April 18, 1906
San Francisco was wrecked by a Great Earthquake and then destroyed by the seventh Great Fire that burned for four days. Hundreds, perhaps thousands of trapped persons died when South-of-Market tenements collapsed into liquefied "made" ground. Most of those buildings immediately caught fire and trapped victims could not be rescued. Fire Chief Engineer Dennis T. Sullivan was mortally wounded when a chimney of California Theatre and hotel fell upon the fire station in which he lived at 410-412 Bush St. Acting Chief Engineer John Dougherty commanded fire operations. All telephone and telegraph communications stopped within the city, although some commercial telegraph circuits to New York and to India remained temporarily in operation. There were 135 aftershocks on April 18 and 22 on April 19.
The earthquake was so strong that sensitive seismographs around the Bay were either knocked from their supports or the records went off the scale, so that they gave no information as to the actual earthquake movements.
The shock was perceptible from Coos Bay, Oregon, to Los Angeles, and as Far East as central Nevada, an area of about 375,000 square miles, approximately half of which was in the Pacific Ocean. The region of destructive effect extended from the southern part of Fresno County to Eureka, about 400 miles, and for a distance of 25 to 30 miles on either side of the fault zone. The distribution of intensity within the region of destruction was uneven. Of course all structures standing on or crossing the rift were destroyed or badly damaged. Many trees standing near the fault were either uprooted or broken off. Perhaps the most marked destruction of trees near Loma Prieta, where, according to Dr. John C. Branner, "The forest looked as though a swath had been cut through it two hundred feet in width." In little less than a mile he counted 345 earthquake cracks running in all directions.
The earthquake dreadfully damaged the U.S. Post Office at Seventh and Mission Streets. Assistant to the Postmaster Burke said, "walls had been thrown into the middle of various rooms, destroying furniture and covering everything with dust. In the main corridors the marble was split and cracked, while the mosaics were shattered and had come rattling down upon the floor. Chandeliers were rent and twisted by falling arches and ceilings."
Within the area of destruction, the distribution of destructive effects was far from uniform. These were greatest in the immediate neighborhood of the fault zone, but there were place many miles from the San Andreas Fault where the earthquake destruction was greater than in other places near the fault. Intensified effects were found in the alluvial valley region extending from San Jose to Healdsburg. Santa Rosa, twenty miles from the San Andreas Fault line, sustained more damage, in proportion to its size than any other city in the state. This suggested to scientists the possible movement on the Hayward fault, and perhaps others, although no surface indications of such movement were found.

Earthquakes and Chinatown.
On April 18, 1906, a huge earthquake devastated San Francisco. As fires raged, Chinatown was leveled. It seemed that what the city and country wanted for fifty years, nature had accomplished in forty-five seconds. Ironically, because the immigration records and vital statistics at City Hall had been destroyed, many Chinese were able to claim citizenship, and then send for their children and families in China. Legally, all children of U.S. citizens were automatically citizens, regardless of their place of birth. Thus began the influx of “paper sons and paper daughters" - instant citizens - which helped balance the demographics of Chinatown's "bachelor society." Finally, Chinatown had what it had been missing for so long - children.
The city fathers had no intention of allowing Chinatown to be rebuilt in its own neighborhood, on valuable land next to the Financial District. While they were deciding where to relocate the Chinese, a wealthy businessman named Look Tin Eli developed a plan to rebuild Chinatown to its original location. He obtained a loan from Hong Kong and designed the new Chinatown to be more emphatically "Oriental" to draw tourists. The old Italianate buildings were replaced by Edwardian architecture embellished with theatrical chinoiserie. Chinatown, like the phoenix, rose from the ashes with a new facade, dreamed up by an American-born Chinese man, built by white architects, looking like a stage-set China that does not exist.