RON HENGGELER

April 18, 2025
Remembering San Francisco’s fateful day in 1906

Photos from the early morning breakfast hosted by George Horsfall at his Blue Painted Lady, one of the famous residences of Postcard Card Row on Steiner Street across from Alamo Square Park.

Friends came together over mimosas and breakfast while remembering the April 18th, 1906 San Francisco Earthquake and Fire. Many of the guests had come from the ceremonies held earlier at Lotta's Fountain and the Gold Fire Hydrant at 20th and Church Street.

The Blue Painted Lady

@bluepaintedladyhousetour

The Painted Ladies of Alamo Square

A photo in the hallway of the Blue Painted Lady.

On April 18, 1906 at 5:13 in the morning, San Francisco was struck by an earthquake with an estimated magnitude of 7.9.

With water mains and gas lines ruptured throughout The City, fires burned out of control for three days. In the aftermath, the fire had destroyed an estimated 28,000 buildings on 490 city blocks. Three quarters of San Francisco was reduced to ash and ruins, and 250,000 residents were left homeless.

712 Steiner Street

This twelve minute film of a cable car ride down Market Street was made on April 14th, four days before the earthquake struck.

 Click here: A Trip Down Market Street

This is the most complete version of the historic film, "A Trip Down Market Street," combining the best elements of prints from Prelinger Arichives and Library of Congress.

Lotta's Fountain

San Francisco's oldest surviving monument and meeting place for 1906 survivors. After the 1906 earthquake, dazed survivors sought a surviving landmark for a gathering spot.  Lotta’s Fountain served as the meeting place for people to reunite with their loved ones. Now every year at 5:12 a.m. on April 18th several hundred people meet in a ceremony of remembrance.

For more on Lotta's Fountaion, visit my newsletter from 2018.

Lotta's Fountain

Lotta's Fountain stands at the corner of Market, Geary, and Kearny Streets in San Francisco. For two more stories about Lotta's Fountain, visit my newsletter:

Two more stories about Lotta's Fountain

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

The 1906 Earthquake and Fire Plaque

Plaque text:

Between 5:12 and 5:13 AM on Wednesday, April 18, 1906, a massive and sustained earthquake struck San Francisco with an estimated force of 7.8 to 8.2 on the Richter scale. Its epicenter was located just two miles west of the city. The quake severed many gas lines and the resulting fires burned for 74 hours. Firefighters worked heroically, but little water was available as the earthquake had also broken most of the city's water mains.

By the time the last flames were extinguished, almost 75 percent of inhabited San Francisco lay in ruins. Nearly 500 square blocks and over 28,000 buildings had been destroyed, and 2,600 acres were burned. Over 3,000 people died and 250,000 were left homeless. Estimated damage totaled $500 million in 1906 dollars.

But San Francisco quickly rose from its ashes and rebuilt. The de Young Building, where this plaque is placed, was constructed in 1890 and survived the catastrophe. Lotta's Fountain, directly across the street, is the location of the annual earthquake and fire commemoration.

This plaque is sponsored by the San Francisco History Association in memory of its founder Ron Ross, board member Ben Valdez, and San Francisco Public Library Archivist Gladys Hansen. It was made possible by generous donations from the people of San Francisco and the Victorian Alliance. Photos courtesy of Western Neighborhoods Project. Additional support provided by Donna Ewald Huggins. Design and production services by John Jamieson of American Western Awards.

Emperor Norton

Emperor Norton's Fantastic San Francisco Time Machine

The Palace Hotel on Market Street across from Lotta's Fountain 

This beautiful hotel, known by travelers the world over, was built in the 1870’s by William Chapman Ralston, co-founder of the Bank of California. It was the home of many wealthy families and the loss of their art treasures was extensive. The interior fittings were of marble and rosewood, and the spacious interior court with its marble columns and graceful arches presented a picture of magnificence and splendor.

The Palace Hotel cost $7 million to create and sat on two-and-a-half acres. When it opened in 1875, the Palace Hotel was the largest hotel in the country and boasted a bar tended by 30 men. It was equipped with state-of-the-art water and safety systems, and had a seven-story atrium where guests arrived by carriage. The Palace hosted such prestigious visitors as Ulysses Grant, Rudyard Kipling, and Emperor Dom Pedro III of Brazil.

The early morning breakfast on April 18, 2025 at the Blue Painted Lady of Alamo Square.

To view more photos of San Francisco on April 18, 1906, go to:

1906 San Francisco Earthquake and Fire

Hayes Valley and the "Ham and Eggs Fire".

