20th Century

—   ~50  Helena Semi-Weekly Independent, MT. “Captain Lermond Blamed.” 1-8-1907, p. 13.[1]

—   >50  Philadelphia Inquirer, PA. “Says Mate Was Cause of Wreck.” 12-2-1906, p. 14.

—     50  Fairbanks Evening News, AK. “More of Dix Horror.” 11-25-1906, p. 1. [Nov 22 report]

—     50  Morning Oregonian, Portland. “Mate Was Not Competent.” 11-23-1906, p. 6.[2]

—     49  Oregon Sunday Journal, Portland. “Will Sink Like Gas Pipes.” 11-25-1906, p. 1.

—     47  Daily Californian, Bakersfield. “Death List Increasing. Five More Victims.” 11-20-1906.

—     46  World Today. “The Calendar of the Month. United States.” V12, N1, Jan 1907, p. 109.

–42-45  Blanchard estimated range.[3]

—     45  Berman, Bruce D. Encyclopedia of American Shipwrecks. 1972, p. 208.

–39-45  Gibbs. Shipwrecks of the Pacific Coast. 1957, p. 90.[4]

—     44  Blanchard tally of named dead or missing (or nationality) listed in newspapers.

—     42  Anaconda Standard, MT.  “General Chronology of Events…Year,” 12-30-1906, p. 34.

—     42  Harrell. “Ceremony to Mark Worst Maritime Disaster in Puget Sound History.” 2006.

—     42  U.S. Steamboat Inspection Service. Annual Report 1907, pp. 13 and 321.

—     41  Morning Oregonian, Portland. “Master Below Taking the Fares.” 11-19-1906, p. 5.

—     41  Captain Lermond statement to press Nov 19 (79 on board, 38 saved).[5]

—     40  U.S. Dept. of Commerce and Labor. Reports of the Department…1907.  1907, p. 373.[6]

—     39  Morning Oregonian, Portland. “Dix Sunk in Collision on Sound.” 11-19-1906, p. 1.

 

Narrative Information

 

Harrell: “It was not a dark and stormy night on Nov. 18, 1906. The moon had risen. There were no whitecaps and no wind as the Dix steamed from a Seattle dock to Port Blakeley on Bainbridge Island….

 

“The Dix was piloted by a confused and unlicensed ship’s mate who steered the Mosquito Fleet steamer into the much larger steamship Jeanie.[7] The Dix rolled like a log, split in two and sank, all within five minutes. Forty-two people died. ‘They didn’t have a chance,’ local maritime historian John Kelly said of the collision, which occurred two miles west of Alki. ‘It was a major catastrophe. There hasn’t been anything like it since.’

 

“The Dix remains 600 feet underwater in Puget Sound. While 35 people were rescued by the Jeanie, victims’ bodies never were recovered from the chilly waters, nor were pieces of the vessel….

 

“”The Dix tragedy was a shocking thing to happen; it came at a time when the Mosquito Fleet was the only way to travel because of the dense forests in the area, and 2 million people a year took these steamers,” said Andrea Mercado, director of the Log House Museum, home of the Southwest Historical Society. “Steamers were so safe and reliable, they went everywhere in Puget Sound, yet out of the blue this very tragic, very quick event occurred. It impacted small communities, and all of Seattle.”

 

“The Dix, smaller but fast and, according to newspaper articles, “more commodious,” was built in 1904 and replaced the Sarah M. Renton on the Seattle-Port Blakely run.

 

“The reason for the collision, Kelly said, is that “the captain was in the process of collecting fares.” It was common and often required of steamship captains to perform this service…

 

“Although ultimate blame fell on First Officer Charles Dennison, who was not licensed to pilot inland waters, Dix Capt. Percy Lermond also was faulted for failing to provide a lookout. Lermond’s license was revoked and later reinstated, and he continued to work as a ship’s master, though only on cargo ships…”  (Harrell 2006)

 

US Dept. of Commerce: “November 18. — The steamers Dix and Jeanie, 130 tons and 1,071 tons, gross, respectively, were in collision just outside of Seattle Harbor, resulting in the sinking of the Dix and the loss of 40 lives. Dix valued at $20,000. Investigated November 21, 22, 23, 24 , 26, 27 , 30, and December 3. Decision December 15, revoking the license of Percy Lermond, master and pilot, in command of the steamer Dix, for negligence.”  (U.S. Dept. of Commerce and Labor. Annual Report of the Secretary of Commerce and Labor. “Report of the Steamboat-Inspection Service.” p. 373.)

 

US SIS: “The collision between the steamers Dix and Jeanie on Puget Sound, on the night of November 18, 1906, when 42 of the 76 persons on board the Dix[8] lost their lives when that steamer sank…” (U.S. Steamboat Inspection Service.  Annual Report 1907, p. 13.)

 

Newspapers

 

Nov 18: “Seattle, Wash., Nov. 18.–(Special)–The steamer Dix was run down and sunk off Alki Point tonight by the Steamer Jeanie, and 41 persons, including all but two members of the Dix crew, were lost. Tug Bahiti is cruising over the scene of the wreck, searching for bodies. The Jeanie and the steamer Florence K. are also out.

 

“The steamer Dix, bound from Seattle to Fort Blakely, attempted to cut across the bows of the steamer Jeanie, bound for Tacoma, when the steamers were off Alki Point. The steamer Dix does not carry a purser, and Captain Percy Lermond placed Mate Charles Dennison in charge and was going through the boat collecting fares. The Survivors of the wreck say the night was clear and that they could see the Jeanie bearing down on their starboard side, but the mate gave no indication that he saw the danger.

 

“The Jeanie drew so close to the Dix that Captain Mason made himself heard to man on the upper deck of the Dix as he called the warning: ‘Where in hell are you going?’

 

Dix Staggered by Blow.

 

“Mate Dennison might possibly have saved his vessel then if he had turned off but he attempted to clear the Jeanie. A moment later the crash came that knocked passengers to the floor and staggered both steamers. Panic-stricken passengers on the Dix rushed to the port side and she turned partially over, then righted herself and came up. Then the Dix slowly began to fill through the gaping hole in her starboard side and slowly went down aft.

 

“The nose of the Dix stuck clear out of the water and held there for five minutes. Passengers on the Dix fought like mad men and women to reach the decks and plunge overboard. From the cabin men smashed window lights and dragged themselves out into thee water. Those on the decks jumped, panic-stricken, into the Sound, while those on the lower decks and the men on the engine-room were caught like rats in a trap and were unable to help themselves.

 

Captain Leaps Overboard.

 

“Captain Lemond, busied in counting his cash, was seated in an upper cabin, and he leaped overboard. A deckhand followed from the Dix. Both were saved later, but all the other members of the steamer’s crew were lost.

 

“Only one girl, of a half dozen or more women aboard, was saved. She is 15-year-old Alice Simpson, of Port Blakeley, who was picked up by a lifeboat sent out from the Jeanie.

 

Numbed by Icy Water.

 

“As soon as the Jeanie had struck the steamer Dix, Captain Mason stopped his vessel and lowered two lifeboats. They picked up about 35 men struggling in the water. For three hours the Jeanie cruised about the spot, using her searchlight to aid in the life-saving work. The tide was running out and the men and women struggling in the water were rapidly carried out toward the open sea. The water of the Sound is bitter cold and the people in the water slowly gave way to numbness and sank before help could reach them.

 

“A few pieces of wreckage and some lifebelts from the Dix, as well as life-belts thrown overboard from the Jeanie, floated near the people in the water, but only a few of the Dix passengers could reach them.

 

“That the Dix was solely responsible for the accident is the story told by the survivors and the officers of the steamer Jeanie. Captain Mason insists that the Dix persisted in trying to cross his bows and this is not disputed by Captain Lermond. He was not at the wheel when the collision occurred, and is not in a position to explain the wreck.

 

“Passengers on deck say that for ten minutes the lights of the Jeanie could be seen and that the night was clear enough to have enabled Mate Dennison to have seen his danger clearly. That he paid no attention to the Jeanie is insisted on from both steamers. All versions of the wreck coincide in the statement that no signals were given.

 

Tide Carries Bodies to Sea.

 

“With the rapid flow of the tide out to sea the search for bodies will be an exceedingly difficult one. There is a fog hanging over parts of the Sound and the bay is full of debris that has floated down from the flooded rivers of Western Washington. Navigation is precarious and with the rapid flow of the tide many bodies will probably be washed away before they can be recovered.

 

“Early this morning the tug Tyee joined the search for missing bodies and the fleet of vessels now out will cruise down the Sound as far as Whidbey Island and look for the lost. It is not within reason to expect that any more persons will be saved. Though the collision between the Dix and the Jeanie occurred at 7:20 o’clock it was not reported in Seattle for nearly three and a half hours.

 

“The Jeanie remained at the scent to search for survivors and stayed about the wreck as long as it was reasonably certain that any one lived in the water. Then she put in to Seattle to announce the catastrophe.

Little Time Given to Escape.

 

“Passengers on the Dix agree that not more than five minutes elapsed between the time she was struck and her sinking. In the meantime the boat had turned over on her port side and then righted herself before gong down aft. The sinking was so sudden that scarcely any time was given the passengers and crew to save themselves.

 

“The suddenness of the sinking is shown by the fact that no one escaped from the engine-room and not even Mate Dennison, in the pilot-house, had time to get out and jump into the water. Most of the passengers on the deck were saved, for they leaped overboard immediately. Those in the upper cabin had a fair chance for safety, but those below were penned in and drowned before they could make a move toward safety.

 

“Captain Lermond’s collections from the passengers showed 70 travelers, in addition to the six members of the crew, were aboard the boat. Thirty-six persons were saved. The list of saved and missing collected tonight fails to account for six persons. It is probable among these are the parents of Dan McEachren, but no one else has reported their loss.

 

“A brother of William Jones, one of the most prominent stevedores on the Sound, was said to have been aboard the boat, but this cannot be confirmed.

 

List of the Survivors [we omit]

 

“….James Smith, who was drowned, was the stepfather of Leonard Masters. Young Masters mother was also among the lost. Two years ago Masters’ father was drowned off a ship lying at the coal bunkers in Seattle, and his body was not recovered for seven weeks. Mrs. Masters afterward married Smith and tonight was drowned with her second husband and son….” (Morning Oregonian, Portland. “Master Below Taking the Fares.” 11-19-1906, p. 5.)

 

Nov 19, Account of Captain Mason of the Jeanie:

 

“I got away from Smith’s Cove a little before 7 o’clock, and laid a course for Tacoma. I had no passengers aboard. I saw the Dix headed for Port Blakeley and signaled to her. The mate was at the wheel. Suddenly the Dix came up astern of me to port. As soon as I saw the Dix was so close I called to the man in her pilot-house to know what he was doing. He put his wheel over to starboard and she started directly across my bows. I signaled to the engine-room of my vessel to back at full speed, but we could not get out of the way in time. The Jeanie was backing a little when we struck. I guess it was pretty well abaft of amidships, and the shock wasn’t enough to have injured an ordinary launce. The Dix listed heavily to starboard, righted herself, and then sank, stern first.”

 

Account of Captain Lermond of the Dix:

 

I don’t know how it happened. Charles Dennison, mate of the boat, was at the wheel. We were just about two miles due north of Alki Point, and running at the usual speed. There was nothing to hinder us. It was a fine, clear night and the water was like a mill-pond. I had seen the lights of a steamer on our starboard quarter some time before, but had not paid any attention to them. I went below to collect the fares. The boat was crowded. There were 70 passengers on board, and it was quite a task to get all the fares. I have been on the run for the past 13 years, and knew almost everybody aboard.

 

When I was in the ladies’ cabin, I heard the bell signal to stop. In a moment I thought that something must be wrong and rushed forward to see what was up. Just as I got on deck, on the starboard side, I saw the bow of a vessel loom up. Almost instantly she struck us. The jib boom crashed through just aft of amidships and heeled the Dix over like a top. She careened like a flash on her port bow and lay there for a minute or two with the water rushing in and all over.

 

I was thrown against the deckhouse. For an instant the wind was knocked out of me and I was almost paralyzed. The steamer lay for almost two minutes on her port beam. This was exactly at 7:24 o’clock, as my watch stopped then. In a moment I recovered by breath and sprang up on the house.

 

Just then the steamer heeled back to starboard. There was another rush of water, cries and screams of men, women and children. From below came sounds such as human ears have seldom heard. Many of the passengers were penned below and could not possibly escape. Then the steamer turned her bow up. She filled and her stern went slowly down, until the bow was standing straight half out of water.

 

For an instant I clung to the railing. The sight fascinated me by its horror. Lights were still burning and I could see people inside of the cabin. The expressions on the faces were of indescribable despair.

 

People on deck slid off into the water and went down shrieking and desperately clutching at the water or at the Jeanie, which still loomed only a few yards away. Within the sinking steamer pandemonium reigned. There were cries, prayers and groans from men and women, and the wail of a child and the shouts of those who were fighting desperately to gain the deck….

 

I leaped into the water, and managed to keep myself afloat. Others from the sunken steamer were floating near me. Every once in a while one who had been swimming until his strength gave out, would throw up his hands and, with a last despairing cry, sink. This happened time after time.

 

All around were floating heads which called for help and watched the Jeanie as she slowly came towards us and dropped boats, which moved here and there, picking up men in every direction. Finally a boat came to me. By that time I was indifferent and didn’t care whether I was saved or not. It must have been at least 25 minutes from the time the Jeanie struck us that the boats were got out, and I guess I was in the water another ten minutes. We were taken on board.

 

There were 38 of our 79 people on the steamship. The rest were drowned. There was no sign of my little steamer. She was gone completely, and before we left there was not even a ripple on the surface to mark the spot where the terrible tragedy had occurred.

 

I don’t think the vessel was very badly damaged by the collision. It was the heeling over on her port beam that caused her loss. She filled with water as soon as she went ovr, and this took her down.

 

“As to the cause of the accident, I cannot say. I was not on deck and don’t know how it happened. I heard my mate signal either one or two whistles. I am not sure which. I also heard him ring a stop bell.

 

I cannot understand myself how it could have happened. The night was almost as clear as day, and the sea was smooth. This is the first accident that has happened on any ship of mine during the 13 years I have been running on the Sound.

 

“Captain Lermond is a well-know navigator and has the reputation of being one of the ablest Sound pilots leaving Seattle. He is a man of about 45 and has been at sea since a boy. The Dix sank in 100 fathoms of water….” (Morning Oregonian, Portland. “Dix Sunk in Collision on Sound.” 11-19-1906, p. 1.)

 

Nov 20: “Seattle, Wash., Nov. 20. – The death list of the wrecked steamship Dix is creeping gradually up…making a total of 47 known dead as a result of the disaster. The body of Albert McDonald, one of the victims floated ashore at Al-Ki Point yesterday and was taken to Port Blakeley.  Parties are still searching along the shores in the vicinity of where the Dix went down.

 

“Local United States marine inspectors will commence an investigation of the wreck tomorrow.  Captain Mason of the Jeanie, which collided with the Dix, will be the first witness.  To the list of missing compiled yesterday, the following have been added:

 

Jos. Bucher, ship caulker, Seattle;

George Burns, longshoreman, Port Blakeley;

Frank Gordon, mill hand, Port Blakeley;

Rogers, blacksmith, Port Blakeley;

1. W. Guel, caulker.

 

“Several others reported missing last night were found today alive and uninjured.”  (Daily Californian, Bakersfield.  “Death List Increasing. Five More Victims.” 11-20-1906, 1.)

 

Nov 21: “ Seattle, Wash., Nov 21.–A rigid investigation of the wreck of the steamer Dix through collision with the steamer Jeanie in Seattle harbor Sunday night was begun this morning by United States Inspectors Bion B. Whitney and Robert Turner. The community is appalled at the heavy loss of life and is almost in the mood to urge drastic action by the inspectors, which will prohibit captains of Sound boats from leaving the wheel during the voyages for the collection of fares.

 

“Captain Mason of the Jeanie was the first witness called and was on the stand the major portion of the day. He declared all the Jeanie’s lights were on. He saw the Dix coming. He hailed the Dix, but got no reply. When he saw the Dix heading for the Jeanie’s bows he called out to find what it was doing. Getting no reply he gave three sharp whistle blasts, indicating that he was going to reverse the Jeanie’s engines. No return signal came.

 

“The Dix struck the Jeanie a glancing blow and keeled over. The Jeanie did not strike the Dix, as she was backing at the time.

 

“The rule for inland navigation, article 1930, statute at large 101, says:

 

When two steam vessels are crossing so as to involve the risk of collision, the vessel which has the other on her own starboard side shall keep out of the way of the other.

 

“The Dix had the Jeanie on her own starboard side. This new point caused a sensation, and marine men unite in saying it clears the Jeanie’s master beyond doubt.

 

“Captain Mason said: ‘I had two quarter-boats in the water within four minutes of the time of the collision and several minutes before the Dix went down.’

 

“Captain Lermond will probably be the next witness and may be called late this afternoon.” (Oregon Daily Journal, Portland. “What Made Dix Go Down?” 11-21-1906, p. 2.)

 

Nov 22: “Seattle, Wash., Nov. 22.–A charge of manslaughter may grow out of the Dix disaster. Investigation of the records in the office of the United States Steamboat Inspectors has developed the fact that Charles Dennison, who was at the wheel of the Dix at the time of the collision, and who lost his life with 49 others, had a license simply to act as mate, not as pilot. Dennison had been under the command of Captain Lermond for more than two months. In his testimony yesterday before the inspectors Lermond declared that he did not think Dennison was capable of taking care of the vessel, and that he tried to discharge him, but that the owners came to the mate’s rescue and would not let him go.

