On all sides famous landmarks yielded to the fury
of the flames. For three miles along the water
front the ground was swept clean of buildings, the
blackened beams and great skeletons of factories,
warehouses and business edifices standing silhouetted
against a background of flames, while the whole commercial
and office quarter of Market Street suffered a similar
fate. We may briefly instance some of these victims
of the flames.
Among them were the Occidental Hotel, on Montgomery
Street, for years the headquarters for army officers;
the old Lick House, built by James Lick, the philanthropist;
the California Hotel and Theatre, on Bush Street;
and of theatres, the Orpheum, the Alcazar, the Majestic,
the Columbia, the Magic, the Central, Fisher’s
and the Grand Opera House, on Missouri Street, where
the Conried Opera Company had just opened for a two
weeks’ opera season.
The banks that fell were numerous, including the Nevada
National Bank, the California, the Canadian Bank of
Commerce, the First National, the London and San Francisco,
the London, Paris and American, the Bank of British
North America, the German-American Savings Bank and
the Crocker-Woolworth Bank building. A large
number of splendid apartment houses were also destroyed,
and the tide of destruction swept away a host of noble
buildings far too numerous to mention.
At Post Street and Grant Avenue stood the Bohemian
Club, one of the widest known social organizations
in the world. Its membership included many men
famous in art, literature and commerce. Its rooms
were decorated with the works of members, many of
whose names are known wherever paintings are discussed
and many of them priceless in their associations.
Most of these were saved. There were on special
exhibition in the “Jinks” room of the
Bohemian Club a dozen paintings by old masters, including
a Rembrandt, a Diaz, a Murillo and others, probably
worth $100,000. These paintings were lost with
the building, which went down in the flames.
One of the great losses was that of St. Ignatius’
Church and College, at Van Ness Avenue and Hayes Street,
the greatest Jesuitical institution in the west, which
cost a couple of millions of dollars. The Merchants’
Exchange building, a twelve-story structure, eleven
of whose floors were occupied as offices by the Southern
Pacific Railroad Company, was added to the sum of
losses.
For three long days the terrible fire fiend kept up
his work, and the fight went on until late on Friday,
when the sweep of the flames was at length checked
and the fire brought under control. The principal
agent in this victory was dynamite, which was freely
used. To its work a separate chapter will be
devoted. When at length the area of the conflagration
was limited the wealthiest part of the city lay in
embers and ashes, one of the principal localities
to escape being Pacific Heights, a mile west from
Nob’s Hill, on which stood many costly homes
of recent construction.
