The Great San Francisco Earthquake & Fires of 1906
San Francisco — A City Reeling
The 20th century dawned as a time of great hope and prosperity in Northern California. A vibrant city with a population of 400,000, San Francisco was the largest city in California and the economic capital of the West. Not all residents were well off, however. One in three inhabitants was foreign born. Immigrants from southern Europe and Asia were swelling the population and providing cheap labor. On the evening of April 17, 1906 the greatest single display of visible wealth in the West adorned the audience gathered at the Grand Opera House to hear the Italian tenor, Enrico Caruso, sing in Carmen.
Mark Hopkins and Leland Stanford were two of " The Big Four," industrial barons who amassed their fortunes through railroads. During the 1870s, Stanford and Hopkins built enormous, ostentatious mansions on San Francisco's Nob Hill, a neighborhood dominated by the very rich. Their houses stood as public monuments to their wealth and power. The buildings also symbolized the wide gap between social classes.
San Francisco’s population was less than 35,000 residents in 1852; by 1900, the US Census counted nearly 343,000. That growth was primarily due to the influx of Chinese immigrants during the latter half of the century. Not only did this phenomenon increase San Francisco's population, it inspired an anti-Chinese labor movement and overt discrimination.
Chaos Reigns
Following the disaster, democracy disappeared; city and military officials took extreme action to control the chaos that enveloped San Francisco. Mayor Schmitz issued his infamous proclamation: an all-city curfew to expand police power to "shoot to kill" any looters. While martial law governed San Francisco during the subsequent days, efforts by both military troops and police officers did much to save the city. The citizens' committee, composed mostly of prominent businessmen, took over the civic government and issued orders. James D. Phelan, a former mayor, had charge of the relief funds with support from the Red Cross and the Army. Funds were used to relieve people's immediate needs and also to encourage them to build a new city as soon as possible.
Relief Efforts & Refugee Camps
Less organized efforts aided the poor to some extent. Meat wagons from the slaughter houses dumped beef on street corners. Remaining neighborhood grocery stores gave away food. Nearby coal yards donated fuel. Dairy owners left milk cans for women and children. Hunger and cold, however, were the predominant conditions.
For a short while, the conditions forced San Franciscans to cooperate in order to survive, a radical shift for a deeply fragmented city. Some sought refuge in East Bay cities like Berkeley and Oakland, while 40,000 residents remained in San Francisco relying on makeshift refugee camps for shelter and sustenance.
The city's renaissance depended on its citizens, which began in the relief camps. In San Francisco, the refugees were provided cottages primarily to maintain a labor force for reconstructing the city. Thus, the housing committee attempted to move all the homeless into regulated camps, but they were only marginally successful. Two months after the disaster, only 18,000 of San Francisco's 43,000 homeless were in the military camps, the remainder being dispersed throughout the city. Official camps were located in Golden Gate Park, the Presidio, Fort Mason, Harbor View, and the city's squares and parks.
Refugees relied on the food supply doled out by the military. Those who stood in interminable food lines to receive their rations represented all San Francisco neighborhoods and society, from Nob Hill dandies to Telegraph Hill families to Mission District paupers. In the refugee camps, everybody was generally in the same situation, receiving the same rations and using the same available materials to eke out a daily existence. It did not matter if one had been rich or poor before the calamity; all vestiges of social class had been obliterated by the earthquake and fires.