 

“Secretary Metcalfe sent word this morning that the local civil authorities would handle the prosecution of the guilty persons and not the Federal Court. A deputy from the Prosecuting Attorney’s office will be present at the hearing, and if the evidence justifies issuance of a warrant, Prosecuting Attorney Mackintosh declares he will issue it. Gross ignorance of marine laws was displayed by Captain Lermond on the stand yesterday, and should a charge of manslaughter be placed against him, action will also be taken against the owners of the ill-fated craft for forcing Lermond to retain Mate Dennison.

 

“The boat was under lease by the Port Blakeley Mill Company, in which many wealthy men are stockholders.

 

“At the investigation of the Dix disaster this morning it developed that there was but one engineer on board the steamship Jeanie the night of the collision. Chief Engineer Grant remained ashore, leaving Engineer Jackson in charge. He did not notify Captain Mason, however. The second assistant engineer had resigned just before the vessel sailed, and Captain Mason was not aware there was but one engineer below until the morning after the wreck.

 

“The owners of the Dix have libeled the Jeanie for $35,000 as the result of the accident.

 

“Captain William Todd, master of the schooner Invincible, was called by the Marine Inspectors to give evidence in the investigation into the sinking of the Dix last Sunday evening. The substance of his testimony was that a collision could have been avoided if both vessels had kept on their course. He sighted the Jeanie five minutes before the collision. He escaped by climbing up the bobstays of the steamer and later threw a line to little Leonard Masters and drew him on board.

 

“The evidence of the afternoon session tended to show that there was a laxity in the handling of the Dix and it also involves other Puget Sound boats. Tomorrow the captains of three other Sound steamers are to be called. Captain Mason alleges that two steamers passed him while he was signaling for assistance, but paid no attention to the calls.” (Morning Oregonian, Portland. “Mate Was Not Competent.” 11-23-1906, p. 6.)

 

Nov 22: “Seattle, Nov. 22. – a charge of manslaughter may grow out of the wreck of the Dix.  It has developed that Mate Dennison was not a licensed pilot and it was a violation of law to leave a man in charge of a vessel not holding such a license.  Prosecuting Attorney McIntosh has commenced an investigation and warrants for the arrests of persons responsible for the disaster may be issued.” (Daily Californian, Bakersfield. “Manslaughter May Be Charged…Dix Disaster.” 11-22-1906.)

 

Nov 23: “Seattle, Nov. 23…At today’s session of the inquiry into the Dix disaster, the testimony showed that…the Dix had no ‘lookout’ on duty at the time of the accident….” (Fairbanks Evening News, AK. “More of Dix Horror.” 11-25-1906, p. 1.)

 

Nov 24: “Seattle, Nov 24.–(Delayed in transmission)–Today’s investigation of the Dix accident revealed the fact that the masters of steamers plying on Puget Sound often leave the mate of their vessel in command of them.

 

“It was stated today at the investigation that while the Jeanie was whistling for help three Sound steamers passed by her, and paid no attention, although the whistle could be heard plainly on Alki point.”[9] (Fairbanks Evening News, AK. “More of Dix Horror.” 11-25-1906, p. 1.)

 

Nov 25: “That every one of the numerous small passenger steamers plying on Puget sound, with one exception, is liable to the same fate as the Dix and with the same awful loss of life in case of accident is the opinion of Fred A. Ballin, the marine architect who is drawing the plans for the boat that is to take the place of the Dix. ‘I have heard of only one of the mosquito fleet that is bulkheaded,’ said Mr. Ballin last evening. ‘The Dix was unusually cranky, to be sure, but the other steamers would have sunk just about as rapidly, as only one has bulkheads to keep the water from rushing in and filling the entire hull….The law is to blame. It requires that every seagoing vessel carrying passengers shall have at least three water-tight bulkheads. But this regulation does not apply to steamers on sounds and rivers. Yes, there should be such a regulation applying to the river steamers here, too. The Puget sound steamers run over 600 and 1,000 feet of water, and it is the same as the ocean as far as danger of sinking is concerned. They certainly should be required to have bulkheads.’

 

“The Port Blakely Mill company, lessee of the Dix, was aware of the unsuitability of the Dix, and asked Mr. Ballin to visit the corporation officers for a consultation on plans for a boat to take her place. He was delayed by the flood on the Northern Pacific line and reached Seattle Sunday night just half an hour after the Dix had pulled out on her last trip. In the collision with the Jeanie that night 49 passengers were lost. Had Mr. Ballin’s train been on time he would almost certainly have been on board when the accident occurred.

 

“It is possible that the board of supervising inspectors, which meets in Washington, D.C., next month, will make a change in the regulations as to bulkheads for passenger steamers. The fate of the Dix, which filled and sank almost in the twinkling of an eye, will be held up as an example of the need of revision. ‘They are all liable to fill and go down like gas pipes,’ said Mr. Ballin of the Puget sound steamers.

 

“As soon as Ballin had consulted with the managers of the Port Blakely Mill company he was commissioned to draw plans and specifications for a steamer to take the Dix’s place. He is now engaged in his Portland office in doing this work. The new boat will be 130 feet long as compared with the 100 feet of the Dix and will be 22½ feet beam instead of 16. Triple expansion engines are expected to generate 700 horsepower.

 

“The Dix was so cranky that she had to carry 15 tons of lead ballast. The inspectors refused her a license until this ballast was put in. [apparently top heavy]. Her passenger limit was comparatively low. The new boat will have a passenger capacity of 250 against the Dix’s 150, and can also carry 25 to 40 tons of freight.” (Oregon Sunday Journal, Portland. “Will Sink Like Gas Pipes.” 11-25-1906, p. 1.)

 

Nov 26: “Seattle, Nov. 26.–The investigation of the steamer Dix disaster is nearing the end….It developed today that the compass was located on the port side of the pilot house on the Dix. It is the custom to have the needle on the starboard side. The theory is advanced that if Mate Dennison was watching the compass he could not observe the Jeanie approaching on the other side until too late to avoid the collision.” (Morning Astorian, OR. “Investigating Disaster.” 11-27-1906, p. 8.)

 

Nov 26: “Seattle, Nov. 26.–The testimony of Second Mate Gustafson of the steamer Jeanie directly contradicts that of his captain. He stated that no whistles were blown by either boat and also that the Dix swung to port and not to starboard, thus placing the large part of the blame for the disaster on his own ship. The testimony came as a surprise. Gustafson was on the bridge with Captain Mason. The logbook of the Jeanie was introduced in evidence. The inspectors found several erasures in the time of leaving Smith’s cove and the time the accident happened. It will be investigated further. Tomorrow the captains of the two Sound boats will be asked to explain why they did not answer the signals of distress of the Jeanie. The investigation will probably end tomorrow.” (Morning Astorian, OR. “Jeanie Investigation. Contradictory Statements…” 11-27-1906, p. 8.)

 

Dec 1: “Seattle, Dec. 1.–That Mate Dennison of the wrecked steamship Dix was wholly to blame for the loss of the vessel which caused the death of more than fifty men and women is evident from the testimony taken before the United States marine inspectors this morning.

 

“Captain Lermond, master of the Dix, who was among those saved by the steamer Jeanie, testified that he had warned Dennison never to attempt to cross in front of another vessel, but to pass the steamer’s stern.

 

“Both Captains Mason and Lermond were before the inspectors and told of the wreck. Captain Mason, of the Jeanie, told of the efforts he made to avoid a collision.

 

“Lermond testified that he was acting as captain and purser of rthe Dix and was in his room counting the fares when he heard the mate signal for the boat to slow down. When he went on deck the Dix was under the bow of the Jeanie and in a moment he was in the water. He said he called to the mate of his vessel and asked him what he was trying to do. He received no response.

 

“Captain Mason told how he had been overtaken by the Dix and that when he saw there was to be a collision he reversed his engines, but the Dix struck him a glancing blow and went down stern first.” (Philadelphia Inquirer, PA. “Says Mate Was Cause of Wreck.” 12-2-1906, p. 14.)

 

Dec 17: “Seattle, Wash., Dec. 17.–The United States inspectors who investigated the recent sinking of the steamer Dix, in which many lives were lost, have finished their report. It exonerates Capt. P. H. Mason, master of the steamer Jeanie, which sank the Dix, and revokes the license of Capt. Percy A. Lermond, master of the Dix. In was held that the sinking of the Dix was due entirely to the negligence on the part of those handling her. The practice of steamship companies in compelling their captains to act as pursers, thus taking them away from their duties was severely censured.” (Logansport Daily Reporter, IN. “Captain of Dix Blamed.” 12-17-1906, p. 2.)

 

Names of Identified Dead or Missing

 

1. Belair. Mill worker.                Port Blakely, WA       Morning Oregonian. 11-19-1906, p1.
2. Bouler [unclear], Fred            Port Blakely, WA       Morning Oregonian. 11-19-1906, p1.
3. Boyler, C. Store manager       Port Blakely, WA       Morning Oregonian. 11-19-1906, p1.
4. Boyler, W. Brother of C.        Port Blakely                Morning Oregonian. 11-19-1906, p1.
5. Bracefield, William. Longshoreman. Port Blakely    Morning Oregonian. 11-19-1906, p1.
6. Bucher, Jos. Ship Caulker      Seattle                         Daily Californian, 11-20-1906, p. 1.
7. Burns, George. Longshoreman. Port Blakely             Daily Californian, 11-20-1906, p. 1.
8. Buzzattle [unclear], Peter. Barber, Port Blakely        Morning Oregonian. 11-19-1906, p1.
9. Clark, Ralph. Store clerk,       Port Blakely                Morning Oregonian. 11-19-1906, p1.
10. Dennison, Charles.                 Dix Mate                     Morning Oregonian. 11-19-1906, p1.
11. Ford, Mrs. T. C.                      Port Blakely                Morning Oregonian. 11-19-1906, p1.
12. Garcia, Bazzintia.                   Lately from Manila    Morning Oregonian. 11-19-1906, p1.
13. Gordon, Frank. Mill hand.      Port Blakely                Daily Californian, 11-20-1906, p. 1.
14. Granger, Mrs.                         Port Blakely                Morning Oregonian. 11-19-1906, p1.
15. Guel, J. W. Mill caulker.                                            Daily Californian, 11-20-1906, p. 1.
16. Hansen, Martin. Mill caulker. Port Blakely                Morning Oregonian. 11-19-1906, p1.
17. Keating, John, St. Paul, formerly of Port Blakely      Morning Oregonian. 11-19-1906, p1.
18. Kenney, C.J., Army hosp. steward, Fort Ward          Morning Oregonian. 11-19-1906, p1.
19. Larsen, Peter. Oiler.               Port Blakely                Morning Oregonian. 11-19-1906, p1.
20. Meyers, William. Mill caulker. Port Blakeley           Morning Oregonian. 11-19-1906, p1.
21. McDonald, Albert. Lumber surveyor. Port Blakely   Morning Oregonian. 11-19-1906, p1.
22. McDury, Albert. Lumber surveyor, Port Blakely      Morning Oregonian. 11-19-1906, p1.
23. McQuerie, Frank. Ship officer. Port Blakely             Morning Oregonian. 11-19-1906, p1.
24. Nelson, Mr. August.               Port Blakely.               Morning Oregonian. 11-19-1906, p1.
25. Nelson, Mrs. August.              Port Blakely.               Morning Oregonian. 11-19-1906, p1.
26. Parker,____                             Steamer Dix engineer. Morning Oregonian. 11-19-1906, p1.
27. Pigati,____. Mill filer.            Port Blakely                Morning Oregonian. 11-19-1906, p1.
28. Price, Roland. Postmaster’s son. Port Blakely           Morning Oregonian. 11-19-1906, p1.
29. Rogers,____. Blacksmith.      Port Blakely                Daily Californian, 11-20-1906, p. 1.
30. Roland,____                           Dix crewman              Morning Oregonian. 11-19-1906, p1.
31. Smith, James.                          Port Blakely                Morning Oregonian. 11-19-1906, p1.
32. Smith, Mrs. James.                 Port Blakely                Morning Oregonian. 11-19-1906, p1.
33. Smith, son of James.               Port Blakely                Morning Oregonian. 11-19-1906, p1.
34. Swanson, Sven. Mill worker. Port Blakely                Morning Oregonian. 11-19-1906, p1.
35. Wenater [unclear], A. Lumber surveyor, Port Blakely. Morning Oregonian. 11-19-1906.
36. Unknown Steamer Dix deckhand.                              Morning Oregonian. 11-19-1906, p1.
37. Unknown “Chinaman” bound for Blakely for work. Morning Oregonian. 11-19-1906, 1.
38. Unknown “Chinaman” bound for Blakely for work. Morning Oregonian. 11-19-1906, 1.
39. Unknown “Chinaman” bound for Blakely for work. Morning Oregonian. 11-19-1906, 1.
40. Unknown Japanese going to work at Port Blakely    Morning Oregonian. 11-19-1906, 1.
41. Unknown Japanese going to work at Port Blakely    Morning Oregonian. 11-19-1906, 1.
42. Unknown Japanese going to work at Port Blakely    Morning Oregonian. 11-19-1906, 1.
43. Unknown Japanese going to work at Port Blakely    Morning Oregonian. 11-19-1906, 1.
44. Unknown Japanese going to work at Port Blakely    Morning Oregonian. 11-19-1906, 1.

 

Sources

 

Anaconda Standard, MT. “General Chronology of Events During This Year,” 12-30-1906, p. 34. Accessed at: http://www.newspaperarchive.com/FullPagePdfViewer.aspx?img=54805955

 

Berman, Bruce D. Encyclopedia of American Shipwrecks. Boston: Mariners Press Inc., 1972.

 

Daily Californian, Bakersfield. “Death List Increasing. Five More Victims.” 11-20-1906, p. 1.  Accessed at: http://www.newspaperarchive.com/FullPagePdfViewer.aspx?img=156500945

 

Fairbanks Evening News, AK. “More of Dix Horror.” 11-25-1906, p. 1. Accessed 7-6-2019 at: https://newspaperarchive.com/fairbanks-evening-news-nov-26-1906-p-1/

 

Harrell, Debera Carlton. “Ceremony to Mark Worst Maritime Disaster in Puget Sound History.” Seattle Post-Intelligencer, 11-16-2006. http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/292571_dixdisaster16.html

 

Helena Semi-Weekly Independent, MT. “Captain Lermond Blamed.” 1-8-1907, p. 13. Accessed 7-6-2019 at: https://newspaperarchive.com/helena-independent-record-jan-08-1907-p-13/

 

Logansport Daily Reporter, IN. “Captain of Dix Blamed. Inspectors Revoke His License…” 12-17-1906, p. 2. Accessed 7-6-2019: https://newspaperarchive.com/logansport-reporter-dec-17-1906-p-2/

 

Morning Astorian, OR. “Investigating Disaster…Board of Inquiry…Dix.” 11-27-1906, p. 8. Accessed 7-6-2019 at: https://newspaperarchive.com/astoria-morning-astorian-nov-27-1906-p-8/

 

Morning Astorian, OR. “Jeanie Investigation. Contradictory Statements Made…” 11-27-1906, 8. Accessed 7-6-2019 at: https://newspaperarchive.com/astoria-morning-astorian-nov-27-1906-p-8/

 

Morning Oregonian, Portland. “Dix Sunk in Collision on Sound.” 11-19-1906, p. 1. Accessed 7-5-2019 at: https://newspaperarchive.com/portland-morning-oregonian-nov-19-1906-p-1/

 

Morning Oregonian, Portland. “Master Below Taking the Fares.” 11-19-1906, p. 5. Accessed 7-5-2019 at: https://newspaperarchive.com/portland-morning-oregonian-nov-19-1906-p-5/

 

Morning Oregonian, Portland. “Mate Was Not Competent.” 11-23-1906, p. 6. Accessed 7-5-2019 at: https://newspaperarchive.com/portland-morning-oregonian-nov-23-1906-p-6/

 

Oregon Daily Journal, Portland. “What Made Dix Go Down?” 11-21-1906, p. 2. Accessed 7-5-2019 at: https://newspaperarchive.com/portland-oregon-daily-journal-nov-21-1906-p-2/

 

Oregon Sunday Journal, Portland. “Will Sink Like Gas Pipes.” 11-25-1906, p. 1. Accessed 7-6-2019 at: https://newspaperarchive.com/portland-oregon-daily-journal-nov-25-1906-p-1/

 

Philadelphia Inquirer, PA. “Says Mate Was Cause of Wreck.” 12-2-1906, p. 14. Accessed 7-6-2019 at: https://newspaperarchive.com/philadelphia-inquirer-dec-02-1906-p-14/

 

United States Department of Commerce and Labor. Reports of the Department of Commerce and Labor. Wash.: GPO, 1907. “Report of the Steamboat-Inspection Service.” Digitized Google:  http://books.google.com/books?id=lqQXAAAAYAAJ&dq=steamer+Dix+jeanie+collision+puget+sound+nov+1906&source=gbs_navlinks_s

 

United States Steamboat-Inspection Service. Annual Report of the Supervising Inspector General, Steamboat-Inspection Service to the Secretary of Commerce and Labor for the Fiscal Year Ended June 30, 1907. Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1907. 374 pages. Digitized by Google. Accessed at: http://books.google.com/books?id=slcpAAAAYAAJ

 

World Today. “The Calendar of the Month. United States.” V. 12, No. 1, Jan 1907, p. 109. Google preview accessed 7-5-20019 at: https://books.google.com/books?id=cZjNAAAAMAAJ&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[1] “Washington, Jan. 2.–A report of the steamboat inspection officers who made of investigation of the collision between the steamers Dix and Jeanie on November 18 last, near Seattle, by which about 50 people lost their lives, has been received by the department of commerce and labor.”

