Color Pics Of San Francisco After '06 Quake Found

March 10, 2011

[JoeProBono]

SAN FRANCISCO -- A museum volunteer has unearthed what the Smithsonian Institution believes to be the first - and perhaps only - color photographs of San Francisco after the 1906 earthquake and fire that nearly leveled the city.

The six never-published images were snapped by photography innovator Frederick Eugene Ives several months after the April 1906 "Great Quake," the San Francisco Chronicle reports. Most were taken from the roof of the hotel where Ives stayed during an October 1906 visit.

They were stowed amid other items donated by Ives' son, Herbert, and discovered in 2009 by National Museum of American History volunteer Anthony Brooks while he was cataloguing the collection.

[poobear]

Old color pictures and camera ping!

[JoeProBono]

[JoeProBono]

Sergei Mikhailovich Prokudin-Gorskii. A Zindan (prison). . ., ca. 1907-1915

[vanilla swirl]

very cool!

[BerryDingle]

Here is a video of 35mm movie (oldest known to exist) taken from on top of a street car in San Fran April 14, 1906...four days before the earthquake. The clock tower at the end of Market Street at the Embarcadero wharf is still there.

San Fran 1906 street scene

[JimRed]

Super! Traffic rules appear to have been nonexistent then!

[JimSEA]

Thanks! That is quite something. Reminds us that 1906 was not all that long ago.

[dfwgator]

Google Sergey Prokudin-Gorsky (mentioned above)

Those pictures were amazing.

[LibFreeOrDie]

Here’s a film made soon after the quake:

http://www.howtobearetronaut.com/2010/10/san-francisco-earthquake-fire/

The Retronaut site also has early color photos and films on other subjects.

[SunkenCiv]

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[BerryDingle]

Thanks. At 4:26 in the film, it’s the same street with the clock tower straight ahead.

[ApplegateRanch]

My Uncle would have been very interested in these photos. At six years of age, he and his parents went to San Francisco to search for his Uncle who was never found.

One of my mother's uncles also disappeared in the quake & fire. The family searched for years, before giving him up as burned &/or buried in the rubble.

Some 20-30 years later, his wife and sister ran into him on the streets of a town on the Mendocino coast.

He had used the quake, in which he wasn't hurt, to bug out with his secret mistress! They were living married under an assumed name.

I understand it was NOT a happy reunion!

[Bellflower]

Here is a video of 35mm movie (oldest known to exist) taken from on top of a street car in San Fran April 14, 1906...four days before the earthquake.

And they all look so relaxed and sure of life. Little did they know.

[TheOldLady]

Wow. That’s cool; they’re not only in color, but also in 3D!

I only had to stare at them for a few seconds, and the two pictures split into three, and the center one is 3D.

Where did you find them? Thanks for showing them to us.

PS: JPB, it’s great to have you back. Gave me a scare there for a minute.

[afraidfortherepublic]

That movie is really cool. My maternal grandmother moved to San Francisco from Pennsylvania as a girl of 18 to live with one of her sisters in order to become a nurse. They wound up in Oakland because of the great quake, and she became a milliner instead. There was a glimpse of a lady crossing the street (to catch one of those streetcars) wearing an elaborate hat. Grandma used to make hats like those until the young gentleman who courted her whisked her away on a New Year’s Eve elopement, and they married and honeymooned at the Cliff House in San Francisco several years after the quake.

All those men running around in the street remind me of my grandfather. He wore those same clothes until he died in the mid 1960s. Never gave up the highbuttoned shoes and stiff collars. And he always wanted 2 pockets on the front of his shirts. My aunt used to buy separate pockets at the notions counter in a department store and sew them on his shirts to get him double pocket shirts. He insisted on that. I never saw him in “casual” clothes — always suit, tie, hat, & overcoat in the winter.

He was a real estate broker and invester who bought and sold property throughout the Central Valley of CA and in Oakland and San Francisco until the day he died.

[afraidfortherepublic]

Of course, everyone should remember that the bulk of the damage done in the SF earthquake and fire was done by the fire. Most of those were set by the Army (I think) as backfires to try to exstinguish the one fire started by the quake.

[colorado tanker]

Fascinating story. Thanks!

[JerseyHighlander]

Timely post,
Was looking for the USGS real time GoogleEarth feed and found this on same page today:
A Virtual Tour of the 1906 Earthquake in Google Earth
http://earthquake.usgs.gov/regional/nca/virtualtour/

[JoeProBono]