw, capitalists, the brothers Magee <rf Thomas Magee
& Sons, real estate men; J. Downey Harvey, of the Ocean Shore
Railway Company; ex-Mayor James D. Phelan, Garrett McEner
ney, the prominent attorney; ex-Judge C. W. Slack, W. H. Lea
ry, manager of the Tivoli Opera House; J. T. Howell, of Bald
win & Howell, real esate men; former City Attorney Franklin
K. Lane, also many others.
"No time was lost at the meeting, and almost the first words
spoken by the Mayor breathed strongly of the grirnness of the
disaster and its accompaniments.
"Let it be given out," said the Mayor, sternly, "that three
men have already -teen "shot down without mercy for looting. Let
it be also understood that the order lias been given to all soldiers
and .policemen to do likewise without hesitation in the cases of
any and all miscreants who may seek to take advantage of the
city's awful misfortune. I^vill ask the Chief of Police and the rep
j resentatives of the Federal military authorities here present if
I do not echo their sentiments inthis?**
The uniformed officials to whom the Mayor turned a3 he
I spoke signified their acquiescence, and Chief Dirran stated also
he would undertake the distribution throughout the cry of prin
ted proclamations making public the order.
Then the "Mayor told those present of what had already been
done t flight en the effects of the disaster. For one thing he had
secured 2400 tents which tvere already in^fceess of erection in
Jefferson Square, Golden Gate Park and on the Presidio grounds,
for the accommodation of the homeless.
Garrett McEnerney, moved, and the large number of ,othW
prominent citizens present unanimously voted, that the Mayor be.
authorized to draw checks for any amount for the relief of the suf
fering, all of the gentlemen present pledging themselves to make
such checks good. Ex-Mayor Phelan was appointed chairman of
a Relief Finance Committee with full authority to select his asso-
The Mayor announced tnat orders Baa already been given
forbidding the burning of either gas or electric currents, even
where possible. During the fire citizens must get along with
! other light, as no chances could be taken of a renewed outbreak
of flames. Police Chief Dinan stated that he had also instructed
his men to announce all over the city that no fires were to be
lighted in stoves or grates anywhere lest the chimneys should be
defective as the result of the earthquake.
I Then the state.nr.cnt was made that expressmen were charging
$30 a load to haul goods— * rate which was prohibitive to poor
i people. The announcement provoked great indigation, and an
i immediate order from Mayor Schmitz, in which Dinan heartily
I concurred.
"Tell your, men." said the Mayor, **to seize the wagons of all
] such would-be extortionists, and make use of them for the public
I good. The question of recompense will-b eseen to later."
: \u25a0 Then a further notice was ordered distributed as widely as
ipossroly throughout; the city instructing all householders to re
main at home at night for protection of their families and prop
erty during the continuance of the trouble and excitement
| ;lt was at this point 'that the explosion of a heavy charge of
i.' '\u25a0-\u25a0...".\u25a0.\u25a0\u25a0••\u25a0, . .• , - - -
dynamite used in blowing up a building a block away brought
glass and cornice work In the Hall of Justice crashing down.
At once W. H. Leary and J. Downey Harvey urged that the
i Mayor at least immediately remove, from the building. "Your
life is too valuable, Mayor," said Mr. Harvey, ?at this dreadful
juncture for any unnecesary risk to be taken."
To this all present conceded, and a few moments later an ad
journment was taken to the center of Portsmouth Square, across
Kearney street There, in close and dangerous proximity to a
great pile of dynamite, brought thither to be used for the neces
sary destruction: of buildings, the Mayor and his official contin
usftd for somejtime longer to disruss the situation. Whcr they
finally separated it was. with the agreement to meet a?ain thfr