[2] “…Charles Dennison, who was at the wheel of the Dix at the time of the collision, and who lost his life with 49 others, held a license simply to act as mate, not as pilot.”

[3] Fatalities cannot be nailed down to a specific number apparently because it was unclear how many Japanese and Chinese laborers were onboard. For the low end of our range we rely on the U.S. Steamboat Inspection Service Annual Report. For the high end of the range we rely on Berman and Gibbs, both usually reliable sources.

[4] “Thirty-nine were dead or missing. Other accounts placed the toll at 45 dead, for among the passengers were an undetermined number of coolie millhands hired for employment at the Port Blakely Mill Company.”

[5] Morning Oregonian, Portland. “Dix Sunk in Collision on Sound.” 11-19-1906, p. 1.

[6] Perhaps this is a mistake.  The same report, as page 321 has the fatalities at 42.

[7] Larger and heavier, in that the Jeanie was a freighter loaded with iron ore. (Gibbs)

[8] Gibbs writes there were seventy-seven on board.

[9] Elsewhere on the page two of those were identified as the steamers Multnomah and Manette.

—  >1,500  Chicago Daily News Almanac and Yearbook for 1907. “Hurricanes on…Gulf Coast,” p. 267.[1]

–456-486  Blanchard tally of breakouts below.[2]

—       328  Atlanta Constitution. “328 Killed on the Coast of Florida By Storm.” 10-20-1906, p.1.

–211-328  Blanchard estimated fatality range.[3]

—       211  Wikipedia. “1906 Florida Keys hurricane.” 10-8-2017 edit.

–135 on the Florida East Coast Railway. (Cites Monthly Weather Review, 1906, 479-80.)

—>70 Steamers St. Lucia and Peerless. (Cites: Chicago Daily News Almanac…for 1907.)

—    6  Plantations in the Florida Keys. (Cites: Monthly Weather Review, 1906, 479-80.)

—       193  Rappaport and Partagas (Southeast Florida and Cuba.)

—       164  Blake, et al. The Deadliest, Costliest, and Most Intense US Cyclones…, April 2007.

—       164  Centre for Research on the Epidemiology of Disasters. EM DAT.

—       164  Dunn 1964, 316.

—       164  Hebert/Jarrell/Mayfield. The Deadliest, Costliest…[US] Hurricanes… 1993, p. 80.

—       164  Jarrell et al, 2001.

—       164  Sav 1974.[4]

—       160  Norcross. (Referring to railroad workers killed on the Keys.)

—       134  Rappaport and Partagas. 1995.

 

Elliott Key                             (      250)

–>250  Boston Post. “Hundreds Die in Tidal Wave.” 10-20-1906, p. 1.[5]

 

Jupiter area plantations       (          6)[6]

 

Matocumbo Key                    (      ~50)

–~50 from dredges. Baltimore Sun. “Many Fatalities Reported.” 10-21-1906, p. 1.[7]

 

Maritime                                (135-180)

–135-180  Blanchard estimate.[8]

—    1,200  Workmen on East Coast Extension vessels/craft.[9]

—     ~135  Houseboats and other East Coast Extension vessels. (MWR. AMS, Oct 1906, p. 479.)[10]

—   124  Workmen on East Coast Extension vessels/craft.[11]

—   104  Houseboat No. 4. NYT. “104 Men Drowned on Florida Houseboat.” 10-23-1906, p. 5.[12]

—   101  Barge No. 4. Baltimore Sun. “Saved 49 out of 150.” 10-21-1906, p. 1.[13]

— >100  East Coast Extension quarter boats. (Monthly Weather Review. AMS, Oct 1906, p. 479.)

— >100  East Coast Extension quarter boats. Landsea and Partagas. Year 1906, p. 45.[14]

—     50  Barge at Elliot Key. Atlanta Constitution. (Box, top of page, datelined Miami, Oct 19.)[15]

—   ~35  Steamer Peerless. Baltimore Sun. “Many Fatalities Reported.” 10-21-1906, p. 1.[16]

—     35  Steamer St. Lucie. Baltimore Sun. “Many Fatalities Reported.” 10-21-1906, p. 1.[17]

—     35  Steamer St. Lucie. Barnes. Florida’s Hurricane History. 1998, p. 90.

—     28  Steamer St. Lucie. Atlanta Constitution. “328 Killed on the Coast of…” 10-20-1906, p.1.

—     25  Steamer St. Lucie. Atlanta Constitution. (Box at top of page, datelined Miami, Oct 19.)

—     23  Steamer St. Lucie. (Monthly Weather Review. AMS, Oct 1906, p. 479.)

—     21  Steamer St. Lucie Sinks, Oct 18.  (Berman. Encyclopedia of…Shipwrecks. 1972, 143.)

—     21  Steamer St. Lucie.                         (Singer. Shipwrecks of Florida (2^nd Ed.), 1993, p.127.)

—    10?  Florida Fish and Produce company’s fleet.[18]

 

Narrative Information

 

Singer: “St. Lucie – Sidewheel steamer (steel), 165 tons, built in 1888 at Wilmington, 122’ x 24’ x 4.2’, Captain Bravo.  Foundered during a storm, Oct. 18, 1906, off Elliot Key 21 lives lost.  She was a famous Indian River steamer.”  (Singer. Shipwrecks of Florida (2^nd Ed.), 1993, p. 127.)

 

Newspaper

 

Oct 18: “….The conductor of a train which late last night reached Fort Pierce, Fla., from Miami, reported terrible destruction there by the hurricane. Fully 100 houses had been blown down, and Miami was in a demoralized condition….

 

“The storm which cut off Havana traveled northeast and early yesterday hit the east coast of Florida, isolating the entire State south of Jacksonville. Just before the wires connecting Jacksonville with the south went down the operator at Miami reported a big storm and an unusually high tide. The last word from his said that the water was two feet deep in the telegraph office, and that the low streets were flooded.

 

“About the same time word came from St. Augustine that the tide had reached the highest point in ten years and that the bay front was inundated.

 

“The storm, according to the Washington Weather Bureau, passed over the Sand Key and Key West at 2 A.M. yesterday, the wind reaching a velocity of seventy-two miles an hour at Sand Key. The storm was described as a ‘tropical disturbance of small diameter,[19] but of great severity.’ It was moving north-northeast, and at the time the Government bulletin was issued was apparently central off the southeastern Florida coast…..

 

“Jacksonville, Fla., Oct 18.–A severe storm raged to-day on the east coast of Florida, but the wires went down early in the day, and it was impossible to obtain details….” (New York Times. “Havana Cut Off; Havoc at Miami.” 10-19-1906, p. 1.)

 

Oct 19: “Washington, October 19.–The tropical hurricane which swept from Cuba to the Bahamas now appears to be raging with full force about two hundred miles out in the Atlantic, its only shore effect tonight being a falling barometer and a 25-mile wind off the South Carolina coast. The hurricane, according to Forecaster Henry, of the weather bureau, seems to have been temporarily checked in its northeastward movement and has not advanced in the past twelve hours, nor do the indications point to any change in the next twenty-four hours….

 

“Miami, Fla., October 19.–The reported loss of the steamer St. Lucie, Captain Bravo commanding, has proven true. This evening one of the Flagler steamers arrived in port, bringing sixty wounded, who were taken to the hospital. It is said that there are twenty-eight bodies which will be brought up tomorrow….The steamer St. Lucie belongs to the fleet of the Florida East Coast railway and is employed in carrying workmen to and from the extensive work on the keys. Despite the storm warning, Captain Bravo sailed for Key Largo with a large number of workmen aboard. The steamer was caught in the storm and was driven ashore with the awful loss of life reported.

 

“It is believed now that a portion of the Florida Fish and Produce company’s fleet was lost with loss of life. Manager Adams sent out one of their boats this morning to search for the men and boats and on its return the crew reported no sign of the fleet. The fishing nets were found strews upon the shore….

 

“Another disaster is the breaking loss of a barge at Elliot Key with 100 people on board. She was picked up on the Bahama Islands. Fifty of her people were drowned.” (Atlanta Constitution. “328 Killed on the Coast of Florida By Storm.” 10-20-1906, p. 1.)

 

Oct 21: “Key West, Fla., Oct. 21.–Survivors from one of the house boats of the Florida East Coast Railway extension along the keys tell a harrowing tale of death and destruction during the storm of Thursday. W. P. Dusenberry, civil engineer in charge of the work on Long Key, who miraculously escaped death, arrived here on the Russian steamer Jennie, among other survivors rescued. He says house boat No. 4, on which were 150 men, was struck by the storm at 5 o’clock Thursday morning and was driven out into the Gulf through Hawks channel. At 6 o’clock the house boat began to break up and as the great waves hit her, men singly and in bunches of two and three were washed into the sea and drowned. Some went below for protection, but when the top of the boat was carried away and waves rushed in and the boat went to pieces, thirty or forty of the men being crushed to death in the collapse, the others grabbing timbers to save them from drowning. Engineer Dusenberry was in the hold, but succeeded in getting a log and floated until Friday night, when he was rescued.

 

“On one piece of timber sixteen men were clinging and nine hanging to another. The side of the house boat was crowded with men. It turned over three times, each time reducing the number.

 

“The Russian steamer Jennie sighted the wreckage and succeeded in rescuing the forty-nine men who were brought here….” (Galveston Daily News, TX. “Drowned Like Rats.” 10-22-1906, p1.)

 

Sources

 

Atlanta Constitution. “328 Killed on the Coast of Florida By Storm.” 10-20-1906, p. 1. Accessed 11-14-2017 at: https://newspaperarchive.com/atlanta-constitution-oct-20-1906-p-1/

 

Baltimore Sun. “Many Fatalities Reported.” 10-21-1906, p. 1. Accessed 11-14-2017 at: https://newspaperarchive.com/baltimore-sun-oct-21-1906-p-1/

 

Baltimore Sun. “Saved 49 out of 150.” 10-21-1906, p. 1. Accessed 11-14-2017 at: https://newspaperarchive.com/baltimore-sun-oct-21-1906-p-1/

 

Barnes, Jay. Florida’s Hurricane History. Chapel Hill and London: UNC Press, 1998.

 

Berman, Bruce D. Encyclopedia of American Shipwrecks. Boston: Mariners Press Inc., 1972.

 

Blake, Eric S., Edward N. Rappaport, and Christopher W. Landsea. The Deadliest, Costliest, and Most Intense United States Cyclones From 1851 to 2006. Miami, FL: National Weather Service, National Hurricane Center, April 15, 2007 update, 45 pages. Accessed at: http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/Deadliest_Costliest.shtml

 

Boston Post. “Hundreds Die in Tidal Wave.” 10-20-1906, p. 1. Accessed 11-14-2017 at: https://newspaperarchive.com/boston-post-oct-20-1906-p-1/

 

Centre for Research on the Epidemiology of Disasters. EM DAT Database. Louvain, Belgium:  Universite Catholique do Louvain. Accessed at: http://www.emdat.be/

 

Chicago Daily News Almanac and Yearbook for 1907. “Hurricanes on the Gulf Coast.” Chicago Daily News Co., 1906. Accessed 11-14-2017 at: https://books.google.com/books?id=DW4TAAAAYAAJ&printsec=frontcover&vq=Chicago+almanac+hurricane+1906#v=onepage&q=Chicago%20almanac%20hurricane%201906&f=false

 

Dunn, Gordon E. and Banner I. Miller. Atlantic Hurricanes (Revised Edition). Baton Rouge LA:  Louisiana State University Press, 1964, 377 pages.

 

Galveston Daily News, TX. “Drowned Like Rats.” 10-22-1906, p. 1. Accessed 11-14-2017 at: https://newspaperarchive.com/galveston-daily-news-oct-22-1906-p-1/

 

Hebert, Paul J., J.D. Jarrell, Max Mayfield. The Deadliest, Costliest, and Most Intense United States Hurricanes of This Century (NOAA Technical Memorandum NWS-NHC-31). Miami, FL:  National Hurricane Center, National Weather Service, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, U.S. Department of Commerce, Feb 1993, 41 pages.

 

Jarrell, Jerry D., Max Mayfield, Edward N. Rappaport, Christopher W. Landsea.  The Deadliest, Costliest, and Most Intense United States Hurricanes From 1900 to 2000 (And Other Frequently Requested Hurricane Facts) (NOAA Technical Memorandum NWS TPC-1). Miami, FL:  NOAA NWS and Atlantic Oceanographic and Meteorological Laboratory, October 2001 Update.  Accessed at: http://www.aoml.noaa.gov/hrd/Landsea/deadly/index.html

 

Landsea, Christopher and Jose Fernandez-Partagas. Year 1906. Accessed 11-14-2017 at: http://www.aoml.noaa.gov/hrd/Landsea/Partagas/1905-1908/1906_2.pdf

 

Monthly Weather Review. “The West Indian Hurricane of the Second Decade of October, 1906.” American Meteorological Society, October 1906, p. 479. Accessed 11-14-2017 at: http://www.aoml.noaa.gov/hrd/hurdat/mwr_pdf/1906.pdf

 

New York Times. “104 Men Drowned on Florida Houseboat.” 10-23-1906, p. 5. Accessed 11-14-2017 at: https://newspaperarchive.com/new-york-times-oct-23-1906-p-5/

 

New York Times. “Havana Cut Off; Havoc at Miami.” 10-19-1906, p. 1. Accessed 11-14-2017 at: https://newspaperarchive.com/new-york-times-oct-19-1906-p-1/

 

Norcross, Bryan. Hurricane Almanac: The Essential Guide to Storms Past, Present, and Future.  NY: St. Martin’s Griffin, 2007.

 

Rappaport, Edward N. and Jose Fernandez-Partagas. The Deadliest Atlantic Tropical Cyclones, 1492-1994 (NOAA Technical Memorandum NWS NHC-47). Coral Gables, FL: National Hurricane Center, National Weather Service, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, U.S. Department of Commerce, January 1995, 42 pages. Accessed 8-20-2017 at:  http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/pdf/NWS-NHC-1995-47.pdf

 

Sav, Thomas G. Natural Disasters: Some Empirical and Economic Considerations (Final Report, NBSIR 74-473). Washington, DC:  National Bureau of Standards, Institute for Applied Technology, Center for Building Technology, Building Economics Section, February 1974, 74 pages. Accessed 7-12-2017 at: http://www.fire.nist.gov/bfrlpubs/build74/PDF/b74006.pdf

 

Singer, Steven D. Shipwrecks of Florida: A Comprehensive Listing (2^nd Ed.). Sarasota, FL: Pineapple Press, Inc., 1998. Partially digitized by Google. Accessed at:  http://books.google.com/books?id=6j6kjZQReqkC&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_navlinks_s#v=onepage&q=&f=false

 

 

 

 

 

 

[1] “More than 1,500 lives were lost in a hurricane which swept the southeastern coast of Florida and the northern part of Cuba Oct. 17-18, 1906. Elliott’s key was engulfed by a tidal wave and 250 persons were drowned; seventy were lost from the steamers St. Lucia and Peerless and eighteen were killed in the city of Havana….The largest number of casualties was on barges and dredges used by contractors building a railroad along the keys to connect the mainland with Key West. About 1,200 workmen were reported drowned.” We do not use for lives-lost-estimate — out of keeping with other estimates.

[2] This is a conundrum. If the reporting reflected below is accurate, or even just close to accurate, then approximately 456-486 lives were lost. In that we do not know the breakouts used to derive the 134-193 figures, we must assume that one or more of the breakouts below were discounted (such as Elliott Key and Matocumbo Key).

[3] It appears to us that a minimum of approximately 211 lives were lost, as reported in the Wikipedia article. Our tally of fatalities reported at the time is far higher — 456-486 lives lost. In that this range is far higher than subsequent reporting we do not feel confident in the range. We choose, instead, to use as the high end or our range the figure of 328 lives lost as reported by the Atlanta Constitution on October 20, though, it may be that this was an overestimate.

[4] Cites:  Don G. Friedman, “Prospective View of Natural Disasters in the United States” (paper presented at the System Safety Society Symposium, July 18, 1973), Table 2.

[5] “Elliot’s Key was engulfed by a tidal wave [storm surge]. Captain Brava of the St. Lucie, who is among the rescued, states that all the inhabitants of the place, more than 250, were drowned.”

[6] From report of H. P. Hardin, Observer, Weather Bureau, Jupiter, Fla.: “….Six lives are reported to have been lost on plantations…destroyed….” (Monthly Weather Review. AMS, Oct 1906, p. 479.)

[7] “It is estimated that 50 lives were lost on dredges at lower Matocumbo…Two men were lost on the pile driver.”

[8] We derive this figure by using 135 figure for workmen on the East Coast Extension vessels/craft (including St. Lucie) as the low-end of the range. For the high end we add approximately 35 from Steamer Peerless, and guestimate of 10 lives lost from Fish and Produce Co. fleet.

[9] Chicago Daily News Almanac and Yearbook for 1907. “Hurricanes on…Gulf Coast,” p. 267.

[10] From report of H. P. Hardin, Observer, Weather Bureau, Jupiter, Fla.: :The storm caught most of the several hundred laborers and mechanics of the railway extension on houseboats and other clumsy craft moored to piling for living quarters. These boats were torn from their moorings and beaten to pieces by the seas. The loss of life among these men was about 135.”

[11] Barnes, Jay. Florida’s Hurricane History. Chapel Hill and London: UNC Press, 1998, p. 89.

