Complete story of the San Francisco horror (1906)

Author: Linthicum, Richard, 1859-1934; White, Trumbull, 1868-
Subject: Earthquakes -- California San Francisco; Volcanoes; Earthquakes; Fires -- California San Francisco
Publisher: [San Francisco? Hubert D. Russell
Year: 1906
Possible copyright status: NOT_IN_COPYRIGHT
Language: English

CHAPTER I.
THE DOOMED CITY.
Earthquake Begins the Wreck of San Francisco and a Conflagration
without Parallel Completes the Awful Work of Destruction
—
Tremendous Loss of Life in Quake and Fire—Property Loss
$200,000,000.
AFTER four days and three nights that have no parallel outside
of Dante's Inferno, the city of San Francisco, the
American metropolis by the Golden Gate, was a mass of glowing
embers fast resolving into heaps and winrows of grey ashes
emblematic of devastation and death.
Where on the morning of April 18, 1906, stood a city of magnificent
splendor, wealthier and more prosperous than Tyre and
Sidon of antiquity, enriched by the mines of Ophir, there lay but
a scene of desolation. The proud and beautiful city had been
shorn of its manifold glories, its palaces and vast commercial
emporiums levelled to the earth and its wide area of homes,
where dwelt a happy and a prosperous people, lay prostrate in
thin ashes. Here and there in the charred ruins and the streets
lately blackened by waves of flame, lay crushed or charred
corpses, unheeded by the survivors, some of whom were fighting
desperately for their lives and property, while others were panic
stricken and paralyzed by fear. Thousands of lives had been sacrificed
and millions upon millions of dollars in property utterly
destroyed.
The beginning of the unparalleled catastrophe was on the
morning of April 18, 1906. In the grey dawn, when but few had
arisen for the day, a shock of earthquake rocked the foundations
of the city and precipitated scenes of panic and terror throughout
the business and residence districts........Read more