San Francisco's oldest surviving monument and meeting place for 1906 survivors. After the 1906 earthquake, dazed survivors looked for anything left standing to congregate around. Lotta’s Fountain served as a meeting place for people to be reunited with their loved ones. Every year at 5:12 a.m. on April 18th a couple of hundred people meet in a ceremony of remembrance.

Entertainer And Philanthropist

Lotta Crabtree began her career as a singer, dancer and actress at a very young age. She would go on to become one of the wealthiest and most beloved American entertainers of the late 19th century. From her beginnings as a 6-year-old until her retirement at the age of 45, she was called The Nation’s Darling.

From: History of American Women

Lotta Crabtree in 1868

It should tell one something about San Francisco in the 1870s that the monument was given to the city not by a politician or captain of industry, but by a famous Vaudeville performer, Lotta Crabtree. Lotta loved the city and had gotten her start there during the Gold Rush days, when she would dance on barrels in saloons for miners who would throw gold nuggets at her feet. Using some of the gold coin, gold nuggets and gold watches that gentlemen bestowed upon her, Lotta bought the city a fountain in 1875.

From: Atlas Obscura

 

Lotta's Fountain circa 1930's

Lotta Crabtree

Lotta's Fountain before 1906

Lotta's Fountain stands at the corner of Market, Geary, and Kearny Streets in San Francisco.

The secret to Lotta’s success was her girlish innocence.  Whatever she lacked in dramatic ability she made up in image—a lamb among wolves, pure as new snow.  The only thing not pure in her show was the money the unabashed miners tossed on the stage after each performance.

From: True West Magazine

Lotta Crabtree

Market, Geary, and Kearny

A Trip on Market Street in 1906

OpenSFHistory.org

FoundSF.org

Lotta’s Fountain is a twenty-four-foot cast iron sculpture, painted bronze and adorned with lion’s heads, griffins, and other ornaments.

Ceremonies commemorate 112th anniversary of 1906 earthquake in SF

ABC Channel 7 News

Lotta Crabtree

Lotta got her start at Rabbit Creek when a theater owner named Mart Taylor needed a child actress to meet the competition from a rival who was featuring his small daughter.

At least half the foreign-born residents of Rabbit Creek were Irish.  Mrs. Crabtree hastily put together a long green coat, green knee breeches and a tall green hat.  Taylor cobbled a tiny pair of Irish brogues and whittled a miniature shillelagh.  He also taught Lotta an Irish jig and reel.

Lotta, facing a friendly audience, went through a furious set of jigs, and reels, grinning and laughing all the way, to the delight of the miners.  For a finale she appeared in a white dress and sang such sentimental ballads as, “How Can I Leave Thee?”

When she finished the smoky room was full of shouting, cheering miners.  The makeshift stage was showered with dollars, Mexican pesos, gold nuggets and sacks of gold dust, along with one octagonal $50 gold piece.

It marked the beginning of one of the century’s most spectacular stage careers.

Her singing and dancing won loud acclaim from her audiences made up mostly of lonely miners. They especially enjoyed the closing number in which Lotta, clad in angelic white, sang a tear-jerking ballad of innocence.  Gold and silver coins showered the stage.  The rain of wealth frightened the child but her mother rushed out with a basket to carefully collect every coin.

From: True West Magazine

A view from the tower of the Ferry Building looking up Market Street in April 1906

For more photos of the devastation in 1906, go to: ronhenggeler.com

Shorpy image of San Francisco in the aftermath of the earthquake and fire of April 18, 1906. "Up Market Street from Montgomery Street." 8x10 glass negative.

 View full size.

 

 

 

112 Years Later: San Francisco Remembers 1906 Earthquake Victims, Survivors

NBC Bay Area News

1906 Locomobile parked outside of the Big 4 Restaurant on Nob Hill

To see this car, and vehicles like it on Market Street in 1906, view this short clip.

A Trip on Market Street in 1906

Ed Archer, owner of this 1906 Locomobile, and his friends, had breakfast at the Big 4 Restaurant after the 5 a.m. Remembrance Ceremony at Lotta's Fountain

Doorman James Hudson and Klaus Atzmueller (GM of the Scarlet Huntington Hotel)

Chef Brenden Dion, Klaus Atzmueller, Paul Ubriaco, James Hudson

Chef Brenden Dion standing alongside the 1906 Locomobile

Chef Brenden Dion

Big 4 Restaurant

History of the Big 4 Restaurant

 

 

Ed Archer (in the brown fur coat)

These friends and aquaintences of mine had breakfast at the Big 4 Restaurant after having attended the 5 a.m. April 18th remembrance Ceremony at Lotta's Fountain

 

Left to right: Greg Greenwood, his wife Kij Greenwood, Paul Umbriaco, Guillermo Suarez, Max Raymond, Ronalie Jenkins, and Ed Archer

Left to right: Greg Greenwood, his wife Kij Greenwood, Paul Umbriaco, Guillermo Suarez, Max Raymond, Ronalie Jenkins, and Ed Archer

Left to right: Greg Greenwood, his wife Kij Greenwood, Paul Umbriaco, Guillermo Suarez, Max Raymond, Ronalie Jenkins, and Ed Archer

Greg Greenwood

Kij Greenwood

Paul Umbriaco

Guillermo Suarez

Max Raymond

Ronalie Jenkins

Ed Archer

Left to right: Greg Greenwood, his wife Kij Greenwood, Guillermo Suarez, Brenden Dion, Klaus Atzmueller, Ronalie Jenkins, Ed Archer, Max Raymond, and Paul Umbriaco

Left to right: Paul Umbriaco, Ronalie Jenkins, and Max Raymond

Guillermo Suarez

 

 

Ed Archer on the left , Guillermo Suarez in front/center

 

 

 

 

Ed Archer on the left, Guillermo Suarez on the right

 

 

Leaving the Big 4 Restaurant in the 1906 Locomobile

 

An afternoon rainbow seen from my window on Monday April 16

Dusk in San Francisco, seen from my window on Monday April 16

 

Dusk in San Francisco, seen from my window on Monday April 16, two days before the 112 year anniversary of the 1906 Earthquake and Fire