[12] “Mobile, Ala., Oct. 22.–Charles Anderson [and other survivors] from Houseboat 4…were landed in this city to-day by the Mallory liner Colorado. They report 104 men drowned off this boat.”

[13] “Key West, Fla., Oct 20.–The Austrian steamer Jennie…has called at this port to land 49 workmen picked up at sea near the Bahama Coast, 160 miles from Key West. The men were part of a force of 150 workingmen belonging to Barge No. 4, engaged on East Coast extension work. Most of the others were either killed or drowned in the storm early Thursday. Nine other barges crowded with workingmen…were at sea with Barge No. 4. There is no news of them and it is feared all were lost…” A later account notes that Barges 6 and 7 “are now safe on the other side of Biscayne bay.” (Baltimore Sun. “Many Fatalities Reported.” 10-21-1906, p. 1.)

[14] “The quarter boats of the East Coast Extension were carried out to sea and many lives, probably more than 100, were lost.”

[15] “Another disaster is the breaking loss of a barge at Elliot Key with 100 people on board. She was picked up on the Bahama Islands. Fifty of her people were drowned.”

[16] After noting 35 deaths from the steamer St. Lucie, it is noted “The steamer Peerless also lost about the same number, who were blown off the vessel.”

[17] “Jacksonville, Fla., Oct. 20.–A special to the Metropolis from Miami, Fla., says: ‘When the Miami steamer St. Lucie was crushed by th high waves in Thursday’s hurricane, out of 100 persons on board 35 were lost.”

[18] Our guestimate. Only reported that the fishing fleet was lost — no indication of number of vessels or men. (Atlanta Constitution. “328 Killed on the Coast of Fl…” 10-20-1906, p.1.)

[19] Elsewhere in this article the width of the hurricane was noted as “hardly more than seventy miles…”

Compiled by B. Wayne Blanchard, June 2014, modified Aug 2017 and Jan 2020, for website: Deadliest American Disasters and Large-Loss-Of-Life Events. https://www.usdeadlyevents.com/

–152-296  Blanchard tally from State breakouts below.

–109-161  Alabama

—  39 – 57  Florida

—    4 – 78  Mississippi

—  134  Bevin update. The Deadliest Atlantic Tropical Cyclones, 1492-1996. 1997.[1]

—  134  Blake, et al. The Deadliest, Costliest, and Most Intense US Cyclones…, April 2007.

—  134  Hebert, Jarrell and Mayfield. The Deadliest, Costliest…[US] Hurricanes… 1993, p. 80.

—  134  Jarrell et al. The Deadliest, Costliest…Most Intense [US] Hurricanes…1900 to 2000. 2001.

—  134  NWS Mobile/Pensacola Weather Forecast Office. September 27^th Hurricane of 1906.

—  134  NWS, New Orleans. Top Weather Events of…20^th Century within the NWSFO…, 2008.

—  133  Garriott. “The Caribbean Sea Storm of Sept. 23-37, 1906,” MWR, Sep 1906, p. 418-423.

—      1  Mobile; p. 422.

–~100  Mobile County southern coast; p. 422.

—    32  Pensacola, p. 419.

Maritime component (included in Blanchard total tally):           (15)

–3  Schooner Agnes. Bayou La Batre, AL. Bureau of Nav. “Loss of American vessels…” p. 374.

–1  Schooner Ethel founders, Heron Bay, AL, Sep 27. Bureau of Navigation 1907, p. 375.

–1  Schooner Margrette B strands, Point of Pines, AL, Sep 27. Bureau of Navigation 1907, 376.

–2  Schooner Two Friends founders, Heron Bay, AL. Bureau of Navigation 1907, p. 378.

–7  Schooner William H. Warren founders, St. Joseph Point, FL. Bureau of Nav., p. 378.

–1  Schooner Daisy strands, Horn Island, MS, Sep 26, Bureau of Navigation, p. 375.

Breakout of Fatalities by State

Alabama        (109-161)

–109-161  Blanchard range based on sources below.[2]

—  150  Along the coast. Murray. “The 1906 Mobile Hurricane.” AlabamaWX Weather Blog.

—      3  Bayou La Batre, schooner Agnes. Bureau of Nav. “Loss of American vessels…” p. 374.

—      1  Heron Bay, Sep 27. Schooner Ethel founders. Bureau of Navigation 1907, p. 375.

—      2             “          “       Schooner Two Friends founders. Bureau of Navigation 1907, p. 378.

—      1  Mobile.           Garriott. “The…Hurricanes of Sep…,” MWR, Sep 1906, p. 422.[3]

—      1       “                 Wikipedia. “1906 Mississippi hurricane.” 4-15-2014 modification.^[4]

—   2-3       “                First National Bank of Mobile, Ala. Highlights of 75 Years in Mobile.[5]

–>150  Mobile County. First National Bank of Mobile, Ala. Highlights of 75 Years in Mobile.

–~150  “               “ McGehee. “A hurricane to remember…storm that struck Mobile.” Bellingrath Museum.

–~125 “               “    Quincy…Herald, IL. “Unparalleled Heroism…Mobile Disaster.” 10-1-1906, 1.[6]

–~100  “               “    Garriott. “The…Hurricanes of Sep…,” MWR, Sep 1906, p. 422.

–~100  “               “     southern. NWS Mobile/Pensacola WFO. September 27^th Hurricane of 1906.[7]

–23  Cedar Point, below Mobile; oystermen.[8]

—  6  Fort Morgan, Baldwin Co. Wikipedia. “1906 Mississippi hurricane.” 4-15-2014 mod.^[9]

–20  Heron Bay; just southwest of Alabama Port.[10]

—      2  Point of Pines, Sep 27. Schooner Margrette B strands. Bureau of Navigation 1907, p376.

 

Florida           (39-57)

–39-57  Florida          Blanchard range.[11]

–~50  Pensacola.        First National Bank of Mobile, Ala. Highlights of 75 Years in Mobile.

—  35         “               Wikipedia. “1906 Mississippi hurricane.” 4-15-2014 modification.^[12]

—  33          “               The Citizen, Frederick, MD. “100 Soldiers Perish…” 10-5-1906, p. 1.[13]

—  32          “               Barnes. Florida’s Hurricane History. University of NC Press, 1998, p. 88.

—  32          “               Garriott. “The…Hurricanes of Sep…,” MWR, Sep 1906, p. 419.[14]

—    7  St. Joseph Point. Sch. William H. Warren founders. Bureau of Nav., p. 378; Singer, 38.

 

Louisiana       (0-~100)

–~100  Lake Borgne area. Malayan settlement. First Nat. Bank of Mobile, Ala. Highlights...[15]

—      0  Roth. Louisiana Hurricane History, p. 28. (Roth mentions no deaths in his document.)

 

Mississippi     (4-78)

—       4-78  Blanchard.[16]

— State 78  Longshore. Encyclopedia of Hurricanes, Typhoons, and Cyclones. 2008, p. 309.[17]

—          78  Wikipedia. “1906 Mississippi hurricane.” 4-15-2014 modification.^[18]

— “Many”  Biloxi. First National Bank of Mobile, Ala. Highlights of 75 Years in Mobile.

—            6  Mississippi Sound. Washington Post. “On Mississippi Sound.” 9-30-1906, p. 3.

–3  Horn Island. Light keeper Johnston, wife and daughter swept into Gulf.[19]

–1  Horn Island, Sep 26, schooner Daisy strands. Bureau of Navigation, p. 375.

 

Narrative Information

 

General/Multi-State

 

Garriott: “The Caribbean Sea Storm of September 23-27, 1906. This was the severest disturbance that has visited the Gulf coast since the occurrence, on September 8, 1900, of the storm that devastated Galveston….The September, 1906, storm was first definitely located over the western portion of the Caribbean Sea on the 22d and crossed the Gulf coast line west of Mobile the morning of the 27^th….The center of the storm crossed the coast line near and west of Mobile at about 8 a.m., seventy-fifth meridian time, of the 27^th. East of the point where the centre crossed the coast an onshore southerly gale combined with the wave from the Gulf to drag vessels from their anchorage, and caused water damage to shore property that was not experienced west of the storm’s path, where northerly offshore winds prevailed during the period of the storm’s greatest intensity. After the 27^th the strength of the storm diminished rapidly, and during its subsequent course northward over the lower and middle Mississippi Valley heavy rains fell within its area….” [p. 418]

 

“The storm was severe east of New Orleans, but there does not appear to have been any loss of life on the Mississippi and Louisiana coasts. The damage to property that could not be moved or protected was great. At Burwood the tide was over the wharf, which is eight feet above mean Gulf level. Railroads and crops suffered great damage.” [p. 419]

 

(Garriott, E. B. (Professor of Meteorology). “The West Indian Hurricanes of September 1906,” Monthly Weather Review, September 1906, pp. 418-419.)

 

Library of Congress World Digital Library: “The sixth hurricane of 1906 was one of 11 hurricanes or tropical cyclones that Atlantic hurricane season. The storm made landfall on September 27, 1906, west of Biloxi, Mississippi, but wreaked its greatest damage from Mobile, Alabama to Pensacola, Florida. The Category 4 hurricane was the most destructive storm to strike the Pensacola area in 170 years. Winds in excess of 105 miles (170 kilometers) per hour stretched past the city and port of Pensacola, and Escambia Bay in the Gulf of Mexico saw a storm surge as high as 14 feet (4.3 meters). This photograph [not reproduced here] shows the damage wrought to Pensacola Harbor. Steam is still rising from the smokestack of a nearly sunken ship, and the harbor is crammed with tumbled and sagging boats and lined with collapsed warehouses and shattered docks. In the background, a wasted city of shaken buildings stretches to the horizon. The storm caused the deaths of 134 people and millions of dollars in damage in Alabama and Florida.” (Library of Congress World Digital Library. “View of the Damage from the Hurricane of 1906.” 10-22-2014 update.)

 

NWS New Orleans/Baton Rouge Weather Forecast Office: “September 27, 1906: Pascagoula, Mississippi Hurricane

 

“A violent hurricane moved onshore near the Pascagoula River, producing a storm surge in excess of 10 feet from Jackson County, MS to the westernmost Florida peninsula. A total of 134 lives were lost from Pascagoula to Pensacola, FL during this hurricane.” (NWS New Orleans/Baton Rouge Weather Forecast Office. NWX LIX – Top Ten Events of 20^th Century (webpage). Slidell, LA. National Weather Service, NOAA.)

 

Alabama

 

First National Bank of Mobile: “STRIKING FURIOUSLY, a West India hurricane roared into the Gulf Coast area on September 27, 1906, and destroyed millions of dollars worth of property in Mobile County. Although only two or three deaths occurred in the city itself, the storm sent more than 150 persons to a watery grave in the nearby vicinity, principally at Sans Souci Beach, Coden, Herron Bay and Navy Cove.

“The storm began on Wednesday, September 25th with a driving rain borne on a strong northeast wind. By the evening of the 26th it was impossible to walk on the streets with umbrellas. The barometer continued to drop until it reached a record low of 28.84, fulfilling the Weather Bureau’s prediction that the storm would be centered at Mobile.

“All during Wednesday the force of the wind increased. By midnight Wednesday it was a northeast gale, and just before dawn Thursday morning it reached hurricane proportions. Daylight found the air filled with flying objects—shutters, signs, awnings, roofs, trees, timbers, and finally bricks from walls and chimneys. Communication and electrical transmission wires were leveled throughout the city.

“During the early morning hours on Thursday, the wind veered to the east, and finally to the southeast, backing up water from the bay into the river until it overflowed the wharves and flooded city streets. By 8 o’clock Thursday morning, the yellow flood had reached Royal Street on St. Michael and was running into Royal Street gutters. It came within 25 feet of Royal on St. Francis—or approximately 30 feet farther up the street than the great flood of 1893. Upper Royal Street, from St. Louis to Beauregard, was also flooded, the water backing on St. Anthony nearly to Conception, and almost as far on State and Congress streets. Water Street at that point was a surging maelstrom, with the wind driving up St. Francis Street and rousing the water in great waves at the street intersection.

“From 7:30 Thursday morning until about 10 o’clock Thursday the storm was at its height. Then the wind abated and the waters receded, allowing many persons to descend from trees which they had climbed to save their lives. By Friday morning, the storm was over and reckoning of lives lost and property damage began.

“It was found that all the lower coast had been badly washed, with fully 150 lives lost, including many fishermen of the Herron Bay oyster and fishing fleet, where only three men and one vessel of the fleet were saved. Eleven steamboats and 22 sailing vessels were wrecked, and many others damaged, in the river. The quarantine station at Fort Morgan was washed away when the waves cut a great channel entirely across the land from the bay to the gulf. Scores of vessels were wrecked in the lower bay and just outside.

“In Mobile itself, the destruction was not nearly so severe. Chief damage was caused by the flood waters, although the wind tore away parts of many buildings. Nearly every church edifice in the city was damaged to some extent: the steeple of Christ Church was blown away and the interior wrecked by falling debris; the Methodist and Baptist Churches on St. Francis Street lost their spires. The courthouse clock and tower were badly damaged, as were the Cawthon, Bienville, St. Andrew, Windsor and Southern hotels. The Old Shell Road and Garrow’s Bend were washed worse than in the storm of 1893, and great sections of other roads and streets throughout the city were scoured away. Gross damage in Mobile County was estimated at more than $15,000,000.

“The Mobile area was not the only one to be ravaged by the storm. The entire Mississippi-Louisiana coast suffered severely. Many persons lost their lives at Biloxi, and some 20 schooners and hundreds of small craft were lost at Pascagoula. The death toll at Pensacola was estimated at 50 persons, with $5,000,000 in property damage. At least 100 Malayans in a settlement on Lake Bourgne, La., were said to have been killed.

After normal conditions had been restored, the populace within the city counted itself fortunate in having withstood the hurricane so well. It was pointed out that in both the storm of 1893 and the most recent one, the city proper had proved to be relatively secure against such hurricane disaster—a fact which was later re-emphasized when an 85-mile-an-hour wind swept the city in 1916.” (First National Bank of Mobile, Ala. Highlights of 75 Years in Mobile.)

Garriott, MWR: “Mobile, Ala.

 

“The storm of September 26-27 was more destructive than any other in the meteorological history of the station, involving a greater loss of property, more numerous marine disasters, and greater destruction to timber.

 

“The storm approached this section without any optical premonitory signs or noticeable cloud formations. Cloudy weather with stratus clouds began on the morning of the 25^th, and there was occasional sunshine until about noon on the 26^th; and only light rain, at times a mere drizzle, was recorded during a part of this period. On the 26^th the fall in [end of p.420] barometer pressure and the increase in wind velocity, which had been gradual, became more rapid toward night. The wind, which was remarkable for the severity and suddenness of its gusts, reached a maximum velocity of 25 miles an hour between 5 and 6 p.m. and higher velocities were attained during succeeding intervals until a maximum of 55 miles, from the east, for five minutes, was reached at 7:15 a.m. of the 27^th, and a single mile was made in somewhat less than a minute; after which lower velocities were recorded and no high velocities occurred after 11 a.m. ….

 

“The lowest reading of the barometer, 28.84 inches, was reached at 6:30 a. m….

 

“The rain, which was continuous from 12:05 p.m. of the 26^th, at times became a heavy downpour. The amount which fell from 12:05 p.m. of the 26^th to 7:20 p.m. of the 27^th was 6.40 inches.

 

“During the morning of the 26^th, the tide reached within six inches of the top of the wharf; it then receded and was one or two feet below the level of the wharf till about 6 a.m. of the 27^th; a rise then began and in about half an hour the water was near the top of the wharf; by 7:45 a.m. it had come into the third street from the river, and at 10 a.m. it attained its maximum stage, exceeding by about a foot the state reached during the hurricane of 1893. During that memorable storm the water was about six feet above the wharf….Markings at the Cotton Exchange Building indicate 13 inches higher water in 1906 then in 1893….

 

“…About twenty building, mostly houses in the residential section of Mobile demolished. Nearly all buildings were more [end of p. 21] or less damaged. Windows were blown in, chimneys felled, tin roofs rolled up, slates and shingles ripped off so that few interiors of houses escaped damage by the rain. In some places heavy timbers were carried considerable distances. Many merchants in the wholesale district had elevated their wares, but the tide exceeded all previous stages and damaged the lowermost goods. All electric services were totally crippled, the telegraph wires being down by 3 a.m. of the 27^th. The roads were made impassable by prostrated trees. There was only one life lost in Mobile. The official list of American vessels wrecked, kept at the office of the collector of customs, is not yet completed. Unofficial records of all marine disasters show that in Mobile Bay and River there were 11 steamships, 17 barks and schooners, and 4 steamboats ashore or sunk, 12 tugboats sunk, ashore, or capsized, and numerous barges and smaller craft which met a similar fate. There are also 11 steamships, barks, and many smaller vessels dismantled or otherwise damaged….

 

“The warnings of the Bureau prevented a greater loss of life, as nearly all vessels remained in the river. However, the storm was of so great severity that ships were torn from their moorings, collisions occurred, and the wind alone dismantled or damaged others….

 

“All localities in southern Alabama and southeastern Mississippi sustained great damage to property, but in the southern parts of Mobile and Baldwin counties the storm was most destructive to life and property and the damage will probably reach a million dollars. On the southern coast of Mobile County about one hundred persons lost their lives, mostly by drowning in the high tide which swept the coast….” (Garriott, E. B. (Professor of Meteorology). “The West Indian Hurricanes of September 1906,” Monthly Weather Review, September 1906, pp. 420-422.)

