Almost as soon as the terrible conflagration had been checked and gotten under control by the heroic efforts of the soldiers and firemen, a little group of the leading citizens of the desolated city had met in the office of Mayor Eugene E. Schmitz and had begun to plan the restoration of their municipality. It was an admirable courage, bred in the stock of those men who in 1849 left comfortable homes in the East to seek their fortune in the Golden State, that inspired the loyal leaders of the present day citizens to provide with far-seeing eyes for the rebuilding of their homes and business houses with more orderly precision after the fire than had been possible during the hustle of early days in a new city.
The old San Francisco was no more, and never could be recalled save as a memory. The local color, atmosphere, that which might be termed the feeling of the old city, vanished with the clustered houses, as rich in tradition as the ancient missions in whose cloisters worshiped the Spanish padre “before the Gringo came.” Heartrending as it was to the citizens who loved their homes and haunts to see them disappear into smoke, there was an attraction about the city of the Golden Gate which endeared it to all Americans.
One of San Francisco’s charms was in its defiance of precedent. There were hills to be conquered, and San Francisco’ s expanding traffic hurled itself at the face of them. It went up and up, with no thought of finding a way around. So it happened that on some of the streets the steepness was too great for horses. In the centre there are cable roads, and on either side of the rails grass grows through the cobbles. The earlier structures on the level were put together in haste. For the most part they remained essentially unchanged until they fell with a crash. True, they had become stained by time, unkempt, dwarfed by new neighbors, but nobody desired to efface them. Away from the business section houses appeared on the various hills, perched precariously near the brink; houses reached by long flights and grown over with roses. The bathing fogs touched them with gray. Moss grew on their roofs. In the little, lofty yards calla lilies bloomed with the profusion of weeds. The natural beauty of the site, the quaintness of the commercial and social development of which it became the centre, attracted the poet and the artist. It incited them to paint the attractions and to sing the praises of their chosen home.
But the loyal sons of those brave pioneers who founded the metropolis were not in the least daunted by the problem of raising from its ruins the whole vast number of dwellings and business houses. The leaders of the people, the men who had been identified with San Francisco since its early days, and whose great fortunes were almost swept away by the cataclysm, lent courage to all the wearied thousands by firm statements of their optimism.
James D. Phelan, former Mayor of the city and one of its richest capitalists, immediately announced his intention of rebuilding his properties at Market and O’Farrell Streets, in the heart of the ruined business district. William H. Crocker, one of the heaviest losers, a nephew of Charles Crocker, who founded the Central Pacific Railroad with Collis P. Huntington, Leland Stanford and others, stated emphatically that he would put his shoulder to the wheel. On receiving the first news of the disaster, and before he knew what his losses would amount to, he said:
“Mark my words, San Francisco will arise from these ashes a greater and more beautiful city than ever. I don’t take any stock in the belief of some people that investors and residents will be panicky and afraid to build up again. This calamity, terrible as it is, will mean nothing less than a new and grander San Francisco. It is preposterous to suggest the abandonment of the city. It is the natural metropolis of the Pacific coast. God made it so. D. O. Mills, the Spreckels family, everybody I know, have determined to rebuild and to invest more than ever before. Burnham, the great Chicago architect, has been at work for a year or more on plans to beautify San Francisco. Terrible as this destruction has been, it serves to clear the way for the carrying out of these plans. Why, even now we are figuring on rebuilding. More than that, I am confident that, except for what fire has absolutely laid waste, it will be found that the buildings are less injured than was supposed. Plastering, ornamental work, glass and more or less loose material has been shaken down, but the framework, I am sure, will be found intact in many big buildings.”
D. Ogden Mills, of New York, who owned enormous properties in the stricken city, was equally confident.
“We will go ahead,” said he, “and build the city, and build it so that earthquakes will not shake it down and so fire will not destroy it, and we will have a water system which will enable us to draw water from the sea for fire extinguishing service and other municipal purposes. We will thus have less to fear from the destruction of the land mains. The whole point with all of us who own property down there is that we have to build. To let it lie idle, piled with its ruins, would mean the throwing away of money, and I am sure none of us intends to do that. The city will go up like Baltimore did, and Galveston, and Charleston, and Chicago, and there will be no lack of capital. California spirit and California enterprise, which are always associated with the State of California, will rise superior to this calamity.”
