Mount Vernon signal. (Mt. Vernon, Ky.) 18??-current, 1906-05-18
The Great San Fran
cisco Disaster,
WILDLY DESCRIBED f.ONE
WHO EXPERIENCED THE
AWFUL SCENE.

The following is a letter which
Attv. c. {, Williams received from
relative. who lives Just across the
bav in Alameda, which so WILDLY
describes the terrible disaster that
laid waste the beautiful city OF San
Francisco, we copy it in full:
San Francisco, April 80, 1906.
DEAR Cousin CASPER
know that you will be
happy to know that we all escaped
being burned up $50 far and that
we came ont unscathed by the big
earthquake that shook the bottom
out OF San Francisco on the fate
full 18Th of April last, and with
small loss of property.
Can YOU imagine big. proud
San Francisco, which you honored
with your visit last August, TO be
now one vast eXpanse OF ruins,
black. charred heaps of bricks and
mortar. twisted rails and wires by
the thousands dangling from half
crumbled down skyscrapers, which
looks down at you through the
blackened apertures of their former
windows like legions of knocking,
sneering devils?
the ground, seven blocks by eight.
No more French restaurants with
the luscious crab. No more latin
quarter, with the sons and daugh-
tiers of sunny Italy mixing their
songs with those of the natives Of
the Pyrenees and of Normandy of
glorious France; no more Mexican
Fandango or rcmpous Coon re-
sorts of the Barbary coasts, where
proud Albions and other tars
found it fun followed by a remorse-
ful day. to have the last cruise S
pickings wheedled out of them by
dusky beauties and bellies of other
chimes. No more 'Kearney street,
no more Market street, the busiest
of the marts of the world and the
most crowded of all the thorough
fares. No more Mob Hill. the seat
of the palatial homes of the late
banana kings The Hopkins AT
Institute with its priceless treas
ures of art is gone. NothingTmore
OF all the wealth and material
beauty of San Francisco, but hills
upon hills of desOlatiOn and ami
hilation. The Palace HOTEL that
world renowned oaravansary is
down to the first story, a mess of
CHASTITY ruins. The St. Francis
Hotel, the Paramount, monuments
by themselves are mere shells. so is
that handsome structure the Call
building. One hundred banks,
twenty theaters, most all the
churches, all are gone. South of
Market from the Ferry building to
the hills towards the county line is
a vast plain of ugly, black, smok-
ing ruins. 1t is gruesome, sicken-
ing, heartrendering. You dream
of it at night and you shudder at
the thought of it in the day.
No you can't imagine it, you
must see it, and then after one has
seen it, one is sorry to have seen.
Something takes you by the throat
and chokes you. Of it phantom
remains that draws you, and you
grow old in one hour.
Fifteen square miles of territory
laid bare, swept by the demon FIRE,
1000 acres of houses in ruins.
two hundred millions worth of
property destroyed, one thousand
dead. five hundred wounded
What a holocaust to the angry
gods?
For three and halt days San
Francisco burned From the Ala
media shore at night the spectacle
was grandiously awesome. The
first day the fire ate up all the
" wholesale district and part o! the
Mission, the second day the middle
residence district, the retail stores
and Chinatown had to be gwen up
,Ahird day it swept over
'ethe- Western add
se z1.. -