you only thought you knew we've assembled an outstanding team of historians and storytellers to bring you the glory the tragedies in the promise of one of the greatest cities in the world with never-before-seen photographs and amazing archival footage Channel four brings you the next chapter in the saga of this extraordinary place that we all call home and now kron4 proudly presents San Francisco into the fire [Music] San Francisco in 1900 was a city coming-of-age wealthy cosmopolitan it was on the brink of fulfilling its destiny as the Paris of the Pacific [Music] the view down market strip revealed a bustling city filled with horseless carriages cable cars and sophisticated men and women wearing the latest fashions at the opening of this century San Francisco had led a charmed life it was a city on a roll with a population of some 350,000 San Francisco was the ninth largest city in the country it had the preeminent port on the west coast that moves more Goods than all of the other West Coast ports combined it had a brand-new city hall with a copper dome that was larger and grander than the one in Washington DC it had one of the largest luxury hotels in the world 800 room Palace Hotel it had completed Golden Gate Park one of the finest city sanctuaries in the country and San Francisco's society was enjoying European opera singers Cordon Bleu chefs they were going to Delmonico's on Market Street and eating oysters and champagne San Franciscans were also optimistic the city had made a full recovery from the devastating worldwide depression of the late 19th century everything was available in San Francisco in the way of vice and sin and it was it prided itself on that as a matter of fact [Music] it had wine it had a strong Latin culture especially in the in the North Beach area its hills and it's pastels next to the Golden Gate and this all contributed to this bohemian Mediterranean quality which was really very much unlike any other city in America at that time it was a time of real revelry and joy in the city but that would start to crumble [Music] in the springtime of that first year the body of a Chinese laborer was discovered in a Chinatown hotel the cause of death was the bubonic plague plate was only found in Chinese inhabitants of Chinatown these were almost all men single men that lived in these various tenement houses because San Francisco was the leading West Coast shipping and manufacturing center the city was an official denial Mayor James Duval Phelan sent a telegram to the mayors of 50 eastern cities assuring them that all was well in San Francisco I would have been very bad for business and therefore they took the position of denying this presence the plague had killed three-quarters of the population in 14th century Europe and Asia in San Francisco's Chinatown of 1900 there was fear of an epidemic because of its overcrowded conditions 25,000 people were living in a 12 square block area the Chinese had a great fear that the plague diagnosis was going to be used against them Chinatown had been considered to be a nest of disease and prostitution and gambling one newspaper in fact suggested that Chinatown be eradicated stating clear the foul spot from San Francisco and give the debris to the flames but that would not happen quite property owners who owned 90% of Chinatown were making too much money eventually a cleaning campaign was implemented rats were exterminated buildings demolished and wooden basements cemented but for some it was too late in 1922 officially documented victims died from the disease san Francisco's troubles continued in April of the next year employees from the United railroads company went on strike by the end of July cooks waiters machinists and longshoremen had also walked out mayor Phelan attempted to mediate the dispute being an Irish Catholic he very much appealed to the Irish Catholic workers who are probably the majority the working class in San Francisco at that time but the mayor who was a conservative Democrat allowed San Francisco's police to serve as strike breakers angering labor when he uses the police he is very much criticized by the Year by certain church leaders and by the Irish Catholic to working-class by September there were 20,000 unemployed and 200 ships tied up on the waterfront there was sabotage threats rioting five people were killed the city was in crisis you've got the city that is after you carry it they're tearing itself apart after months of conflict the bitter strike was settled when governor Henry gage threatened to bring in the military and declare martial law as for feeling he had lost he would never again run for mayor of San Francisco there was a tremendous revulsion against Steel at that time feeling of course then besides not to run for re-election and that's when you get the rise in the Union Labor Party in 1902 the city was lighted by electricity Buffalo Bill Cody came to town with his Wild West Show at the top of Nob Hill construction began on the Fairmont Hotel and Eugene Schmitz a violin player who was the candidate of a newly formed Union Labor Party became San Francisco's new mayor the election of handsome jean as he was also known marked the beginning of one of the most corrupt administrations in the city's history a band leader a union leader with parents who were both Irish and German Catholic Schmitz was an ideal mayor for the city of San Francisco mayor Schmitz despite his good looks didn't really run the city it was being run