George Crocker, elder brother of William H. Crocker; Archer M. Huntington, son of Collis P. Huntington; Mrs. Herman Oelrichs, Mrs. W. K. Vanderbilt, Jr., members of the wealthy Spreckels family and others all expressed, before the great conflagration had ceased burning, the confident expectation that the city would rise, Phoenix-like, from its ashes and become more beautiful and prosperous than it had ever been in the past.
So complete was the calamity that the Government of the United States lent a hand in the earliest work of restoration. On April 20th, two days after the earthquake, Congress took immediate steps to repair or replace all the public buildings damaged or destroyed in San Francisco. The willingness of Congress to assist those in need of work by immediately beginning the reconstruction of the Federal buildings was indicated when Senator Scott, chairman of the Committee on Public Buildings and Grounds, introduced a resolution calling upon the Secretary of the Treasury for full information as to the exact condition of the various government buildings in San Francisco, and instructing him to submit an estimate showing the aggregate sum needed to repair or rebuild them. The resolution suggested that steel frames be used in any new buildings. This resolution was adopted. It was soon learned that the new Post Office, the Mint and the old Customs House were practically undamaged. The branch of the United States Mint, on Fifth Street, and the new Post Office at Seventh and Mission Streets, were striking examples of the superiority of workmanship put into Federal buildings. The old Mint building, surrounded by a wide space of pavement, was absolutely unharmed. The Mint made preparations to resume business at once. The Post Office building also was virtually undamaged by fire. The earthquake shock did some damage to the different entrances to the building, but the walls were left standing in good condition. President Roosevelt also sent a message to Congress asking that $300,000 be at once appropriated to finish the Mare Island Navy Yard, in order that employment might be given to the many workmen who were in extreme need of money for the necessities of life.
It was a most fortunate circumstance that the property records in the Hall of Records were unharmed either by earthquake or fire. Endless disputes and litigation over the questions of ownerships would undoubtedly have otherwise impeded the work of those sincerely anxious to repair their shattered fortunes and opened the way for the unscrupulous to take unfair advantage of the general chaos.
But the temper of the people was such that only the boldest would have dared to use trickery for his own ends. Every man stood at the side of his neighbor working for himself and for the good of all. Before the embers were cool the owners of some of the damaged skyscrapers gave commands to proceed instantly with their reconstruction. The Spreckels Building, the Hayward Building, the St. Francis Hotel, the Merchants’ Exchange and structures that permitted it were ordered rushed into shape as quickly as possible. And already contracts had been drawn up for other steel-frame buildings to be erected with all speed. Many substantial business men and property owners of San Francisco were in consultation with the architects within a few days. While the work of clearing away the debris went forward, a corps of draughtsmen was busily occupied preparing plans for the new buildings to adorn the city.
Mayor Schmitz telegraphed to the Mayors of all leading cities, inquiring how many architects or architectural draughtsmen could be induced to leave for San Francisco at once, and hundreds of young men immediately responded to the call. Experts of the several great contracting companies hurried to the scene and were ready to deposit material and labor on the ground for the work of restoration. Daniel H. Burnham, a leading architect of Chicago, who had previously drawn plans for beautifying the city, was summoned to superintend the work.
All the horses, mules and wagons obtainable were immediately pressed into service to remove the debris and clear the streets so that traffic could be resumed. Within a week after the first earthquake shock trolley cars were running in the principal streets, telephone communication had been re-established in the most needed quarters, electric lights were available and business had begun again on a limited scale.
Yet, in spite of the indomitable courage of the citizens and the efficient labor of the public officers and the utility companies, an enormous amount of work remained. Virtually every bank in San Francisco had to be rebuilt. Only the Market Street National Bank was left nearly undamaged. An official list of the condition of the school buildings throughout the city showed that twenty-nine school buildings were destroyed and that forty-four were partially, at least, spared. Many of the latter were so damaged that they had to be either pulled down or thoroughly repaired, and arrangements were made to resume the short term in tents erected in the parks, where thousands of the homeless had already found temporary shelter. With these two vital classes of public institutions prepared to care for the demands about to be made on them, confidence was not lacking in other parts. Most of the foundries and factories near the water front and south of Market Street immediately called in all their employees and began to clear away the wreckage and make ready for continuing business. Great credit is due to the newspapers, nearly all of which continued their daily issues without interruption, although their buildings, with offices and printing plants, were entirely destroyed by the flames which followed the earthquake. Those whose premises were early threatened with destruction betook themselves to Oakland, seven miles distant across the bay, and published their sheets from the establishments of the Oakland papers. A thorough inspection shows that comparatively little damage was done in the vicinity of the Cliff. The Cliff House, which was at first reported to have been hurled into the sea, not only stood, but the damage sustained by it from the earthquake was slight. The famous Sutro baths, located near the Cliff House, with the hundreds of thousands of square feet of glass roofing, also were practically unharmed. Only a few of the windows in the Sutro baths and the Cliff House were broken, and the lofty chimney of the pumping plant of the former establishment was cracked only a trifle. When the situation was finally summed up, however, nearly three-fourths of the city had to be rebuilt or remodeled, and the cost of doing this was enough to appal the strongest hearts.