McGehee: “On September 27, 1906, a hurricane struck Mobile, causing more than $15 million in damage and drowning an estimated 150 people in the southern part of the county [Mobile County].

“The storm moved in on the evening of the 26th, and by the next morning, Mobilians awoke to find the air filled with flying objects – shutters, signs, roof shingles, tree branches, and even bricks from falling walls and chimneys….” (McGehee Tom (Museum Director of the Bellingrath Home). “A hurricane to remember: The tragic 1906 storm that struck Mobile.” Theodore, AL: Bellingrath Gardens and Home.)

 

Florida

 

Garriott, MWR: Pensacola, Fla.

 

“This was the most terrific storm in the history of Pensacola, or since the village of Pensacola, on Santa Rosa Island, was swept away 170 years ago. The greatest loss was to the shipping interests; a large number of ocean going vessels, tug boats, fishing smacks, launces, and craft of all kinds were wrecked upon the beach; the wreckage is strewn from Magnolia Bluff to the entrance of the harbor. During the early morning hours the people of the city were panic stricken, many believing that a repetition of the Galveston disaster was imminent, and large numbers of people took refuge in the higher portion of the city, braving the high-winds and stinging sand-felled rain in the hope of reaching a place of safety. When the wind reached 60 miles per hour (at 1:07 a.m.), every effort was made to protect property and life and people were driven from their homes along the water front. Trees were uprooted; houses were unroofed, and vessels in the harbor began to drag their anchors, being slowly but surely forced upon the beach. At the height of the storm (between 3 and 4 a.m.) the water rose 8½ feet above the normal high-water mark, being the highest known. The great protection afforded by Santa Rosa Island saved Pensacola from more severe suffering. The entire water front property was inundated, the water reaching many houses; some were either carried away completely or irreparably damaged. Muscogee wharf was broken in two in the middle, and the tracks on either side of the main dock were washed away. Thirty-eight coal cars which were on the wharf were washed away. A timber boom was broken and the timber cast adrift; this timber and wreckage of every description is jammed upon the beach in a torn and twisted mass. The water backed up in the low ground north of Intendencia street, where several cottages were inundated, the water in places reaching a depth of 10 feet. About the greatest havoc was wrought along West Main street, the south side of which has been completely washed away. The houses along the bay shore from Barcelona street to Perdido are in ruins and all along the shore innumerable vessels are scattered. The damage to the fishing industry alone will probably aggregate half a million dollars and that to the tow boat industry will aggregate as much more. Several wharfs are completely gone. On Palafox street from the wharf north to Wright street there is hardly a building that has escaped damage, and in many instances the losses will be heavy, as the tin roofs were blown from many and the driving rain damaged stocks to a great extent. The train service in and out of the city is completely paralyzed….From Magnolia Bluff to Milton the track is gone and a portion of Escambia Bridge is washed away. A channel was washed thru Santa Rosa Island east of the Life Saving Statin; the station itself is gone and the entire shore is a mass of ruins. Fort Barrancas is much damaged, Fort Pickens has suffered severely, and Fort McRae is completely razed, the ruins of the old fort standing alone on the shore….

 

“Wharfmaster Cox stated that the tide was fully ten feet above normal high tide along the city water front and twelve feet at Bayou Grande, based upon the reckonings of five reliable men. The sea swells entering the ship between Palafox and Baylen streets were from seven to twelve feet high between midnight and 7 a.m. and were about one hundred yards apart, lifting wharf timbers and boards as they rolled thru the slip and splashed over Cedar street. Oyster boats, launches, steam tugs, lighters, timbers and wreckage of all description are jammed together at the corner of Cedar and Baylen streets….Trees fully exposed to the easterly gale in all parts of the city were blown down, the chinaberry and sycamores suffering most. All weak chimneys that were broadside to the east were tumbled to the westward. Whenever the wind got under a tin roof it rolled it off….

 

“The total known deaths are 32….” (Garriott, E. B. (Professor of Meteorology). “The West Indian Hurricanes of September 1906,” Monthly Weather Review, September 1906, pp. 418-420.)

 

Singer: “A violent hurricane moved onshore near the Pascagoula River, producing a storm surge in excess of 10 feet from Jackson County, MS to the westernmost Florida peninsula. A total of 134 lives were lost from Pascagoula to Pensacola, FL during this hurricane.”[20]

 

Seven of the losses were aboard the Schooner William H. Warren, which foundered at St. Joseph Point, FL with all aboard.  (Singer.  Shipwrecks of Florida (2^nd Ed.). 1998, p. 38.)

 

Mississippi

 

Roth: “September 25-26^th, 1906: This hurricane moved westward through the Caribbean before turning north-northwest through the Yucatan Channel. The system made landfall at the Mouth of the Pascagoula River. Gales were experienced along the Lower Mississippi Delta. Winds gusted to 49 mph as the pressure fell to 29.15″ at New Orleans. The Lake Borgne lighthouse was most likely destroyed in this storm, though Cipra dates the destruction as occurring on the 10th(Cipra). A 24-hour rainfall record was set at Collinston for the month of August, when 4.55” accumulated on the 25th.” (Roth, David. Louisiana Hurricane History. Camp Springs, MD: NWS, p. 28.)

 

Sources

 

Barnes, Jay. Florida’s Hurricane History. Chapel Hill and London: University of North Carolina Press, 1998.

 

Bevin, Jack. The Deadliest Atlantic Tropical Cyclones, 1492-1996.  April 22 1997 update of NOAA Technical Memorandum NWS NHC 47 (The Deadliest Atlantic Tropical Cyclones, 1492-1996 by Edward N. Rappaport and Jose Fernandez-Partagas, May 28, 1995).  Accessed at:  http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/pastdeadly.shtml

 

Blake, Eric S., Edward N. Rappaport, and Christopher W. Landsea. The Deadliest, Costliest, and Most Intense United States Cyclones From 1851 to 2006. Miami, FL: National Weather Service, National Hurricane Center, April 15, 2007 update, 45 pages. Accessed at: http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/Deadliest_Costliest.shtml

 

First National Bank of Mobile, Ala. Highlights of 75 Years in Mobile. Mobile: FNB, 1940, 118 pages. Transcription of the section “1906 – Hurricane Does $15,000,000 Damage” was accessed at GenDisasters.com 1-12-2020 at: http://www.gendisasters.com/alabama/14432/mobile-al-hurricane-sept-1906

 

Garriott, E. B. (Professor of Meteorology). “The West Indian Hurricanes of September 1906,” Monthly Weather Review, September 1906. Accessed 1-12-2020 at: https://www.aoml.noaa.gov/hrd/hurdat/mwr_pdf/1906.pdf

 

Hebert, Paul J., J.D. Jarrell, Max Mayfield. The Deadliest, Costliest, and Most Intense United States Hurricanes of This Century (NOAA Technical Memorandum NWS-NHC-31). Miami, FL:  National Hurricane Center, National Weather Service, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, U.S. Department of Commerce, Feb 1993, 41 pages.

 

Jarrell, Jerry D., Max Mayfield, Edward N. Rappaport, Christopher W. Landsea.  The Deadliest, Costliest, and Most Intense United States Hurricanes From 1900 to 2000 (And Other Frequently Requested Hurricane Facts) (NOAA Technical Memorandum NWS TPC-1). Miami, FL:  NOAA NWS and Atlantic Oceanographic and Meteorological Laboratory, October 2001 Update.  Accessed at: http://www.aoml.noaa.gov/hrd/Landsea/deadly/index.html

 

Library of Congress World Digital Library. “View of the Damage from the Hurricane of 1906.” 10-22-2014 update. Accessed 1-12-2020 at: https://www.wdl.org/en/item/4031/

 

Longshore, David. “Mississippi,” p. 309 in Encyclopedia of Hurricanes, Typhoons, and Cyclones (New Edition). NYC: Facts On File, Inc., an imprint of Infobase Publishing, 2008. Accessed 1-12-2020 at:

https://books.google.com/books?id=8kXwskQHBLoC&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false

 

McGehee Tom (Museum Director of the Bellingrath Home). “A hurricane to remember: The tragic 1906 storm that struck Mobile.” Theodore, AL: Bellingrath Gardens and Home. Accessed 1-12-2020 at: https://bellingrath.org/a-hurricane-to-remember-the-tragic-1906-storm-that-struck-mobile/

 

Murray, Bill. “The 1906 Mobile Hurricane.” AlabamaWX Weather Blog. 9-27-2009. Accessed 1-12-2020 at: https://www.alabamawx.com/?p=23302

 

National Weather Service, Mobile/Pensacola Weather Forecast Office. September 27^th Hurricane of 1906. Sep 2019 update. Accessed 1-12-2020 at: https://www.weather.gov/mob/1906Hurricane

 

National Weather Service, New Orleans/Baton Rouge Weather Forecast Office. NWX LIX – Top Ten Events of 20^th Century (webpage). Slidell, LA. National Weather Service, NOAA. Accessed 1-12-2020 at: https://www.weather.gov/lix/20thcenturytopten

 

National Weather Service, New Orleans/Baton Rouge Weather Forecast Office. Top Weather Forecast Office, Weather Events of the 20^th Century within the NWSFO New Orleans/Baton Rouge Service Area. Slidell, LA: NWS, NOAA, 5-22-2009 last modified. At: http://www.srh.noaa.gov/lix/html/top10.htm

 

New York Times. “Hurricane in South Sweeps Several States…” 9-28-1906, p. 1. Accessed 1-12-2020 at: https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1906/09/28/101799501.html?pageNumber=1

 

Quincy Daily Herald, IL. “Unparalleled Heroism Amid Mobile Disaster.” 10-1-1906, p. 1. Accessed 1-12-2020 at: https://newspaperarchive.com/quincy-daily-herald-oct-01-1906-p-1/

 

Rappaport, Edward N. and Jose Fernandez-Partagas. The Deadliest Atlantic Tropical Cyclones, 1492-1994 (NOAA Technical Memorandum NWS NHC-47). Coral Gables, FL: National Hurricane Center, National Weather Service, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, U.S. Department of Commerce, January 1995, 42 pages. Accessed 8-20-2017 at:  http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/pdf/NWS-NHC-1995-47.pdf

 

Roth, David. Louisiana Hurricane History. Camp Springs, MD: NWS, p. 28. Accessed 1-12-2020 at: https://www.weather.gov/media/lch/events/lahurricanehistory.pdf

 

St. Regis Falls Adirondack News. “Fort Morgan Wrecked.” 10-6-1906, p. 2. Accessed 1-12-2020 at: https://newspaperarchive.com/saint-regis-falls-adirondack-news-oct-06-1906-p-2/

 

Salt Lake Herald, Salt Lake City UT. “Full Story Has Not Been Told. Harrowing Details of Havoc Wrought by Hurricane Beginning to Arrive.” 9-30-1906, p. 1. Accessed 1-12-2020 at: https://newspaperarchive.com/salt-lake-city-herald-sep-30-1906-p-1/

 

Singer, Steven D. Shipwrecks of Florida: A Comprehensive Listing (2^nd Ed.). Sarasota, FL: Pineapple Press, Inc., 1998. Partially digitized by Google. Accessed at:  http://books.google.com/books?id=6j6kjZQReqkC&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_navlinks_s#v=onepage&q=&f=false

 

The Citizen, Frederick, MD. “100 Soldiers Perish In Flood.” 10-5-1906, p. 1. Accessed 1-12-2020 at: https://newspaperarchive.com/frederick-citizen-oct-05-1906-p-1/

 

United States Bureau of Navigation, Department of Commerce and Labor. Thirty-Ninth Annual List of Merchant Vessels of the United States…For the Year Ended June 30, 1907. Part IV. “Loss of American Vessels Reported During Fiscal Year 1907.” Washington: Government Printing Office, 1907. Accessed 1-12-2020 at: https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=uc1.b3330071&view=1up&seq=7

 

Washington Post. “On Mississippi Sound.” 9-30-1906, p. 3. Accessed 1-12-2020 at: https://newspaperarchive.com/washington-post-sep-30-1906-p-11/

 

Wikipedia. “1906 Mississippi hurricane.” 4-15-2014 modification. Accessed 6-13-2014 at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1906_Mississippi_hurricane

 

[1] Bevin update of document by same name by Edward N. Rappaport and Jose Fernandez-Partagas, 28 May 1995. There are two references in Appendix 1: Cyclones with 25+ deaths. The first is Hebert, P. J., J. D. Jarrell, and M. Mayfield. The deadliest, costliest, and most intense United States hurricanes of this century (Technical Memorandum NWS-NHC-31, 1993, 41 pages. The second is: Monthly Weather Review. U.S. Weather Bureau.

[2] The low-end of our range starts with the approximately 100 people noted as killed, “mostly by drowning in the high tide” which swept the Mobile County coast. It is variously noted that 1-3 people died in Mobile and we use one death in the low range. We add the eight maritime deaths not noted in the Monthly Weather Review in that it was written the maritime loss was unknown at the time. This adds to 115. For the high end we use the First National Bank of Mobile and McGehee estimates of 150 people dying in the Mobile County coast, plus three in Mobile, and eight deaths off the schooners Agnes, Ethel, Margrette B, and Two Friends. These total to 159.

[3] “There was only one life lost in Mobile.”

[4] Cites: New York Times. “Mobile and Pensacola Devastated by Storms.” 9-29-1906.

[5] A transcription of the section “1906 – Hurricane Does $15,000,000 Damage” was accessed at GenDisasters.com.

[6] “As Mobile emerges from the ruin caused by the great hurricane and takes stock of its losses it counts a possible 125 dead….As the bodies of the victims of the storm are washed ashore they are buried where found, with scarcely any attempts at identification.”

[7] Cites the Monthly Weather Review to the effect that “about 100 persons lost their lives, mostly by drowning in the high tide” in southern Mobile County.

[8] St. Regis Falls Adirondack News. “Fort Morgan Wrecked.” 10-6-1906, p. 2.

[9] Cites: Chicago Tribune. “Blots on Coast Mark City Sites.” 9-30-1906. Blanchard note: Fort Morgan is at the west end of a strip of land extending west into Mobile Bay and is directly to the south of Mobile. If there were deaths in this vicinity (not surprising), we speculate these would have been included in the 100-150 lives lost along the AL coast, especially in Mobile County.

[10] Quincy Daily Herald, IL. “Unparalleled Heroism Amid Mobile Disaster.” 10-1-1906, p. 1.

[11] For the low end of the range we use Garriott/MWS for Pensacola loss of thirty-two lives (though we suspect it was 33) and add seven lost from the schooner William H. Warren (for a total of 39). For the high-end we use estimate of fifty lives lost in Pensacola used by the First National Bank of Mobile book and add the seven lives lost from the William H. Warren (57).

[12] Cites: Baltimore Sun. “35 Dead at Pensacola.” 9-30-1906.

[13] “Pensacola, Fla., Oct. 3. – Three additional deaths have been reported, swelling the list to thirty-three.”

[14] “The total known deaths are 32.” (column 2, 5^th line up from bottom)

[15] We have been unable to find confirmation.

[16] While six deaths were reported in the Miss. Sound, we located identification for only four, thus four is the low-end of our range. For the high end we use the number 78 used by Longshore. We note, however, we have not found supporting data, and thus this number seems suspicious to us.

[17] “In September 1906, the Pascagoula-Mobile Hurricane left 78 people dead in Mississippi…”

[18] Cites: Longshore. Encyclopedia of Hurricanes, Typhoons, and Cyclones (1^st Ed.) Facts on File, 1998, 230.

[19] Salt Lake Herald. “Full Story Has Not Been Told. Harrowing Details of Havoc Wrought by Hurricane Beginning to Arrive.” 9-30-1906, p. 1.

[20] Cites: NWS NOLA/Biloxi WFO. Top Weather Events of 20^th Century within the NWSFO…, 2008.

— 2 Blanchard.

We note this loss in that there have been a number of reports of the entire crew of twelve being lost. The earliest such reporting we have seen is the US Bureau of Navigation report of twelve lives lost – in one line in a table titled “Part IV. Loss of American Vessels Reported During Fiscal Year 1906.” We speculate this is the source used by Gibbs, noted below, and others. We do not know where the Bureau of Navigation got its information, but it is incorrect. It is clear from the lengthy description of this loss in the U.S. Life-Saving Service report cited below, and from newspaper accounts of the time, such as the Oakland Tribune account we cite, that the loss of life was two not twelve.

–12 Gibbs, Jim. Disaster Log of Ships. 1971, p. 19.
–12 US Bureau of Navigation. List of Merchant Vessels of the United States…1906, p. 385.
— 2 Oakland Tribune, CA. “Schooner is Wrecked; 2 Drown, 10 are Saved.” 6-12-1906, p. 1.
— 2 US Life-Saving Service. “Wreck of the gasoline schooner Corinthian, June 11, 1906,” p.42.

Narrative Information

US Bureau of Navigation: “Corinthian…94 [tons] 1892 [built]…12 [crew size]…12 [lives lost]…Stranded…June 11, 1906…Humboldt Bar, Cal.”

US Life-Saving Service: “The Corinthian was a 94-ton gasoline schooner, carrying a crew of 12 men, including her captain, L. E. Atwater, and hailing from Eureka, California. The estimated value of the vessel is given as $12,000, and that of her cargo, consisting of lumber, shakes, and shingles, at $1,000. The disaster, which involved the loss of two members of the crew, occurred on June 11, 1906, the schooner having stranded at about 6 p.m. of that day on the western side of the peninsula separating Humboldt Bay from the ocean, two or three hundred yards off shore, and 3 miles northward of the Humboldt Bay life-saving station. The Corinthian left Eureka in the afternoon of the day mentioned en route to San Francisco. When she set out there was a light breeze from the south and the water was quiet, but by the time she had passed out between North Spit and South Spit, the wind had freshened considerably, and there was a strong sea running.