behind the scenes by brilliant the totally unscrupulous lawyer named Abraham Ruth often known as just boss Ruth a native San Franciscan Abe roof was a very ambitious lawyer who divided the spoils of extortion and bribery the kickbacks included the granting of liquor licenses to so-called French restaurants where prostitution flourished there were other profitable deals with many of the city's leading businesses like the United railroads company which paid a broof 200 thousand dollars to ensure that overhead trolley lines would be allowed because it was cheaper than building them underground those same overhead lines are seen in San Francisco today in the corrupt partnership between the mayor the Board of Supervisors and boss roof anything was available for a price boss roof was about as unscrupulous as they come in early years he was actually an idealist he was somewhat of a reformer but he found that would get you nowhere in a city like San Francisco and so he very quickly learned that to get ahead in the city you would have to be corrupt and he really went at it with great enthusiasm with great gusto [Music] but despite the growing scandal within its political and business culture san Francisco's everyday life continued to thrive it was after all an emerging metropolis visited by American presidents from William McKinley to Teddy Roosevelt's triumphant arrival in May of 1903 the popular president and spanish-american war hero was greeted in the bright sunshine by thousands of flag waving schoolchildren on Van Ness Avenue Roosevelt had come to San Francisco to dedicate the Dewey monument in Union Square a year later right across the street from the new monument an opulent Hotel opened its doors for the first time code the st. Francis it was built in two years at a cost of two and a half million dollars and there's a telephone in every single room and that just totally thrilled people in North Beach six months later a converted saloon on Washington Street became home to a new bank the Bank of Italy [Music] Amedeo Peter AP Giannini was the bank's founder AP Giannini is one of the most important men in San Francisco's history certainly in California's history and I'd say even in national history the son of Italian immigrants AP Giannini was born in San Jose in 1870 and when the family moved to San Francisco the young and ambitious ap worked after school for his stepfather in the wholesale produce business Jeannine you had talent he knew people he liked people who liked to talk to them he understood the merchants mentality Giannini believed a bank should be democratic open to everyone especially the working man who kept his money under the mattress the story is he would feel the calluses on their hands and tell them how hard they work he built up a trusting relationship and on that he built a bank many like AP Giannini believed in San Francisco's growth and prosperity in its destiny as the Paris of the Pacific there was even an ambitious plan to redesign the city and the image of Europe's other great capitals but San Francisco's turn-of-the-century optimism was in trouble in October of 1905 the national board of underwriters issued a critical report declaring that the city's water system would be inadequate when confronted by a major fire the board's findings would haunt the fire chief Dennis Sullivan that same year handsome jean Schmitz was reelected the city's mayor for a third term but his corrupt administration was in serious trouble the forces of reform were ready to begin a full-scale assault on what had become a growing public scandal the investigation however is interrupted its future as well as that of AP Giannini Dennis Sullivan and the city of San Francisco are now on a collision course which will link all of them forever catastrophe is about to intervene [Music] when into the fire returns San Francisco is destroyed by the great earthquake of 1906 kron4 mm into the fire brought to you by Compaq better answers and by Northern California Toyota dealers 20th annual Toyota thon see your Northern California Toyota dealer today [Music] we now return to Cairo and into the fire [Music] from all accounts we have it would seem that the night of April the 17th was one of the most glamorous nights in San Francisco's history [Music] it was a Tuesday evening and 2500 San Franciscans packed the Grand Opera House on Mission Street to watch the famous Italian tenor Enrico Caruso sing to great acclaim the role of Don Jose in the opera Carmen [Music] on that same spring night theater patrons could also see actor John Barrymore perform in The Dictator attend the Orpheum for the latest in vaudeville or the Columbia for babes in toyland after the shows there was dining and socializing in the city's great restaurants and hotels it was the week after Easter Sunday everybody had been out having a good time some people were still up early in the morning carousing about chief Dennis Sullivan was on duty that night he had been with the fire department for 26 years and had often battled with city officials over San Francisco's fire fighting deficiencies Sullivan believed the city was not ready to fight a disaster and 90% of its buildings were made of wood fire underwriters were terrified when they looked at San Francisco and hadn't been ever since the gold rush because it was so wooden so dry and the houses were so close together Robert Louis Stevenson described it as a wood yard of unusual extent it seemed like the whole city was fated