1906 Earthquake facts

While investigating facts about 1906 Earthquake, I found out little known, but curios details like:

A fire hydrant in San Francisco that survived the 1906 earthquake and aided fire fighters in saving the Mission district was painted gold in memory of the event.

In response to the rioting and looting that followed the San Francisco 1906 earthquake, Mayor Eugene Schmitz authorized federal troops and local officers to "kill any and all persons found engaging in Looting or in the Commission of Any Other Crime"

In my opinion, it is useful to put together a list of the most interesting details from trusted sources that I've come across. Here are 26 of the best facts about 1906 Earthquake I managed to collect.

1. Comedian Gracie Allen kept her age a secret, even from husband George Burns. She joked that she was born in July 1906 and the birth certificate was destroyed in the San Francisco earthquake of April 1906 (Allen: "It was an awfully big earthquake"). The US census proves she was born in 1895.

2. People were skeptical of reinforced concrete until the 1906 San Francisco Earthquake, where the few concrete buildings survived the quake and fire remarkably. Now we produce about 7.5 billion cubic meters of concrete worldwide every year.

3. Some of the most powerful known earthquakes in the continental U.S. occurred in Missouri between December 1811 & February 1812. Multiple quakes occurred with a magnitude of 7.5 or greater shaking an area ten times larger than that affected by the magnitude 7.8 San Francisco earthquake of 1906

4. Last known survivor of 1906 San Francisco earthquake is still alive at age 109

5. In 1906 the San Andreas Fault caused a devastating earthquake that killed approximately 3000 people in San Francisco. More than 25,000 buildings were destroyed and a quarter million people lost their homes. Fires raged for four days. San Francisco began to rebuild immediately.

6. Nearly 25% of the seismic energy released between 1906 and 2005 can be attributed to a single earthquake, the largest in recorded history.

7. In 1906 the San Francisco earthquake, with a magnitude of 7.8, located near San Francisco, killed 3000 people.

8. The 1906 earthquake in San Francisco barely did any destruction, it was actually the fires resulting afterwords that did 90% of the damage

9. Levi's Arcuate design meaning is lost to history. The loss of company records in 1906, due to Los Angeles earthquake and fires, makes it impossible to know why the stitching was first used.

10. A statue of renowned Swiss-American biologist Louis Agassiz toppled from the roof of Stanford's zoology building during the 1906 California earthquake. Referring to this, a professor remarked "Agassiz was great in the abstract but not in the concrete."

What is true about 1906 earthquake?

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After firefighters were left without water pressure from pipe breaks in the 1906 San Francisco earthquake, they used dynamite to blow up dozens of buildings downtown to create a fire line

The safe from several San Francisco banks where so hot from the fires started by the 1906 earthquake, it took 7 to 10 days before they could be opened. - source

In 1906 San Francisco Earthquake brought about such a massive and uncontrollable fire that the local FD had to bring in the US Army, along with dynamite to create a fire break. - source

After the 1906 San Francisco earthquake Amadeo Giannini carted the money from his bank out of the disaster in a garbage wagon and then set up in the street lending out money on a handshake to those who intended to rebuild

Italian operatic tenor Enrico Caruso performed in San Francisco the night before the 1906 earthquake - he escaped the city and vowed never to return in SF; he toured America but remained true to his word and never set a foot again in this city until his death - source

A single earthquake was responsible for almost a quarter of the total earthquake energy released from 1906 - 2005.

Opera Superstar Enrico Caruso was performing in San Francisco when the great earthquake of April 1906 struck. As he evacuated his hotel room he was only able to save his autographed picture of President Theodore Roosevelt

Experts feel there's a 1 in 3 chance of a severe earthquake equal to the San Fran 1906 quake in Seattle in the next 50 years

The largest earthquake in US history was NOT in San Francisco in 1906. The largest was in New Madrid, Missouri in 1811.

The oriental look of San Francisco's Chinatown is fake, as they were rebuilt after the 1906 earthquake by American architects imagining how China looked

The New Madrid earthquakes of 1811-1812, that occurred near Memphis TN, rank as some of the largest in the United States. Two to three times as large as the 1964 Alaska earthquake and 10 times as large as the 1906 San Francisco quake.