“From Eureka down to the bay entrance the distance is 5 or 6 miles. The bay is a long, narrow body of water from one-half mile to a mile wide, with a tortuous channel, and separated from the ocean by a low, barren, sandy peninsula, from one-half to three-fourths of a mile across. The life-saving station stands on the bay side of the peninsula about half a mile from its point, called North Spit. By boat the distance from the statin down around the point and out to the bar is perhaps 2 miles. Directly across the spit westward half a mile is the station boathouse, a mile from the bar, where are stored one of the Service boats, a beach cart and apparatus, and other life-saving equipment for use in case of disast4r on the ocean side of the peninsula – this arrangement making it possible for the station crew frequently to save much valuable time in answering calls of distress.

“Ahead of the Corinthian, as she neared the bay entrance, could be seen the breakers coming in pretty high, but, anticipating no difficulty in crossing, Captain Atwater kept his course, choosing the south channel in which to make the attempt. The vessel began to encounter trouble, however, as she approached the bar, and her deck load added materially to the difficulty of controlling her. She had little more than entered the breakers when a sea swept completely over her, disabling her machinery and starting the cargo. All hands except the man at the wheel, who was lashed to his post, and a man in the galley, named A. McCory, took to the rigging. Almost instantly following the first sea came another, which tore the galley loose and swept if over the side, taking McCory with it, and also further disarranging the deck load. The galley went by the board so quickly that the shipmates of the unfortunate man could have done nothing to save him had they been on deck and dared to make the attempt, and, of course, once in the sea he was beyond all possibility of aid from aboard ship.

“Realizing that the schooner must certainly be thrown on the shore if no effort were made to regain control of her, the captain and crew undertook, at great risk, to hoist the foresail, hoping to escape through the north channel, but before they had half accomplished their hazardous task the sail was split in two by flying pieces from the deck load, which rendered it useless. With the sail destroyed there was nothing further the crew could do in an endeavor to escape from their perilous situation, and the vessel was swept rapidly northward, all the time in broken water. When she had drifted a mile or more her two anchors were let go in the hope that she might fetch up head to and ride it out until the sea moderated, or until assistance might reach her, but the anchors failed to hold, and she continued to drift, finally taking bottom in the breakers. After she struck, the waves beat over her even more violently than before, carrying away her cargo of lumber and filling the water about her sides and toward the beach with the debris. Within a few moments after the stranding one of the sailors, named Simpson, left his place in the rigging, and against the remonstrance of the captain and mate jumped overboard and struck out for the sore.

“It appears that a number of persons had observed the schooner’s plight from the village of Samoa, on the ocean side of the peninsula, and from a shipyard on the bay, and had assembled on the beach abreast of her soon after the stranding. Among them was Alexander McLean, who had formerly been a member of the Life-Saving Service, part of the time as a keeper of the Point Adams station. When Simpson jumped overboard, McLean and a man named Peterson rushed out into the surf among the threshing timbers and brought him safe to land. Another member of the crew, named Carlson, seeing the success of his shipmate, essayed, against the entreaties of the captain and mate, to get ashore in the same manner, but was swept away and drowned….” [The next three-plus pages of the account details the life-saving measures which resulted in the successful rescue of the remaining crew, with a loss-of-life of the two crew members noted above.]

Newspaper

June 12: “Eureka, Cal., June 12. – While crossing Humboldt bar last evening and attempting to navigate through the south channel the gasoline schooner Corinthian, Walter Coggeshalt, managing owner, Captain Atwater, master, took aboard a huge sea, causing her to become a total wreck. The disaster was marked by two fatalities. The Dead: Andrew McCarry, student at the University of California. Ole Carson, sailor….” (Oakland Tribune, CA. “Schooner is Wrecked; 2 Drown, 10 are Saved.” 6-12-1906, p. 1.

Sources

Gibbs, Jim. Disaster Log of Ships: A Pictorial account of shipwrecks, California to Alaska. NY: Bonanza Books, 1971.

Oakland Tribune, CA. “Schooner is Wrecked; 2 Drown, 10 are Saved. Corinthian, En Route to San Francisco, is Beached While Crossing Humboldt Bar.” 6-12-1906, p. 1. Accessed 2-2-2022 at: https://newspaperarchive.com/oakland-tribune-jun-12-1906-p-1/

United States Bureau of Navigation, Department of Commerce and Labor. Thirty-Eighth Annual List of Merchant Vessels of the United States…For the Year Ended June 30, 1906. Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1906. Digitized by Google. Accessed 2-1-2022 at: http://books.google.com/books?id=ROEYAAAAYAAJ&printsec=frontcover&dq=editions:LCCNsn88028129&lr=#v=onepage&q=&f=false

United States Life-Saving Service. “Wreck of the gasoline schooner Corinthian, June 11, 1906,” pp. 42-48 in Annual Report of the United States Life-Saving Service for the Fiscal Year Ended June 30, 1906. Accessed 2-2-2022 at: https://books.google.com/books?id=7JRIAQAAIAAJ&printsec=frontcover&vq=wreck+of+schooner+corinthian+1906+humboldt+bay#v=onepage&q&f=false

Compiled by B. Wayne Blanchard, Dec 2008, modified May 2012 and Jan 2020, for website: Deadliest American Disasters and Large-Loss-Of-Life Events. https://www.usdeadlyevents.com/

 

—    6,000  Lloyd’s. “San Francisco Earthquake. Lloyd’s and…[SF] earthquake 1906 (high est.).^[1]

—    5,000  Fradkin P. L. The Great Earthquake and Firestorms of 1906. 2005, 191 (high est.)^[2]

—    5,000  Townsend. The Federal Response to Hurricane Katrina: Lessons Learned. 2006, Table 1.2.[3]

—    3,188  Centre for Research…Epidemiology of Disasters. EM DAT Database (quake & fire)

—    3,000  Fradkin P. L. The Great Earthquake and Firestorms of 1906. 2005, 191 (low est.).

—    3,000  Gunn. “San Francisco, California, Earthquake,” Ch. 57 in Encyclopedia of Disasters.

—  >3,000  Hansen, Gladys, and Emmet Condon. Denial of Disaster.  San Francisco, CA. 1989.

—  >3,000  Lloyd’s. “Earthquake:  Californian Risks.”  11-11-2008.

—  ~3,000  Lloyd’s. “San Francisco Earthquake. Lloyd’s and the [SF] earthquake, 1906.”^[4]

—    3,000  Lloyd’s Market 2006 (low est.)

—  ~3,000  Solnit, Rebecca. A Paradise Built In Hell. 2009, p. 15.

—    3,000  Spignesi Stephen J. The 100 Greatest Disasters of All Time. 2007, p. 140.

—    3,000  Steinberg, Ted. “Smoke and Mirrors…” Ch 4 in Biel, American Disasters. 2001, 105.

—  >3,000  USGS. Casualties and damage after the 1906 Earthquake (webpage).[5]

—  ~3,000  USGS. Deaths in U.S. from Earthquakes.  2008

—    3,000  USGS. Historic Earthquakes:  San Francisco, California, 1906 94 18 13:12:21 UTC.

—  >3,000  Wells. “Lloyd’s sees 1906 [SF quake]…turning point.” Insurance Journal, 5-8-2006.

—    2,000  Centre for Research on the Epidemiology of Disasters. EM DAT. (earthquake)

—    1,188  Centre for Research on the Epidemiology of Disasters. EM DAT. (fire)

–700-800  NOAA. A Study of Earthquake Losses in the San Francisco Bay Area…  1972.

—       700  Sanders, D.E.A. The Management of Losses Arising from Extreme Events.  2002, 139.

—       700  NOAA, Nat. Geophysical Data Center. Significant Earthquake Database.  (quake)

—       503  Drabek, Thomas E. The Human Side of Disaster.  CRC Press, 2010, 29.

—       500  Smith, Roger. Catastrophes and Disasters. 1992, p. 48.^[6]

—       498  Greely, A. W. “Special Report…Relief Operations…San Francisco…” 1906.

—       400  Walker, John. Disasters. Chicago: Follett Publishing Co., 1973, p. 13.

—       300  Metcalf, Sec., Dept. of Commerce, Statement in Insurance Engineering 4-26-1906.

 

–11  Land/mudslides.  Highland/Schuster. Significant Landslide Events…[US]. USGS, 2003, 6.

 

Narrative Information

Insurance Engineering: “San Francisco, the wooden metropolis of the Pacific Coast and ninth largest city in the United States, which had until recently ‘violated all underwriting traditions and precedent by not burning up,’ is in ruins.  The destruction was caused by earthquake and fire, chiefly fire.

 

“Practically the entire business portion of the city is gone…and serious damage has been done in the residential sections.

 

“The property loss by fire will probably exceed $175,000,000…From these figures, it will be seen that the disaster will rank as the world’s greatest fire in modern times….Apparently reliable reports say positively that the damage done by the earthquake shocks was slight.  The greatest damage was caused by fire.

 

“Chief D. J. Sullivan of the fire department was fatally injured in the California Hotel, in which he was sleeping.  That building partly collapsed from one of the first shocks….

 

“The grave consequences of this disaster, affecting deeply Federal, interstate, State, commercial and social interests, prompted the United States Government to send a representative to make an official report. This representative, the Hon. V. H. Metcalf, Secretary of the Department of Commerce and Labor, reported April 26 as follows:

 

Fort Mason, San Francisco, April 26. To the President, White House, Washington, D. C.

 

DEAR SIR : Have practically completed inspection of the ruined districts. I do not believe the loss of life will be as great as was anticipated.

 

In my judgment it will be impossible to determine the exact number of deaths, but conservative estimates place the number at not to exceed 300. There are about 1,000 sufferers in local hospitals, and probably not over 400 are seriously injured. No necessity exists at the present time for nurses or doctors, and they should not be sent except on recommendation of Gen. Greely or Dr. Devine.

 

As regards industrial and commercial losses, the con­ditions are appalling. Figures and distances convey slight conception of realities. Not only have the business and industrial houses and establishments of one-half million people disappeared, leaving them destitute financially and their means of livelihood temporarily gone, but the com­plicated system of transportation, indispensable to the daily comfort and interests of the half-million of people, has been almost totally destroyed. The hilly configuration of San Francisco made movements by street railway almost indispensable.

 

Over the city’s area of twenty-five square miles the entire system of railway was damaged or destroyed and has not as yet been operated. The scanty supply of animals and carriages remaining after the fire has been largely impressed into civil and military service in order to prevent starvation. The entire telegraphic and telephonic systems were de­stroyed, making communication impossible.

 

Practically every municipal building is destroyed, forcing the city officials into scanty quarters, necessarily situated in localities difficult of access, owing to distances and lack of transportation. Three hundred thousand people were rend­ered homeless and their ordinary methods for providing themselves with food and clothing and shelter being entirely destroyed, their feeding and sheltering demanded extraor­dinary action and engrossed the attention of every one as soon as the ravages of fire were checked

 

Remedial methods, adopted and prosecuted with great efficiency, have relieved this unprecedented disaster. The citizens’ committee, appointed by Mayor Schmitz, is com­posed of the ablest business men of the city, and their efforts, united and harmonious to an astonishing degree, speedily brought order out of chaos and introduced systems of relief which have accomplished wonders. The efforts of the Mayor and municipal officers, of the citizens’ committee and of the regular army and of the State Guard of California have been practically as efficient as though the separate authorities were under one head. Neither friction nor reflec­tion has at any time appeared, and the work of relief has proceeded harmoniously, continuously and efficiently.

 

The street railway system is rapidly approaching such a state of repair as to promise partial renewal of operation very soon. The signal corps has established a military sys­tem of telegraphic and telephonic lines connecting the head­quarters of the army and of the Mayor, which are at Fort Mason, with the Mint, Hall of Justice, district headquarters, the ferry and every point of special importance. Without this system communication about the city would have been impossible, and with the national and State authorities would have been greatly delayed.

 

Gen. Greely, returning from leave, resumed command Sunday evening, and commends in the highest terms the efficient, and tireless efforts of Gen. Funston, whose orders and action inspired the army to most efficient action in stay­ing the progress of the flames and saving the remnant of the city. Gen. Greely’s opinion is concurred in by the Mayor and the citizens’ committee.

 

Most threatening conditions existed as regards the water supply, but extraordinary efforts on the part of the water company have remedied the situation, which is improving from day to day, so that physical suffering from lack of water is impossible, although it cannot be delivered in suffi­cient quantities for proper sanitation. I am assured by Gen. Greely and others that the methods of relief and restoration were so efficient that no person has suffered from lack of food, water or shelter.

 

The question of sanitation is receiving special attention. The entire city is inspected daily by four trained mounted officers, who report regularly the situation and necessities. The fortifications are practically uninjured. Considerable damage was done to the military buildings at the Presidio and on Angel Island. Reports indicate that there was no damage to the buildings on Alcatraz Island.

 

The army warehouses in the city were entirely destroyed. The Mint and Appraisers’ buildings are practically intact. The Sub-Treasury is entirely destroyed. Opinions differ as to the extent of injuries to the Post Office. It is not believed any vaults in the Sub-Treasury or any banking institution in the city have suffered any material damage.

 

It is impossible to give an accurate estimate of the cost of repairs to public buildings, but from personal inspection of the building and from figures given me by competent builders I should say that the Appraiser’s building would cost for repairs about $1,000; Mint, $15,000; and the Post Office building not to exceed $500,000. Dr. Devine arrived Tues­day and co-operative action is already initiated, insuring harmony between the citizens’ committee, the Red Cross agents and the military authorities as to the line of action to be followed in the future.

 

Gen. Greely has agreed in writing to take over, as asked by the Mayor, the citizens’ committee and Dr. Devine, the responsibility of handling the relief supplies and the delivery, under suitable regulations, to the needy and destitute. It is reported to me that no discrimination of any kind has been shown against any one on account of race or color. The spirit is to assist the suffering whoever they may be. Cases of violence and crime have been exceedingly rare.

 

The health of the city is remarkably good, everything considered. Stories regarding pestilence and epidemics are destitute of foundation. Every care is being taken to pre­vent epidemics or extended sickness in the future, especially by providing against contamination of water supply and for the proper disposal of refuse of all kinds.

 

At the meeting of the citizens’ committee this morning, at which were present Gov. Pardee, Mayor Schmitz, Dr. Devine, Gens. Greely and Funston and other officers of the army, it was determined to move the Chinese to the military reservation at the Presidio, where they will be under the direction and supervision of the army, and where especial attention can be paid to matters of sanitation.

 

The Chinese Consul called on me to-day, and when in­formed of this arrangement expressed his gratification. I shall visit the Chinese camps this afternoon for the purpose of ascertaining their exact condition from personal inspec­tion and examination.

 

It is almost impossible to describe the ruin wrought by the earthquake and especially by the conflagration. The conflagration was due entirely to the absolute lack of water supply. The people, however, are confident and hopeful for the future and have not in any sense lost their courage. They feel under deep obligation to you and the National Government for the prompt and efficient assistance rendered them.

 

I strongly urge that Congress at once appropriate suffi­cient money to repair the damage to the public buildings and for the building of another Sub-Treasury in place of the one destroyed. I shall report to you later the damage caused in other sections of the State.

 

1. H. METCALF.

 

“….The earthquake shocks broke water pipes in the streets and several fires started at about the same time in the ruins of collapsed buildings, both of which made the public fire department helpless…”  (Insurance Engineering. “San Francisco in Ruins,” Vol. 11, No. 5, May 1906, pp. 395-402.)

….

 

“Under date of April 29, Chief Inspector F. H. Porter of the Fire Underwriters’ Inspection Bureau, located at San Francisco, makes the accompanying brief report, which has been transmitted by the National Fire Protection Association:

 

“Except that the loss of life is exaggerated, no report that you may have can be worse than the reality. At this date, ten days after the fire, we are without water to protect what is left of San Francisco (one tap in each block for domestic supply only), without a fire alarm system, have neither power nor light, can cook only in the street, are without transporta­tion and still under martial law.

 

“The necessity for directing every energy to the preven­tion of the use of fire in the remaining buildings, and for in­specting as rapidly as possible the remaining kitchen chim­neys so as to get people off the streets when water becomes available, will prevent any systematic personal investigation of the effects of the earthquake and fire, jointly or severally. It, however, is apparent that the protected steel frame build­ings suffered but trifling damage from the earthquake, and the wooden buildings suffered little unless very old. The buildings of fireproof construction burned very slowly and where the top floors and trim were not of wood suffered com­paratively small damage.

 

“No building of the protected steel class with wood top floors, wood frames and sashes, and wood trim has any chance of withstanding a general conflagration with less than seventy per cent damage.

 

“The earthquake started at once a large number of fires in the business section and at the same time destroyed the large water mains supplying the reservoirs. The supply in the reservoirs and street mains appears to have been dissi­pated by the simultaneous breaking of thousands of building services as well as by damage to street mains, which latter can as yet be only guessed at. At this date there is appar­ently sufficient water coming into the city for all, but with the burned district shut off no water accumulates in the res­ervoirs and there is but little in the street mains in some sec­tions of the city and none in others. While an independent water supply for fire purposes only would not have suffered from broken service connections, it is impossible at this writ­ing to say whether or not such mains would have retained efficiency.

 

“The stopping of this fire in the best residence section at a wide boulevard with only dynamite and a trifle of water (all buildings frame on boulevard), shows the value of such a wide street. We hope to get in several in the rebuilding of the burned district.”