to burn shortly after midnight on Wednesday the 18th Sullivan was with his men when they extinguished a three-alarm warehouse fire near Market Street he came in very late not wishing to disturb his wife he went into another bedroom as the early-morning hours passed patrolman walked there beats the produce market was busy with activity and the fun-loving crowd and the saloons of the Barbary Coast was ending its night of partying on this spring morning most of the city was still asleep but before the Sun would rise san Francisco's destiny would be changed forever many people say sodom and gomorrah this was sodom and gomorrah and by golly he had met its fate San Francisco met its fate on Wednesday April the 18th at 5:12 a.m. the San Andreas Fault tore apart so did the city the first shock lasted 45 violent seconds its impact was devastating a moment indelible forever known as the great San Francisco earthquake the entire city shook them and rattled for in relentlessly it was quite terrifying san Francisco's world went silent for some ten seconds then the quake became even more violent nature in all of its fury had overwhelmed the Paris of the Pacific and what everybody remember of course was this great war which you hear in great earthquakes there's a tremendous war that comes from everywhere and it's almost indescribable but it's part of the terror of the earthquake police officers who were on patrol saw the violence of the quake firsthand one of them was Jessie cook and he stood on the street cook described the city streets as moving like waves in the ocean and watched the earthquake basically coming to him and he talks about just hearing this is this this sudden sound beginning to get louder and louder louder than hearing church bells clang and masonry beginning to fall they said it was like a terrier dog shaking a rat City Hall appeared like a skeleton some 27 years of construction at a cost of seven million dollars destroyed in seconds the four-story Valencia hotel collapsed on itself the exact number of people killed unknown but estimates were as high as 80 the area with the most severe damage was south of market near 6th and Howard streets it was a densely populated working-class district - tenements built on landfill which liquefied as many as 500 people may have been killed if San Francisco had an epicenter this was it the buildings down there which were generally flimsy they just went to pizzas especially if they had been built on creeks of swamps they were thrown off of their foundations or they actually collapsed a pancake at Bush Street a wall from the 8-story California Hotel fell on the fire station where chief Dennis Sullivan and his wife slept she Sullivan hearing all of this rushed into the room to check on his wife fell through the hole in the floor and fell down on top of all of this debris Sullivan's wife was fortunate her injuries were minor the chief however suffered a punctured lung broken ribs and a fractured skull San Francisco had lost its fire chief Dennis Sullivan was dying immediately after the quake struck general Frederick Funston walked swiftly from his home on Washington Street to the top of Knob Hill by this time the Sun had come up a Medal of Honor winner during the war in the Philippines Funston was shocked by the devastation he ordered army troops from the Presidio to report to a city in trouble [Music] the magnitude of the quake as measured by today's Richter scale was around 8.3 the equivalent of some 20 million tons of tnt the mayor Eugene Schmitz was stunned by the quakes destruction and acted quickly to help his city schmitt issued these draconian orders his most famous one being to shoot to kill polluters were found downtown Schmitz also ordered a curfew from dusk till dawn and banned the sale of liquor San Francisco streets began filling with refugees observing with both fascination and horror a damaged and frightened City people gathered their belongings put them into chunks into baby carriages tabletops anything that had wheels in Union Square the st. Francis hotel remained standing with minor damage but hotel guests were afraid and began to congregate in the area near the Dewey monument they set up tables to feed people the hotel actually took food from the kitchens of the hotel and was serving refugees out in the park in Union Square opera singer and Rico Caruso who had captivated the city just a few short hours before was now overwhelmed by the disaster - a gathering crowd in Union Square Caruso vowed never to return to San Francisco he never did Arnold ginza a well-known San Francisco photographer was nearby when Caruso expressed his desire not to return kantha moved on it would take some of the quakes most memorable pictures he took the photographs with a camera that he borrowed from a friend who had a camera store it was a small Kodak camera very fast camera and he over the next few days because he was one of the many made homeless by the earthquake roamed the city and took pictures of everything walking through the same devastation which Arnold Ginther had so carefully photographed was seven year old Marion Cowan now 99 Cowan remembers to this day the severely damaged streets and buildings and workmen desperately trying to save the new Fairmont Hotel but it was in the ruins at Stockton and Powell streets where Marion Cowan experienced his most horrifying moment misery was in such shape they were at the entrance [Music] roxtor six or seven bingo it was dashing