How San Jose Fared

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Mountain View, Cal. · May 23, 1906

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 32, No. 20.

How San Jose Fared

THE city of San Jose, like so many of its sister cities in California, has made forced obeisance to the perverted powers of nature.

San Jose is known throughout the country as the Garden City of California—beautifully situated, practically every residence a flower garden, well supplied with buildings good to look at, artistically constructed, and seemingly strong to resist any ordinary manifestation of nature's forces. Some of these buildings were years in process of construction; millions of dollars were put into them. So far as outward appearances went, these buildings were as good and as strong as men could make them.

In twenty-eight seconds the best that men could do was leveled with the ground or stood tottering like a reeling inebriate. All that men had put dependence in of that nature was swiftly proved a broken reed.

First Street, the finest street of San Jose, lined on both sides with substantial and wealthy business enterprises, is a trembling wreck from end to end. No single structure in all that stretch of brick and steel and stone buildings is without its mark of devastation. Some that appear to have weathered the upheaval in a fair degree are found on closer inspection to be unable to withstand a common forceful breeze; and have been condemned. Some of them will be torn down piece by piece; others, too dangerous even to be torn down, are to be blown down with dynamite. Massive stone-pillared fronts are shattered and seamed, their very seeming massiveness only accentuating their treacherous weakness, and making man's strength and man's ingenuity appear frailer and less dependable by comparison with the elements that are pitted against him.

Added to the great expense of building is the other great expense of unbuilding what nature seemed content to leave standing. Practically the whole of First Street comes down, or requires outlays of means which are nearly, if not quite, equivalent to the original cost of the structures.

But First Street did not suffer alone. The writer drove over a considerable part of the city, and found everywhere the striking evidences of the fearful temblor. It is stated that there is not a whole chimney in that city.

There is an effort on the part of many in this city to minify, rather than magnify, the results of the earthquake. It is firmly believed that there were many more lives lost than have been reported. Nineteen are admitted to have perished in this city. Some declare the number to be double that. For instance, the management of the Hotel Vendome state that "one man was killed and several injured" there; but he who can look upon the picture of the wrecked building and conceive how one hundred and twenty-eight of the one hundred and twenty-nine inmates of the Annex escaped with their lives certainly has very strong faith in human resistance. We saw buildings whose whole tops were crushed in by bricks and stones from the tops of other buildings. The sidewalks are broken, dented, or shattered in front of many

Hotel Vendome Annex. Out of this mass of wreckage 128 of the 129 occupants are said to have escaped alive. It seems an impossibility.

St. Patrick's Church, San Jose. Very fine structure before the earthquake, now a complete wreck.

buildings by the great stones that were thrown down from the higher structures, in a veritable bombardment. Look where you will, it is but broken stones, shivered timbers, plaster, heaps of brick, twisted iron frames, and tangled wires. Persons not generally considered timid are camping in their dooryards or in the parks, and companies of militia and special police are guarding the city.

In walking the length of First Street one is surprised at the number of buildings it has been found necessary to prop at top and bottom to prevent their pitching into the street. In various parts of town, residences are set off from their foundations. Some of them crushed or driven back upon their haunches, with porches torn off or tilted at dangerous angles, the buildings propped and braced to prevent serious accidents while they are being torn down.

Imagine a hale, strong man, smitten in death while still standing, and propped up that he might present an appearance of life. Such is but a weak representation of how San Jose impresses the one who has looked upon what it was and now sees it as it is.

The financial loss is now placed at $3,000,000. It is impossible to conceive how it could be rebuilt as it was for any smaller amount.