After the quake, in Hayes Valley a woman lit  her stove to prepare breakfast. What she did not know was that the chimney (above her stove) was badly damaged. This ignited the 24-hour long ‘Ham and Eggs’ fire, which destroyed parts of City Hall and Market Street. The site of the original spark in Hayes Valley is stated as 395 Hayes Street.

To view more photos of San Francisco on April 18, 1906, visit my 2025 newsletter:

1906 San Francisco Earthquake and Fire

A family photo in the hallway just inside the front door of George's Blue Painted Lady.

To view more photos of San Francisco on April 18, 1906, go to:

1906 San Francisco Earthquake and Fire

A family photo in the hallway just inside the front door of George's Blue Painted Lady.

A family photo in the hallway just inside the front door of George's Blue Painted Lady.

The Ferry Building on San Francisco's Embarcadero was the gateway of refugees escaping the burning City. The refugees in their fight brought many a strange burden. One man wheeled a barrow with one shoe in it. Others carried canary birds and empty cages and one dragged a lawn mower after him over the bricks and stones and debris. The Ferry Building clock atop the 230 foot high tower had stopped with its hands pointing to 5:13 a.m., the very moment the earthquake struck. 

In 1906 the Ferry Building, built of structural iron faced with sand stone, was the terminus for public transportation lines in The City, making it one of the busiest hubs on the West Coast. 

To view more photos of San Francisco on April 18, 1906, go to:

1906 San Francisco Earthquake and Fire

Emperor Norton

Emperor Norton's Fantastic San Francisco Time Machine

The ruins of San Francisco seen from the tower of the Ferry Building 

In 1906, reliable insurance inspectors who examined the field of ruin and devastation claimed that a greater part of The City could have been saved had it not been for the tragic death of veteran Fire Chief Dennis T. Sullivan early on the first day of the catastrophe. The San Francisco Fire Department was deprived of his leadership at the most critical time of the conflagration.

To view more photos of San Francisco on April 18, 1906, go to:

1906 San Francisco Earthquake and Fire

George's beloved mother, Catherine Sheehan Horsfall 

Articles about this remarkable woman and proud native San Franciscan

Instagram Blue Painted Lady House Tour

Victorian Alliance tour of 712 Steiner

SF Chronicle Obituary

George's grandmother

For more on the 1915 Panama Pacific International Exposition, go to my newsletter from 2015.

City Rising: San Francisco and the 1915 World's Fair (PPIE)

By 1915, architects and engineers had not only brought the city back to its pre-1906 status, they'd also constructed new buildings for the city's World's Fair, the Panama–Pacific International Exposition. 

The story of the Panama-Pacific International Exposition, officially nicknamed the "Jewel City," began more than two decades before it opened, and surprisingly gained momentum following the Great Earthquake and Fire of 1906. San Francisco leaders’ first thought, as they surveyed the nearly four square miles of shattered masonry and charred wood left by the disaster, was to rebuild. Their second thought was to throw a giant celebration and invite the world to come. Perhaps a judicious course would have been to delay or cancel the world’s fair the city had contemplated since 1891, but San Francisco—steep, brash, wayward San Francisco—was never known for its prudence.

This text respectfully taken from: "An Introduction to the Panama-Pacific International Exposition," excerpted from San Francisco’s Jewel City: the Panama-Pacific International Exposition. 

© 2015 by Laura A. Ackley, all rights reserved.

http://www.ppie100.org/history/

Historical video of the PPIE in 1915. Video courtesy PPIE100.

ALAMO SQUARE
It is believed that some San Franciscans who died in the 1906 earthquake and fire are buried in Alamo Square. A temporary camp was almost set up in the square for those who were left homeless by the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake. The terrace of restored three-story wooden homes on the east side of Steiner Street between Hayes and Fulton Streets across from Alamo Square was built by Irish-born property developer Matthew Kavanaugh in the 1890’s. They were originally sold for $3,500. Kavanaugh, who lived at 722 Steiner from 1892 through 1900, couldn’t have envisioned that a century later his houses would be among the most photographed vantage points in San Francisco, known as “postcard row.” The colorfully painted, elaborate Victorians contrast sharply with the skyscrapers of the Financial District looming in the background. The houses have been the ‘homes’ of characters in the motion pictures Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1978), The Woman in Red (1984), and Maxie (1985), and the television programs Too Close for Comfort (1980-1986) and Full House (1987-1995). 

Respectfully taken from SAN FRANCISCO SECRETS

by John Snyder  Chronicle Books 1999

For a fun and unique tour of the Blue Painted Lady on Alamo Square, contact George.

415-377-8559

@bluepaintedladyhousetour

April 18, 2025 at the Blue Painted Lady of Alamo Square in San Francisco.