his head against the paper it was hard fire and a mother trapped with her young son terrified by the approaching danger though a chain reaction of hundreds of sharks had pounded the city throughout the day and night of April 18th the tragedy was not yet finished San Francisco was now on the verge of total catastrophe it was the week after Easter Sunday and the city was beginning to burn when into the fire returns the fight for San Francisco survival we now return to into the fire brought to you by Lexus who knew driving Alexis could be so exhilarating [Music] the city's fire department had 38 engine companies and 575 full-time firefighters they never had a chance [Music] what happened these fires went out of control and linked up one with the other and soon the whole of the town was one raging inferno clouds of black smoke covered the skies the city's life-support systems were in ruins gas mains snapped water pipes shattered fire hydrants useless Dennis Sullivan's greatest fears became reality when his men responded to the raging fires [Music] the sparkles building was the first building on Market Street to catch fire the fire is ad approached from the south was so hot that the windows smashed and all the flammable material on the inside of the Spreckels building caught on fire and the building went up like an enormous 19 story torch multiple disasters were happening all at once [Music] and when people up on Nob Hill were able to see the Palace Hotel starting to burn which was considered to be absolutely impregnable then they knew the city was probably doomed at that point Chinatown was destroyed so was the financial district [Music] the st. Francis hotel had survived the quake but not the inferno it was fire storms that were being created by the the amount of fire and these just swung around and built themselves up and and no matter where they basically set down people were incinerated the temperature of the fires was estimated at 2700 degrees Fahrenheit the Grand Opera House where Caruso had sung the night before was in ashes the Fairmont Hotel was still standing but completely gutted refugees carried what they could to safe havens like the Presidio and Golden Gate Park thousands were also trying to escape by ferry across the bay in the chaos there were instances of looting and arrests there were also killings this charred body was that of a looter caught trying to burglarize a jewelry store the looter was turned over to a soldier who shot him at the intersection of post and Grant streets the body was burned at battery street this man was shot dead by a National Guardsman for stealing chickens the body was later tossed into the bay in the early hours of Thursday the 19th fire swept through Knob Hill the great mansions of the city's rich were burning out of control everybody thought that the buildings on top of Knob Hill would be safe because they were so far apart and in fact all of them burnt down to the ground because these were all Victorian buildings wooden buildings in some areas of the city dynamite was used with the hope that it could stop the onslaught of the firestorm by creating fire brakes it failed [Music] by Friday Telegraph Hill was consumed by fire so was Russian Hill when night came the inferno had reached the city's world-famous waterfront but the Navy and the fire department were able to save it from complete destruction it was one of the few success stories of the quake and Fire then on Saturday evening almost four days after the first Chuck rain began to fall the drops echoing in the streets of a destroyed city like a requiem the miracle had come too late but San Francisco's hell was finally over the San Francisco fire was one of the greatest disasters in American history it took out the financial district the retail district the produce market South of Market the industrial zone there it took out North Beach it took out Russian and Hill Nob Hill before it was finally stopped at that in Savan oh it even took out part of the Mission District so within three days you have a major American city which simply vanishes off the face of the earth the battle to save San Francisco ended in failure some 500 city blocks were ravaged 2,800 acres 28,000 buildings destroyed there was little which escaped total annihilation San Francisco was covered in its own ashes it was a tremendous devastation 250,000 people who rendered homeless out of a population of 40,000 the initial death toll was listed at almost 500 more recent research has pushed that number to 3,000 among the dead was fire chief Dennis Sullivan unable to overcome his devastating injuries Sullivan died three days later [Music] in the smoke and debris of a city lying in ruins the question was not could San Francisco rebuild but rather could San Francisco save itself from extinction [Music] when into the fire return of San Francisco is torn apart by political scandal we now return to KR o n2 the fire a [Music] tragedy in every way the damage to the city of san francisco was estimated at 1 billion dollars it seemed inconceivable but the nation and the world responded to the catastrophe within three days America's federal government sent two million dollars in relief aid more would follow tent cities emerged forty thousand people were living in army canvas in Golden Gate Park thousands more were housed in the Presidio and Fort Mason or in makeshift shanties on the streets there were long lines for food and supplies at various relief points temporary