 

(Insurance Engineering.  “San Francisco in Ruins,” Vol. 11, No. 5, May 1906, pp. 408-.409)

 

“In planning for another San Francisco, shall the present or the future be considered? Will the city try to avoid another disaster from fire, or will the city simply provide what appear to be the immediate needs — shelter for the municipal depart­ments and for business houses?

 

Insurance Engineering is not unmindful of the fact that the first cost of rebuilding of fire-resistive construction would be greater than rebuilding along the old lines — the old San Francisco was 90 per cent wood — but what about the investment represented by the capital put into buildings that cannot be de­stroyed by ordinary fires?

 

“The present is an opportunity that should not be lost for San Francisco to avoid certain vital mistakes made in the past.  These features of the new city should be carefully considered at once:

 

Width and paving of streets.

Building laws and enforcement.

Water supply.

Fire department.

Fire alarm system.

Fire department auxiliaries.

Explosives and inflammables.

Electricity.

Special fire protection in congested value districts.

 

“The spreading of fires is due to these causes: Combustible or weak walls; combustible or weak roofs; lack of parapeted walls; wooden cornices, superstructures, awnings, signs, etc wooden bridges connecting buildings; combustible or weak di­vision walls; concealed spaces in division walls; inflammable interior surfaces (varnished, oiled or painted wood, papier mache, lincrusta walton, etc.); combustible or weak parti­tions; concealed spaces in partitions; combustible or weak floors; concealed spaces in floors; combustible floor supports; unprotected metallic floor supports; combustible ceilings; concealed spaces in ceilings; concealed spaces in roofs; unprotect­ed windows; unprotected doorways; unprotected skylights; open stairways; open elevator shafts; open hoistways; open dumbwaiter shafts; chutes without doors at openings; belt and shaft openings.

 

Conflagrations (fires involving three buildings or more) are due chiefly to these causes: Generally poor construction of buildings; unprotected exposing window openings; unprotect­ed communications between buildings; narrow streets; lack of proper building laws; non-enforcement of building laws; lack of fire limits.”  (Insurance Engineering.  “San Francisco in Ruins,” Vol. 11, No. 5, May 1906, pp. 410 & 412)

 

“There are no real reinforced concrete buildings in San Francisco because there has always been objection on the part of the labor unions.” (Insurance Engineering, Vol. 11, N5, May 1906, 420.)

 

From Journal of Commerce (NY) Editorial:

 

A problem peculiar to San Francisco will be presented by the wiping out of Chinatown, whose mixture of barbaric and squalid picturesqueness there is no desire to have restored. It is a question whether Chinatown and ghettos in American cities can be avoided with due consideration for certain alien elements in their population which can­not or will not assimilate with the rest. Altogether San Francisco has before it a problem and a task that would be ap­palling but for the courage, energy and hopefulness of the people, and the help to be derived from the resources and ad­vantages of the country as a whole, and the co-operation of all its economic forces In the repair of places that are laid waste.  (Quoted in:  Insurance Engineering, Vol. 11, N5, May 1906, 459.)

 

From New York Times Editorial:

 

The gist of the difficulty in San Francisco is how to replace with fireproof buildings the vast number that were cheaply built of wood and served as fuel for the con­flagration before which many of the great buildings and multitudes of the more expensive dwellings went down helplessly. If the highly inflammable structures crowded in great masses over extended sections of the town cannot thus be replaced and at a feasible cost. then the renewal of the awful risk is as certain as anything can be. For this work there is needed some material that Is at once substantially indestructible by fire and sufficiently inexpensive. (Quoted in:  Insurance Engineering, Vol. 11, N5, May 1906, 460.)

 

From New York Sun Editorial:

 

There seems to be no doubt that more people have been rendered homeless in San Francisco than have ever before been deprived of shelter by a conflagra­tion. with the possible exception of the burning of Rome….

 

As for the value of the property de­stroyed, no data handed down concerning other earthquakes or conflagrations ap­proximate the figures tentatively put for­ward for San Francisco. The total value of the buildings burned in the great fire of London — most of them were small wooden houses — fell short of $54,000 000. The loss incurred by the burning of Mos­cow in 1812 has been placed at 150,000,­000. The value of the buildings blown up or set on fire in Paris by Communist in­cendiaries in May, 1871, is set at $160,000,000. The loss caused by the Chicago fire in 1871 has been estimated at $195,000,000.

 

None of these figures are comparable with those indicated by the San Fran­cisco catastrophe, which from a pecuni­ary point of view seems to have been the most destructive known to history. The total assessed valuation of taxable prop­erty in that city, real and personal, was a little more than $524.000,000. which was presumed to be about 70 per cent. of the actual value. If half of the actual aggregate value has been annihilated the loss would be about $875,000,000.  (Quoted in: Insurance Engineering, Vol. 11, N5, May 1906, 461.)

 

From New Haven Leader (CN):

 

The San Francisco calamity is not without Its value in a broad sense, how­ever much we may regret the suffering and losses which have come upon the people of this unfortunate city.

 

Political economists will read many lessons — some immediate, some remote — in the experience of an Francisco; but one has already been writ plain and definite. Playing with fire is expensive, and cities which build with wood, ig­noring all conditions of safety, are invit­ing conflagration, are sure in the end to pay the penalty. (Quoted in: Insurance Engineering, Vol. 11, N5, May 1906, 461.)

 

From the Milwaukee Evening Wisconsin:

 

The more the San Francisco calamity is studied, the smaller becomes the promi­nence of the earthquake as the ultimate cause of disaster and the larger looms the fire. Of course the earthquake start­ed the blaze and aggravated the difficulty of controlling it. The earthquake crossed electric wires, and broke gas-pipes, and made stoves and furnaces a source of danger instead of a source of comfortable utility. The earthquake wrecked the water mains and made the hydrants un­available for the purpose of putting out the fires, so that fire engines, when they arrived at points of danger, were useless. But the primary condition which made the conflagration possible, and even in­evitable, under the circumstances, was the character of the construction of the city. The San Francisco which Is now no more was for the most part a flagrant illustration of the truth of the saying that Americans build to burn.

 

(Quoted in: Insurance Engineering, V11, N5, May 1906, 464.)

 

Insurance Engineering: “The more the San Francisco fire disaster is studied the more apparent it becomes that the total loss has been greatly underestimated, the that the question of rebuilding the city is a for more serious problem than was at first supposed.  The latest estimates of the property loss, based on more thorough examinations than were possible until order had been restored, put the total at $300,000,000.  Probably not less than 50,000 buildings were destroyed.  The burned area is more than twice as large as that of the Chicago conflagration of 1871.” (Insurance Engineering, “What Shall We do for Credit?” V. 12, N. 1, July 1906, p. 3.)

 

Steinberg: “The 1906 earthquake (M7.7) occurred along the San Andreas fault (the most visible strike-slip fault in the world) and resulted in a rupture of the earth’s surface that extended more than 250 miles.  Although felt as far south as Los Angeles, as far north as southern Oregon, and as far east as central Nevada, the earthquake is still commonly understood as exclusively a San Francisco calamity.  In fact, however, the jolt caused extensive damage throughout northern California.

 

“The shock occurred a little after 5 A.M. and lasted about one minute.  Subsequently, fires erupted in San Francisco as electrical wires were severed and gas mains exploded. The fires burned for three days over an area of almost five square miles.  Unable to stem the blaze because underground water mains had been damaged in the seismic jolt, the fire department stood by as more than 28,000 commercial and residential buildings succumbed to the flames.  Annihilated were the business district, vast parts of the factory and entertainment areas, and the major hotels and restaurants, as well as nearly all of the city’s most important buildings.  Exactly how many people died remains unclear…but three thousand is by no means far-fetched.”  (Steinberg 2001, 105)

 

Russell Sage Foundation: In 1913 Survey Associates, Inc. published the San Francisco Relief Survey, compiled by the Russell Sage Foundation (510 pages). The June 28, 1913 edition of the Survey Associates weekly publication, The Survey (Vol. XXX, No, 13, pp. 435-436), provides a review by  John F. Moors, reproduced below.

 

“The San Francisco Relief Survey contains the results of a study carried on during several years under the auspices of the Russell Sage Foundation.  When the study was undertaken the field was divided under six topics:  Organizing the Force and Emergency Methods, Rehabilitation, Business Rehabilitation, Housing Rehabilitation, Relief Work of the Associated Charities (after June, 1907), and Care of the Aged and Infirm.  Each of these divisions was placed in the hands of an experienced investigator who had been closely associated with the relief work.

 

“The chief aim of the study was to preserve for the guidance of workers in future disasters, as well as of those daily engaged in administering relief measures, a record of the lessons learned and the results attained in this colossal relief undertaking.

 

“The plan has been well carried out.  The volume gives an authentic and illuminating description not only of the relief measures which followed the earthquake of April 18, 1906, and the succeeding conflagration, but of the methods pursued by a force of experts, co-operating with public-spirited citizens, in dealing with the great problem of permanent rehabilitation.

 

“The burned area comprised ‘the very heart and vitals of the city’. The number of buildings destroyed was 28,188, the number of persons made homeless about 200,000.  The property loss has been estimated at $500,000,000, of which only $200,000,000 is believed to have been collected from the insurance companies.

 

“The seriousness of the situation following the disaster was enhanced by the comparative isolation of the city and by complete industrial paralysis.  Not a mercantile establishment remained open.  There was no water; not a pound of beef or a loaf of bread could be bought; no man or woman could earn a cent.  At first, haste was essential in securing and distributing supplies and confusion was inevitable.  No one knew what funds would be available or what would be needed.

 

“The first attempt at organization was made by the Mayor, Eugene E. Schmitz.  Hardly had the conflagration begun when he named a citizen’s committee of fifty persons.  This committee created a sub-committee, called the Finance Committee, with ex-Mayor James D. Phelan as chairman, bud did little else.  With the prompt arrival from New York of Edward T. Devine, all-important unification was sought, and the Finance Committee became the Finance Committee of Relief and Red Cross Funds, which in co-operation with the United States Army, soon gained a fairly complete control of the relief activities.

 

“The city was divided into seven sections, each in charge of an army officer and a civilian chairman.  Orderly distribution of relief thus became possible and the situation was sufficiently mastered to put into effect intelligent devices for reducing the vast numbers dependent on relief giving.  The daily rations ranged, April 25 to May 2 (inclusive), from 306,000 to 313,000.  By June 23 they or their equivalent at the hot-meal kitchens were reduced to 15,451.

 

“The reawakening of industry and the efforts of each stricken person to solve his own problems should be given first place in this record of achievement.  But a prompt, if faulty, registration, distribution of rations, gradually less frequent, the later introduction of hot-meal kitchens which were never popular – in place of the distribution of rations, and the rehabilitation work, were essential factors.

 

“Rehabilitation was proposed May 5, 1906 barely two weeks after the disaster, when chaos seemed likely to continue indefinitely, and became from that time on the all-important interest of the relief workers.  Altogether 20,241 families were assisted by the rehabilitation committees.  These families probably comprised nearly, if not quite, 100,000 persons.  As much as $500 each was given to 647 families.  Rehabilitation consisted of free or reduced rate transportation to other communities, gifts or loans of tools, re-establishment in trade, the building of modest houses, and the setting up of respectable people as lodging house keepers.

 

“The giving or loaning of tools enabled thousands of mechanics to resume self-supporting occupations.  In re-establishing people in trade or as lodging house keepers a sharp line was drawn between applicants with well-conceived and those with only vague plans.  Thus the destitute were spurred to develop intelligent solutions of their own problems.  On June 1, 1906, about 40,000 persons were living in tents and shacks in the public squares.  To house them was a prime necessity.  The working out of this problem is described in Part IV of the study.

 

“In 1908, two years after the disaster, 894 of the families who had been aided to start in business were revisited to obtain data on results for the Relief Survey.  Of these, 507 were still in business in which they had been started, 66 were employed in similar kinds of business, 65 in other kinds.  Of the remaining 256, 29 were known to have died, 31 to have left San Francisco, and 119 were not found.

 

“The taking over of relief work by the Associated Charities in June, 1907, one year after the disaster, when it became possible to place the remaining dependents on a more normal relief basis, was necessarily full of difficulty, but is shown to have been well carried out.  While the burden of dependency is shown to have been greater after than before the disaster, judicious use of the relief funds and improvements in organization made better results possible.

 

“An account of the care of the aged and infirm, and of the establishment of a permanent relief home forms a particularly interesting section of the study.

 

“Certain dangers to efficiency and success, due to interference from persons or organizations not closely in touch with the work, or from those who may be acting from ulterior motives, are well brought out.  For about two months after the disaster the work of relief had made extraordinary progress, considering the magnitude of the problem.  In June, a commission of three persons was created, to take complete charge.  On June 22, to the dismay of the relief givers, the balance of power on this commission was placed in the hands of an untrained politician.  The rehabilitation work was skillfully withheld from this commission and on August 1 the commission resigned.  At a most critical period (August, 1906) certain eastern funds were withheld because of ill-informed, reckless, and most unfortunate stories circulated with regard to relief work.  Moreover, those who controlled these funds never fully grasped the need of unification.  The Relief Survey says:  ‘It cannot be too plainly stated that there must be only one relief committee or corporation’.  Another lesson learned in the rehabilitation work was that the central committee should insist on its own standards of investigation and not accept as final the recommendations of clergymen and outside societies, however respectable.

 

Prior to June 1, 1909, the cash contributions sent to the central relief-giving body amounted to $9,116,944.11.  In addition, large sums were sent to other agencies and to individuals.  An appropriation of $2,500,000 was made by Congress.  Notwithstanding the sensational stories spread in the East of the maladministration of the relief funds, bot the local auditors and the auditor of the War Department found that the funds had been scrupulously and successfully guarded.

 

“The relief of San Francisco was a monumental achievement.  In spite of the suddenness of the almost overwhelming catastrophe, one problem after another was mastered.  The plans devised and put into effect should serve as an object lesson, if and when other similar disasters occur.”

 

(Sage, Russell Foundation. San Francisco Relief Survey, The Survey (Vol. XXX, No, 13, pp. 435-436), review by  John F. Moors)

 

Insurance Engineering: Under date of September 1, William F. Burbank, a director of the United States National Bank and vice-presi­dent of the State Savings and Com­mercial Bank, addressed the following communication to the New York Sun, bearing on the conditions existing in San Francisco immediately following the fire and the conditions now:

 

For many days following the disaster there was business paralysis. The es­sential things were food and shelter. A succession of legal holidays suspended the maturity of all obligations. Pastors of fashionable churches stood in the bread line, bondholders walked the streets without money to get accommo­dations, which, in many cases, even money could not buy. Lawyers were without books, doctors without medi­cines, surgeons without instruments. Out of this extraordinary chaos came, nev­ertheless, business activity. The one thought of business men was to get re­established somehow, somewhere. There was no longer a business centre. The hanks had headquarters in the homes of their presidents or cashiers. The insur­ance men were scattered on both sides of a wide bay.

 

Removing the debris takes an army of men and teams. The 25,000 men engaged in reconstruction are a grossly inadequate number. There is need for as many more. Wages are higher than in any other city on earth. The great work of reconstruction goes bravely on, hampered, however, by strikes and de­mands for increased wages. The prop­erty owner is  also forced to face a con­siderable advance in the price of all building materials.

 

From April 18 to June 4 every day was a legal holiday. Real business life, therefore, began the first week In June. Judge, then, the phoenix-like character of San Francisco when, ten weeks later. there were over 6.000 firms doing busi­ness in the burned district and 5,000 temporary buildings were under con­struction.

 

(Insurance Engineering.  Vol. 12, No. 3, Sep 1906, p. 252.)

 

Fitzpatrick: “The people put up the money for building, they direct in a general way what they want in the matter of space, etc., but, manifestly, they cannot be expected to also direct how build­ing should best be done to prevent its destruction by fire, or in the matter of its sanitation, heating, etc. That is the province of the architect.  He is the expert who is supposed to know all about and to control all those details. In the vernacular, it is “up to him.” How well he has acquitted himself of the task can best be illustrated by the fact that in all our country there are about 11,500,000 buildings; their value is something like $14,500,000,000, and of all that number there are but 4,000 whose authors even claim as at all fireproof.  In most cases that fireproofness is limited solely to the structural or skeleton part of the building. In all else they are about as flimsily constructed as is the most “ordinary” building. Of those 4,000, there is but one building, the Underwriters’ Laboratories in Chicago, where all the known methods of fireproofing are as­sembled under one roof, but one absolutely fireproof building in this great country of ours. The others of even the 4,000 are dam­ageable from 20 to 90 per cent of their cost value.

 

“It would seem that the average architects, or even the best of them, believe that by fireproofing the structural steel with hollow tile or with the various substitutes, concrete, etc., etc., some sort of occult transformation takes place and they are relieved by that one act from doing anything else in the fire­proofing line. If you don’t think that that is so glance at the illustrations and the several reports of the San Francisco fire. Had $10,000,000 more been spent originally on the buildings of that city, it would have meant the saving of at least $100,000,000 in the conflagration; or, to be more specific, if the architects of the thirty-five so-called fireproof buildings had exercised judgment enough to have spent $600,000 more on their construction, or rather shifted that amount from wonderful orna­ments and fine marbles to the greater essentials of fire prevention, they would have saved those buildings intact, buildings in which at least $9,000,000 destruction has been wrought. Simpler still, had the single precaution been taken of protecting the windows of those buildings, an additional ex­penditure or a shifting of not over $60,000, from frivolous or­namentation to that necessity, the interiors and contents of those buildings would have been intact today!

