The Big One: 119 years ago today
SF HISTORY | WOODY LaBOUNTY
TODAY IS THE 119th anniversary of the 7.9 magnitude tremor that remade San Francisco. The quake brought down and damaged buildings. It also set off numerous fires. Important infrastructure was crippled, leaving the city mostly helpless to fight a growing inferno. After three terrible days of fire and smoke, the core of the city was gone.
Charles Wheeler Jr., son of a Presidio Heights attorney, was at boarding school in Belmont during the 1906 earthquake. Telegraph lines were down, so against his headmaster’s orders, he decided to go the city to check on his family.
Somehow, the peninsula train was running. Wheeler fought his way onto a car packed with Stanford students. They told him their campus was destroyed. “The buildings are of stone, you know,” said one, “and stone buildings can’t stand up against an earthquake.”
Wheeler’s San Francisco home on Washington Street was built of brick.
Read more: “Getting Home“
Readers Respond
- Margaret H.December 28, 1969
Wonderful piece. I remember when the jazz clubs on Fillmore stayed open past two — this brought it all back. Thank you for keeping the memory of the neighborhood alive.
- David K.December 23, 1969
We've lived on Pine near Steiner for thirty-one years and it still surprises us how much this paper notices. Please keep going.
- Yuki T.December 15, 1969
A small correction — the mochi shop on Post opened in 1982, not 1985. My grandfather was there for the ribbon cutting. Love the coverage otherwise.
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