graves for the dead were dug in Washington Square insurance companies were overwhelmed some made payoffs at discounted prices but others would not or could not respond to the 90,000 claims against them [Music] in North Beach the Bank of Italy was in ruins but nine days after the quake AP Giannini placed an ad notifying San Francisco that his bank would open for business I think ap journey is very important as a symbol and representing a group of people who who were very courageous in the aftermath of the of the earthquake and flood on the Washington Street Wharf Giannini set up a makeshift desk of two barrels and a board and began making loans from the $80,000 in gold and silver he was able to save on the day of the quake Giannini wanted to help people rebuild their lives and businesses the Bank of Italy did not have much capital in 1906 or was not a major force in this but I think that his spirit his his say yeah well I'm right here the coals are still hot the city's still smoking I'm out here lending money ap Giannini's gamble paid off North Beach would be the first San Francisco neighborhood to rebuild Giannini would be a banker for the rest of his life eventually creating the largest bank in the world the Bank of America but from the ashes of the quake Giannini was not alone in trying to renew San Francisco's once promising future [Music] in the ten days after the quake 220 marriage licenses were issued by May thousands of homes were able to use their gas stoves 23,000 street lamps were turned on retail stores like the city of Paris Bullock and Jones and the Emporium set up business on Van Ness Avenue [Music] forty days after the quake the little st. Francis was built near the Dewey monument in Union Square it was a replica of the original hotel in every way service food style and always for [Music] by autumn there were 40,000 construction workers doing business in the city I think there is a there's a sense that people want to get back we want to get back to normal they want to rebuild same way as quickly as possible but incredibly in the midst of San Francisco's reconstruction racism struck at the city's heart and soul creating an international incident on October 11th the San Francisco School Board issued a resolution barring Asian children from the city's public schools included were some 90 Japanese children who would now have to attend the oriental public school on Clay Street to segregate them and not allow them to go to school because of the reported danger to European American children from Asian children as though the Asian children were some sort of disease quarantine but racism against Asians in San Francisco was nothing new the Chinese had endured horrific treatment and even murder in the late 19th century when angry white mobs burned Chinatown businesses around this same time Japanese immigrants arrived in California because of their success they were viewed as economic rivals the new Yellow Peril but the Japanese also tried to assimilate into American society observing national holidays like July 4th learning English adapting western dress the women all arrived wearing Japanese kimono but as soon as they landed in San Francisco the first thing their husbands did was to take him to a Western clothing store to fit them out from head to toe with Western clothing when news of the school board segregation order reached Japan there was outrage the Japanese interpreted this as a major racial insult and the Japanese government lodged a facial protest with the US State Department and it became a major diplomatic incident between the two countries the consequences were potentially dangerous Japan had become a new world power after its military defeat of Russia in 1905 an angry President Roosevelt summoned mayor Schmitz and the school board to a meeting in Washington DC Roosevelt was quite explicit in reading the riot act to the San Franciscans and pointed out that they had to clean up their act a compromise was worked out the school board rescinded its segregation order and Japan agreed in the so-called gentlemen's agreement to restrict the immigration of Japanese labor into the United States but conflict between the two countries in America's Japanese citizens would continue the prejudices and willingness to discriminate against Asians to delay Japanese that existed in the 1900 will be a persistent future of San Francisco public culture throughout the 20th century up in the World War two [Music] then the month after the school board incident the investigation of City Hall corruption resumed San Francisco's very public scandal will now become one of the most dramatic and colorful episodes in its history on November the 15th boss Abe roof and mayor Eugene Schmitz were indicted for accepting bribes from the French restaurants the trials were held in one of the city's few standing buildings temple Charisse Israel it quickly became the scene of another kind of biblical encounter boss Abe roof made a deal for partial immunity rejected it then disappeared prosecutor Francis Heaney was shot in the head by a rejected juror in the courtroom the next day he knees assailant Morris Haas was found shot to death in the county jail a gun in his hand prosecutor Heaney would recover from his wound at the home of supervisor James L Gallagher a bomb exploded Gallagher was a witness against a broof Police Chief William biggie died under mysterious circumstances and was found floating in San Francisco Bay it was bigge who