Financially the prospect was encouraging. Not a bank lost the contents of its fireproof vaults and remained practically unharmed, so far as credit was concerned.
For a number of days it was impossible to open any strong boxes on account of the great heat which the thick walls retained, and this naturally caused some embarrassment and lack of ready money. Nearly all of them, however, had strong connections in Eastern cities and large balances to their credit in other banks of America and Europe. They were also favored by the fact that the United States Mint and the Sub-Treasury held between them some $245,000,000 in ready money. The Secretary of the Treasury immediately deposited $10,000,000 to the credit of the local banks, and financiers of the great business centres of the country added to public confidence by prompt statements that they would facilitate the reconstruction of the city by a liberal advancement of funds.
One prominent Eastern capitalist expressed the general conviction in the following words:
“No great city, unless it dried up entirely from lack of commercial life blood, was ever annihilated by such a disaster as that of San Francisco. Pompeii and Herculaneum were not great cities in the first place, and in the second, they were completely covered, smothered as it were, with the ashes and molten lava of the adjoining volcano, and nearly all of their inhabitants perished. If it be admitted that three-fourths of the superstructures, so to speak, of San Francisco, estimated according to valuation, is destroyed, we have yet the fact remaining that the lives of only about one four-hundredth of its population have been lost.
“San Francisco was not merely land and the buildings erected upon it, but it was people, and one of the most active, most hopeful, most vivacious human communities on the face of the earth. You cannot long discourage such a community, unless you wipe out three-fourths of its members. Will San Francisco rise again? Most certainly it will. Galveston and Baltimore, not to mention Charleston, Boston and Chicago, showed the spirit of material resurrection in American communities, sore-smitten by calamity. After Galveston had been made a desert of sand and debris, there were predictions that it would never rise again. What was the outcome? A finer Galveston than before, and finer than many years of slow improvement in the natural course would have made it. Baltimore is busier commercially than it was before the great fire.
“San Francisco is exceedingly fortunate in the fact that its moneyed institutions remain strong, with abundant supplies of funds. It is true that many of them undoubtedly hold large numbers of real estate mortgages as securities for loans, and that much of the property thus represented is now in ashes. But with care and an accommodating spirit practically all of those mortgaged can be so nursed that they will be made absolutely good. The banks will be found to be only too eager to afford new loans which will enable realty owners to rebuild. You will see San Francisco rise a more splendid city than ever, and better prepared to resist future earthquake shocks. Because it has had this dreadful visitation is no reason for apprehension that another like it will come within the life of the present generation, or two or three after. The destruction of Lisbon in the middle of the eighteenth century and its subsequent immunity from seismic damage is a reassuring example.”
The municipality was in excellent financial condition to meet and rise above the extraordinary needs of the situation. It had a bonded debt of only $4,245,100, while its realty valuation was $402,127,261 and its personalty $122,258,406. The question of issuing further amounts of bonds was therefore one of the first measures considered by Mayor Schmitz and his co-workers, and an appeal was made to the Federal Government to guarantee the proposed loans, so that the most urgent work which lay in the city’s province could be undertaken at once and without an excessive burden of interest.
The vast insurance loss was divided among 107 companies, and, though only a little more than half the damage was covered by policies, the total swelled toward the colossal sum of $150,000,000. Several of the largest companies were seriously crippled by the disaster and some were forced into liquidation. To the great relief of the entire country, nevertheless, the financial situation was not severely affected, and there was every reason to believe that the great bulk of the insurance would be paid.
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