There were two ideas in the minds of the fugitives,
and in many cases these two only. One of these
was to escape to the open ground of Golden Gate Park
and the Presidio reservation; the other was to reach
the ferry and make their way out of the seemingly
doomed city.
At the ferry building a crowd numbering thousands
gathered, begging for food and transportation across
the bay. Hundreds had not even the ten cents
fare to Oakland. Most of the refugees at this
point were Chinamen and Italians, who had fled from
their burned tenements with little or no personal
property.
Residents of the hillsides in the central portion
of the city seemingly were safe from the inferno of
flames that was consuming the business section.
They watched the towering mounds of flames, and speculated
as to the extent of the territory that was doomed.
Suddenly there was whispered alarm up and down the
long line of watchers, and they hurried away to drag
clothing, cooking utensils and scant provisions through
the streets. From Grant Avenue the procession
moved westward. Men and women dragged trunks,
packed huge bundles of blankets, boxes of provisions—everything.
Wagons could not be hired except by paying the most
extortionate rates.
“Thank Heaven for the open space of the Presidio
and for Golden Gate Park!” was the unspoken
thank-offering of many hearts. The great park,
with its thousand and more acres of area, extending
from the thinly populated part of the city across
the sand dunes to the Pacific, seemed in that awful
hour a God-given place of refuge. Near it and
extending to the Golden Gate channel is the Presidio
military reservation, containing 1,480 acres, and
with only a few houses on its broad extent. Here
also was a place of safety, provided that the forests
which form a part of its area did not burn.
To these open spaces, to the suburbs, in every available
direction, the fugitives streamed, in thousands, in
tens of thousands, finally in hundreds of thousands,
safety from those towering flames, from the tottering
walls of their dwellings, from a possible return of
the earthquake, their one overmastering thought.
There were many persons with scanty clothing, women
in underskirts and thin waists and men in shirt sleeves.
Many women carried children, while others wheeled
baby carriages. It was a strange and weird procession,
that kept up unceasingly all that dreadful day and
through the night that followed, as the all-conquering
flames spread the area of terror.
