The Great Quake of 1906

Black citizens of San Francisco assess damages following the earthquake and resultant fires.

At 5:12 a.m. on April 18, 1906, the people of San Francisco were awakened by an earthquake that would devastate the city. The main earthquake, having a 7.7–7.9 magnitude, lasted about one minute and was the result of the rupturing of the northernmost 296 miles of the 800-mile San Andreas fault. But when calculating destruction, the earthquake took second place to the great fire that followed. The fire, lasting four days, most likely started with broken gas lines (and, in some cases, was helped along by people hoping to collect insurance for their property—they were covered for fire, but not earthquake, damage). With water mains broken, fighting the fires was almost impossible, and about 500 city blocks were destroyed. The damages were estimated at about $400,000,000 in 1906 dollars, which would translate to about $8.2 billion today.

San Francisco's black population also grew slowly during the first two decades of the 20th century. While the city continued to attract a sizable population of white and Asian immigrants, there was no comparable migration of blacks from either the South or the East. African Americans continued to perceive San Francisco as a difficult place in which to advance economically. Only 1,654 blacks resided in the city at the turn of the century, a decline of 10.4% from the 1890 census. Some moved across the bay to Oakland, which almost doubled its black population between 1890 and 1900 and registered nearly a 300 percent increase between 1900 and 1910. The widespread devastation of the 1906 earthquake and fire in San Francisco accounted for part of Oakland's sizable increase in the short space of a decade. It may also explain why San Francisco's black population declined somewhat during these years.

Sources: Seeking El Dorado: African Americans in California, edited by Lawrence Brooks De Graaf, Kevin Mulroy, Quintard Taylor; Photographer Arnold Genthe (1906)