tracked down a broof and arrested him Fremont older was the crusading newspaper editor who initiated the public campaign against roof and Schmitz and secured federal help from President Teddy Roosevelt odor became an object of revenge his tion he's ostracized he's forced to withdraw from Bohemian Club he's kidnapped and taken on the train down to Los Angeles what he probably would have been killed and not been rescued in the nick of time the entire Board of Supervisors resigned so greedy they were called the paint eaters by a roof because as he said they would eat the paint off a house the supervisors also cooperated with the prosecution and none was indicted over the course of its life however the graft trials issued some 3,000 indictments which included many of San Francisco's leading citizens and businesses like home telephone and PG&E the first to be convicted was the mayor and some Jean Schmitz found guilty of extortion an appellate court later reversed the mayor's conviction Schmitz was never tried again by this time there was also growing sentiment that the trials were bad for business bad for the city's image it was giving San Francisco a national black eye the forces of reform would eventually be defeated as for Abe roof it was convicted of bribery and received a 14-year prison sentence roof was the only one who ever served time in jail a number of years later on Fremont older who had been his nemesis who had rounded him into prison he goes over to visit roof in his cell in San Quentin and comes out visibly shaken and declares that in fact roof had taken the fall for other men who should at least be in there with him and then older begins a campaign to get roofs sprung from San Quentin succeeds boss roof served almost five years in San Quentin prison and was later pardoned but so much more had been expected of him when he was 18 roof was the valedictorian of his class at UC Berkeley his senior thesis was called purity and politics as San Francisco's king of corruption he had once been worth over a million dollars when Abe roof died he died bankrupt went into the fire returns San Francisco pulls itself out of the ashes kron4 iya 2000 into the fire brought to you by compact better answers and by Northern California Toyota dealers 20th annual Toyota thana see your Northern California Toyota dealer today in the years since the great earthquake much of the city's debris had been removed the Fairmont Hotel opened on April 18th it's rebuilding had been guided by a determined young architect Julia Morgan she was able to get the Fairmont Hotel built so that was able to open one year to the day exactly after the 1906 earthquake and San Franciscans lined up for blocks to go in and see this new luxury hotel that had been rebuilt and it was said that many of them actually had tears come to their eyes it was such an emotional experience because once they saw this hotel built in ball its grandeur they knew that San Francisco was going to be able to rebuild itself back to its former beauty San Francisco now had a new mayor Edward ropes and Taylor described as a man of integrity Taylor was also a respected position at aquatic park the world-famous escape artist Harry Houdini performed his magic when he escaped from chains underwater in 57 seconds there was a flag raising at Pioneer Park and a new six-day comic strip called a mutt appeared in The Chronicle [Music] then on January 1st 1908 san francisco's chief engineer reported that a new building was completed every one hour and 45 minutes [Music] the sandwich is going to filled with optimism about the future there had to be San Franciscans had to convince themselves that their city was going to grow into the future surpass its previous glories and maintain its competitive edge when 1909 arrived the normal rhythms of everyday life in San Francisco were more evident the earthquake more distant Makoto Hagiwara who maintained the Japanese tea garden in Golden Gate Park introduced the fortune cookie the city's first gay bar the - had opened for business on Pacific Street in the Barbary Coast the San Francisco seals baseball team became champions of the Pacific Coast League and the city is rebuilding continued to make progress the value of new construction was now at 150 million dollars homes and businesses were among the 19,000 new buildings filling the streets trying desperately to become a better city San Francisco had also saved itself from extinction on October 19th the city held the Portola festival commemorating the 140th anniversary of the discovery of San Francisco Bay the festival was also used as a public relations gesture to celebrate the city's ongoing recovery from the great earthquake like the proverbial Phoenix a mythological bird which symbolized death and resurrection San Francisco had risen from its own ashes the first decade of this century was the most pivotal in San Francisco's history in which we would see San Francisco transform from a quaint Victorian bird into a modern American metropolis when New Year's Eve arrived in 1909 the city's population was 415,000 they had survived an apocalypse which saw most of the city's physical and political structures completely obliterated and then rebuilt it had been a wrenching transformation but a tumultuous decade had finally ended now it seemed everyone could move ahead with renewed optimism san Francisco's future was possible [Music] you you
Really interesting. Do you know where I could find the rest of the series?