The St. Mary banner. (Franklin, Parish of St. Mary, La.) 1889-1931, 1906-08-25
AS has been said. the fear of VIII.

AS HAS UGtI Sdld, Ine lear OF Wha
might happen in an earthquake. com
bined with the scarcity of nearb,
Guarries and brickyards, kept Sat
Francisco people from building Wit
a show Of Dermanence. The tirst &c
break the tradition was NJ. H. DE
Young. who put up the elayen-slorl
Chronicle building in 1890 This va.
IN the early days of skyscraper Ger.
structlon, and the framework Of the
| Chronicle building was not Of steel
but Of wrought iron. while the shell
was Of brick.
The building stood. weathered a few
small earthquakes and had nothing
| happened to it. San Franciscans took
! heart and began to experiment with
| tail buildings. In 1894 John y.
Spreckles put up the Call building,
noted IS one of the few really beauti-
ful skyscrapers in the country This
| stood out of the city like a tower as
/ viewed from the hills and was the
/ most conspicuous feature on the land
| scape of San Francisco The Crockcr
! building, the Emporium building, tie
Wells Fargo building, the new Bald
win building and half dozen others
followed
The business district lies all along
Market street or north of it. Market
street, even after it gets past the area
of made land, is in depression. Al
most all of the district south of Mar
ket street is on low lands. ORIGINALLY
tide fats. Here are the dwellings, of
the poor. corresponding to the tene-
Ment district Of New York. except that
the poor of San Francisco are housed
not in tall tenement buildings. but in
frame houses often of t1imsy construc-
ton
Experience with earih Cuakes has
shown that low lands. and especially
made lands, suffer the NEST. That
seems to have been the case Of this
earthquake. 1t ripped things up in
the Wholesale district OF made lands.
devastated all Market street and
tumbled about the tenement district.
Just across the Bay from san Fran
cisco. ana en- the eastern shore, lie
TIE suburbs OF Oakland, Alameda and
Berkeley Oakland. q city of some
thing more than 7e,000 inhabitants.
is to San Francisco what Brooklyn
is to New York. except that it is
further aWay-about six miles by
ferry Here are all the terminals of
the direct overland lines, and all pas
senSerS, except those coming by the |
southern routes, take ferry at Oakland
for San Francisco. Further along the |
bay shore, and adjacent to Oakland is |
Alameda, residence town on very |
low land. Hitherto Alameda has suf- |
fered from the slight earthquakes in |
that region more than San Francisco.
On the other side of Oakland. east
ward OF it on the overland routes, is |
the college town of Berkeley, the site
OF the University of California.
Although the water supply Oh San
Francisco was ample, and was helped
out for fire purposes by system OF
salt water mains, the system was
made to be the prey of earthquakes.
The greater part of the supply came
from the Spring Valley lakes, some
insula. The chief main ran along the
backbone of the peninsula for some
distance, but upon approaching the
city 1t took an abrupt turn to the east
and ran along the made lands until
It reached the business district From
To |
'oirs on the crests Of the city hills.
where it got the fall to supply the
'esidence district That disturbance
If the made lands. which, Of course.
broke the water mains. cut eff at once
nearly the whole supply of the city
That possibility had NOT been fore
seen in planning the san Francisco
water mains.
The San Francisco newspapers
lever mentioned the possibility of
disastrous earthquake. but the subject
vas always in the public mind A
COMMON subject Of discussion in San
francisco was the effect of IA shake
pon the new tall buildings Almost
IL OF the architects declared that they
TODD vastly better chance than low
tructures OF brick and stone or ordi-
ary frame buildings. The interlock-
ne steel structures, they declared,
would sway and give; the worst that
ould be expected would be the bonn
ardment of the streets caused by
heir shaking off their shells.