San Francisco and Its Terrific Earthquake.
On the splendid Bay of San Francisco, one of the noblest
harbors on the whole vast range of the Pacific Ocean,
long has stood, like a Queen of the West on its seven
hills, the beautiful city of San Francisco, the youngest
and in its own way one of the most beautiful and attractive
of the large cities of the United States. Born
less than sixty years ago, it has grown with the healthy
rapidity of a young giant, outvieing many cities of
much earlier origin, until it has won rank as the eighth
city of the United States, and as the unquestioned
metropolis of our far Western States.
It is on this great and rich city that the dark demon
of destruction has now descended, as it fell on the
next younger of our cities, Chicago, in 1872.
It was the rage of the fire-fiend that desolated the
metropolis of the lakes. Upon the Queen City
of the West the twin terrors of earthquake and conflagration
have descended at once, careening through its thronged
streets, its marts of trade, and its abodes alike of
poverty and wealth, and with the red hand of devastation
sweeping one of the noblest centres of human industry
and enterprise from the face of the earth. It
is this story of almost irremediable ruin which it
is our unwelcome duty to chronicle. But before
entering upon this sorrowful task some description
of the city that has fallen a prey to two of the earth’s
chief agents of destruction must be given.
San Francisco is built on the end of a peninsula or
tongue of land lying between the Pacific Ocean and
the broad San Francisco Bay, a noble body of inland
water extending southward for about forty miles and
with a width varying from six to twelve miles.
Northward this splendid body of water is connected
with San Pablo Bay, ten miles long, and the latter
with Suisun Bay, eight miles long, the whole forming
a grand range of navigable waters only surpassed by
the great northern inlet of Puget Sound. The
Golden Gate, a channel five miles long, connects this
great harbor with the sea, the whole giving San Francisco
the greatest commercial advantages to be found on
the Pacific coast.
The original site of the city was a grant made by
the King of Spain of four square leagues of land.
Congress afterwards confirmed this grant. It
was an uninviting region, with its two lofty hills
and its various lower ones, a barren expanse of shifting
sand dunes extending from their feet. The population
in 1830 was about 200 souls, about equal to that of
Chicago at the same date. It was not much larger
in 1848, when California fell into American hands
and the discovery of gold set in train the famous
rush of treasure seekers to that far land. When
1849 dawned the town contained about 2,000 people.
They had increased to 20,000 before the year ended.
The place, with its steep and barren hills and its
sandy stretches, was not inviting, but its ease of
access to the sea and its sheltered harbor were important
features, and people settled there, making it a depot
of mining supplies and a point of departure for the
mines.