 

“With those facts clearly before me and a long list of others, the accumulation of twenty-odd years’ most intimate association with the practitioners, there is enough to justify me in the claim that our architects show lack of skill, if not actual stupidity or criminal negligence, in planning their buildings….

 

“The architects’ training is somewhat against them. Their earliest lessons are in the artistic line and all too often the schools, the older practitioners and all the influences surround­ing the youngsters conspire to give them a haughty disregard of things merely practical. Let the bids on any building come to more than the owner intends spending and watch the architect pare down to get within the limit. He will cut off the fire­proofing even of the steel, he will rip out the very bowels of that building if he can only preserve what he deems to be his beauti­ful exterior intact and certain mantels and other little internal fussiness. He forgets that real beauty is Truth and that the very first purpose of any building is to have its interior adapted to the business for which it was built.” (Fitzpatrick 1906, pp. 291-293.)

 

Insurance Engineering: “The conflagrations of Portland, Me., in 1866, Chicago in 1871 and 1874, Boston in 1872, Oshkosh and Virginia City in 1875, Galveston in 1884, Seattle, Ellenburg, Spokane, Boston and Lynn in 1889, Milwaukee in 1892, Hoboken in 1900, Jack­sonville in 1901, Waterbury and Paterson in 1902, Baltimore, Rochester and Toronto in 1904, not to mention a hundred other smaller conflagrations within that period of 38 years which have thrown their blight over the places swept by them, and lastly San Francisco in 1906, all owe their extent and destructiveness to inflammable construction. None of these conflagrations would ever have started, or, if started, would ever have produced such disastrous results, if attention had been paid to proper and safe construction.

 

“Is there any one who believes that there would have been such destruction in San Francisco, notwithstanding the earth­quake, if there had been no shingle roofs, no frame rows, if its brick buildings had not been studded with wooden bay windows, wooden additions and wooden trimmings? If there had been no buildings higher than the width of the street on which they front? Fallen or wrecked buildings would, no doubt, here and there have taken fire from gas escaping from broken gas pipes, or from broken electric wires or cracked flues, overturned stoves and lamps, but they would, in all probability, have burned them­selves out in the places of their origin, without spreading to the adjacent property. In the absence of water, the fire depart­ment would have found other means to extinguish a fire and circumscribe its extent, if there had been no inflammable ma­terial in its immediate vicinity to feed upon, nor to ignite from flying sparks blocks and miles away.

 

“The remedy, therefore, would seem to be “the ounce of pre­vention,” that is to say, in better government from the start. The State should prohibit in every village, town and city the con­struction of inflammable roofs, or the erection of any wooden building having a superficial area over twenty-five hundred feet square, and not then unless such wooden building has vacant space all around it at least equal to its height, or else is protected on the exposed side by entire “fire walls.” In addition to this, the State must require every fire, however great or small, to be immediately reported by the occupant and owner of the building to the nearest magistrate or chief of the fire department, with such data regarding cause, ownership, value, insurance and loss as may be known at the time, and by said officials to be reported monthly to the State authorities.

For further protection against the frequency of fires, the State should cause such reports to be classified according to causes, localities, direct and exposure and conflagration losses, as a basis for intelligent legislation on the subject of fires and for the protection of property. Such statistics would be the foundation of wise and intelligent laws for the construction and protection of property and would be instrumental in producing the lowest rates at which it could be safely insured. It would then obviate the necessity of all the foolish anti-trust laws, as applied to insurance companies, because then every citizen would have, as a basis for his calculations, the same information as the insurance companies.”  (Insurance Engineering “Responsibilities of the States – By Good Government,” Vol. 12, No. 6, December, 1906, pp. 498-500.)

 

USGS: “This earthquake is one of the most devastating in the history of California. The earthquake and resulting fires caused an estimated 3,000 deaths and $524 million in property loss. Damage in San Francisco resulting only from the earthquake was estimated at $20 million; outside the city, it was estimated at $4 million. The sensible duration of the shaking in San Francisco was about 1 minute.

 

“The earthquake damaged buildings and structures in all parts of the city and county of San Francisco, although over much of the area, the damage was moderate in amount and character. Most chimneys toppled or were badly broken. In the business district, which was built on ground made by filling in the cove of Yerba Buena, pavements were buckled, arched, and fissured; brick and frame houses of ordinary construction were damaged extensively or destroyed; sewers and water mains were broken; and streetcar tracks were bent into wavelike forms.

 

“On or near the San Andreas fault, buildings were destroyed (one was torn apart), and trees were knocked to the ground. The surface of the ground was torn and heaved into furrow-like ridges. Roads crossing the faultline were impassable, and pipelines were broken. One pipeline that carried water from San Andreas Lake to San Francisco was broken, shutting off the water supply to the city. The fires that ignited soon after the onset of the earthquake quickly raged through the city because of the lack of water to control them. They destroyed a large part of San Francisco and intensified the loss at Fort Bragg and Santa Rosa.

 

“This earthquake caused the most lengthy rupture of a fault that has been observed in the contiguous United States. The displacement of the San Andreas Fault was observed over a distance of 300 kilometers from San Juan Bautista to Point Arena, where is passes out to sea. Additional displacement was observed farther north at Shelter Cove in Humboldt County, and, assuming the rupture was continuous, the total length of rupture would extend 430 kilometers. The largest horizontal displacement – 6.4 meters – occurred near Point Reyes Station in Marin County.

 

“In areas where dislocation of fences and roads indicated the amount of ground movement, motions of 3 to 4.5 meters were common. Near Point Arena, in Mendocino County, a fence and a row of trees were displaced almost 5 meters. At Wright’s Station, in Santa Clara County, a lateral displacement of 1.4 meters was observed. Vertical displacement of as much as 0.9 meters was observed near Fort Ross in Sonoma County. Vertical displacement was not detected toward the south end of the fault.

 

“Although Santa Rosa lies about 30 kilometers from the San Andreas fault, damage to property was severe, and 50 people were killed. The earthquake also was severe in the Los Banos area of the western San Joaquin Valley, where the MM intensity more than 48 kilometers from the fault zone was IX. Santa Rosa lies directly inland from the region of greatest motion on the San Andreas fault.

 

“Trees swayed violently, and some were broken off above the ground or thrown down. The water in springs and artesian wells either increased or decreased its flow. A few sand craterlets formed in areas where water was ejected through cracks or fissures.

 

“The region of destructive intensity extended over a distance of 600 kilometers. The total felt area included most of California and parts of western Nevada and southern Oregon. The maximum intensity of XI was based on geologic effects, but the highest intensity based on damage was IX. Several foreshocks probably occurred, and many aftershocks were reported, some of which were severe.” (USGS. Historic Earthquakes:  San Francisco, California, 1906 94 18 13:12:21 UTC.)

 

Google has digitized the San Francisco Relief Survey report of 1913 (623 pages).  It can be accessed at:  http://books.google.com

 

Landslides and Mudslides

 

Highland and Schuster: 11 fatalities are attributed to landslides by Lynn M. Highland and Robert L. Schuster, in Significant Landslide Events in the United States (USGS, 4-16-2003, p. 6).  They cite:

 

Lawson, Andrew C., ed., 1908, The California Earthquake of April 18, 1906: Report of the State Earthquake Investigation Commission, v. 1, Part 1, Carnegie Institute of Washington, Washington D.C., p. 76-77.

 

Youd, T.L., and Hoose, S.N., 1978, Historic ground failures in northern California triggered by earthquakes: U.S. Geological Survey Professional Paper 993, p. 89-93.

 

Youd and Hoose, on page 68, write:  “Hillside landslides triggered by the 1906 earthquake were too numerous for the postearthquake investigators to document each occurrence.  Most of the landslides occurred in thee Coast Ranges within a few miles of he ruptured fault….10 men were killed and 2 lumber mills destroyed by landslides in the Santa Cruz mountains…”  On page 89 it is noted that “A huge rock, rolling down a hill in Santa Ana Valley, crashed thru a house and killed a man.”

 

Sources

 

Centre for Research on the Epidemiology of Disasters. EM DAT Database. Louvain, Belgium:  Universite Catholique do Louvain. Accessed at: http://www.emdat.be/

 

Drabek, Thomas E. The Human Side of Disaster. Boca Raton, FL: CRC Press, 2010.

 

Fitzpatrick, F. W. “The Responsibility of Architects.” Insurance Engineering, Vol. XII, No. 4, October, 1906, pp. 291-292. Accessed at:  http://books.google.com/books?id=rRHOAAAAMAAJ&dq=editions:OCLC2161581&source=gbs_navlinks_s

 

Fradkin, Philip L.  The Great Earthquake and Firestorms of 1906 – How San Francisco Nearly Destroyed Itself. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2005, 418 pages.

 

Gilbert, Grove Karl, Joseph Austin Holmes (USGS), Richard Lewis Humphrey, John Stephen Sewell, Frank Soulé. The San Francisco Earthquake and Fire of April 18, 1906. Washington, DC: GPO (United States Geological Survey, Department of the Interior), 1907. Google digitized at: http://books.google.com/books?id=BEyi0K-kUdgC&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false

 

Greely, A.W. “Special Report of Maj. Gen. Adolphus W. Greely, U.S.A., Commanding the Pacific Division, on the Relief Operations Conducted by the Military Authorities of the United States at San Francisco and other Points.” 1906.

 

Gunn, Angus M. Encyclopedia of Disasters: Environmental Catastrophes and Human Tragedies (Two Volumes). Westport CT and London: Greenwood Press, 2007.

 

Hansen, Gladys, and Emmet Condon. Denial of Disaster. San Francisco, CA: Cameron and Co., 1989, 160 pages.

 

Lloyd’s. “Earthquake: Californian Risks.” 11-11-2008. Accessed 5-29-2012 at:  http://www.lloyds.com/News-and-Insight/News-and-Features/Archive/2008/11/Earthquake_Californian_risks_11112008

 

Lloyd’s. “San Francisco Earthquake. Lloyd’s and the [SF] earthquake, 1906.” Accessed 5-29-2012 at:  http://www.lloyds.com/Lloyds/About-us/History/San-Francisco-1906-earthquake

 

Highland, Lynn M. and Robert L. Schuster. Significant Landslide Events in the United States.  USGS, 4-16-2003. Accessed 12-15-2017 at: https://landslides.usgs.gov/learn/significantls.php

 

Insurance Engineering.  Vol. 11, No’s 1-6, Jan-June, 1906.  New York: The Insurance Press, 1906.  Digitized by Google. Accessed at: http://books.google.com/books?id=axHOAAAAMAAJ&dq=editions:OCLC2161581&source=gbs_navlinks_s

 

Insurance Engineering.  Vol. 12, No’s 1-6, July-Dec, 1906. New York: The Insurance Press, 1906.  Digitized by Google. Accessed at: http://books.google.com/books?id=rRHOAAAAMAAJ&dq=editions:OCLC2161581&source=gbs_navlinks_s

 

Lawson, Andrew C. (Chair). The California Earthquake of April 18, 1906, Volume I. Washington, DC: Carnegie Institution of Washington, 1908. Accessed 1-11-2020 at: http://publicationsonline.carnegiescience.edu/publications_online/earthquake_volume.pdf

 

National Centers for Environmental Information, NOAA. Significant Earthquake Database Search. Accessed 5-12-2016 at: http://www.ngdc.noaa.gov/nndc/struts/results?bt_0=1989&st_0=1989&type_17=EXACT&query_17=150&op_12=eq&v_12=USA&type_12=Or&query_14=CA&type_3=Like&query_3=&st_1=&bt_2=&st_2=&bt_1=&bt_4=&st_4=&bt_5=&st_5=&bt_6=&st_6=&bt_7=&st_7=&bt_8=&st_8=&bt_9=&st_9=&bt_10=&st_10=&type_11=Exact&query_11=&type_16=Exact&query_16=&bt_18=&st_18=&ge_19=&le_19=&display_look=1&t=101650&s=1&submit_all=Search+Database

 

National Geophysical Data Center. The Significant Earthquake Database. NGDC, NOAA.  Accessed 12-23-2008 at: http://www.ngdc.noaa.gov/nndc/struts/form?t=101650&s=1&d=1

 

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. A Study of Earthquake Losses in the San Francisco Bay Area – Data and Analysis (A report prepared for the Office of Emergency Preparedness). U.S. Department of Commerce, 1972, 220 pages.

 

O’Connor, Charles J., et al. San Francisco Relief Survey. NY; Survey Associates, Inc. Jan 1913. Accessed 1-11-2020 at: https://www.russellsage.org/publications/san-francisco-relief-survey

Also: at: https://www.google.com/books/edition/San_Francisco_Relief_Survey/jR8pAAAAYAAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=San+Francisco+Relief+Survey&printsec=frontcover

Also:

https://books.googleusercontent.com/books/content?req=AKW5QacMJhQ8u7sNVFTL8LTOLx2l3GbyfkKROMGoqb0cbmfVBWuS5k1Txd7Gp-Z-dFUXJYg3NBAPBwov4I2rzX9pO6MMUPXHMGW2a1ulUEij5b6T1YAy7cl5GwbdWI4CnOcj4I_xag9c5A2KFThakkGgo0YijIAzQUStt0oQISIVxb4KdfbTlPLK6rV16YqpTAPKnhyrFEPDZvv4aUtWX6HNJMAgAmtpgcofGNRYgjxhzAXUl-YR9UOFEZQ7Jaln0Yyk9HciEr9B

 

Reid, Harry Fielding. The California Earthquake of April 18, 1906: Report of the State Earthquake Investigation Commission, in Two Volumes and Atlas. Volume II, The Mechanics of the Earthquake. Washington, DC: Carnegie Institution of Washington, 1910. Accessed 1-11-2020 at: http://activetectonics.asu.edu/ActiveFaultingSeminar/Papers/Reid_1910.pdf

 

Sanders, D.E.A. (Chair), et al. The Management of Losses Arising from Extreme Events. GIRO, 2002, 261 pgs. At: http://www.actuaries.org.uk/__data/assets/pdf_file/0009/18729/Sanders.pdf

 

Smith, Roger. Catastrophes and Disasters. Edinburgh and New York: W & R Chambers, 1992.

 

Solnit, Rebecca. A Paradise Built In Hell: The Extraordinary Communities That Arise in Disaster. New York: Viking, Penguin Group, 2009.

 

Spignesi, Stephen J. The 100 Greatest Disasters of All Time. Citadel Press, 2002. Google preview at: http://books.google.com/books?id=LK08EdwvCIcC&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false

 

Spignesi, Stephen J.  The 100 Greatest Disasters of All Time.  Citadel Press, April 2007.

 

Steinberg, Ted. “Smoke and Mirrors: The San Francisco Earthquake and Seismic Denial.”  Chapter 4 in Steven Biel (Ed.), American Disasters (New York:  NY University Press, 2001).

 

The Survey (A Journal of Constructive Philanthropy), Kellogg, Paul U. (Ed). Vol. XXX, April 1913 – September 1913. New York  Survey Associates, Inc. Digitized by Google. Accessed at: http://books.google.com/books?id=gCkKAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA557&lpg=PA557&dq=Binghamton+fire+July+22&source=web&ots=dW6jO-R8lm&sig=6J4p76mKSr4PRw5ejaPcfcOs7l8&hl=en&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=5&ct=result#PPP11,M1

 

Townsend, Francis Fragos (Assistant to the President for Homeland Security and Counterterrorism). The Federal Response to Hurricane Katrina: Lessons Learned. Washington, DC: White House, 2-23-2006. Accessed at: http://georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/reports/katrina-lessons-learned/index.html  and at:

http://georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/reports/katrina-lessons-learned/appendix-e.html

 

United States Geological Survey. Casualties and damage after the 1906 Earthquake (webpage). Accessed 1-11-2020 at: https://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/events/1906calif/18april/casualties.php

 

United States Geological Survey. Deaths in the United States from Earthquakes (website). July 16, 2008 update. Accessed at: http://earthquake.usgs.gov/regional/states/us_deaths.php

 

United States Geological Survey. Historic Earthquakes: San Fernando, California 1971. USGS, Earthquake Hazards Program. Accessed at:  http://earthquake.usgs.gov/regional/states/events/1971_02_09.php

 

Vale, Lawrence J. and Thomas J. Campanella (eds.). The Resilient City: How Modern Cities Recover from Disaster. NY: Oxford University Press, 2005.

 

Walker, John. Disasters. Chicago: Follett Publishing Co., 1973.

 

Wells, Britton. “Lloyd’s sees 1906 San Francisco earthquake as a turning point.” Insurance Journal, May 8, 2006. At: http://www.insurancejournal.com/magazines/west/2006/05/08/features/69889.htm

 

Youd, T.L., and S. N. Hoose. Historic Ground Failures in Northern California Triggered by Earthquakes (U.S. Geological Survey Professional Paper 993). USGS, 1978. Accessed 1-11-2020 at: https://pubs.usgs.gov/pp/1978/pp0993/

 

See also:

 

American Red Cross. The San Francisco Earthquake of 1906 and the Red Cross Response. American Red Cross Museum.

 

Searight, Frank Thompson. The Doomed City: A Thrilling Tale. Chicago: Laird & Lee, Publishers, 1906. Accessed 1-11-2020 at: https://www.google.com/books/edition/The_Doomed_City/TnUUAAAAYAAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=THEDOOMED+CITYA+THRILLING+TALE&pg=PP11&printsec=frontcover

 

 

 

 

 

 

[1] Not used as high estimate in that this is an outlier estimate – 1,000 fatalities above the next highest estimate.

[2] “At the beginning, the count of the dead was quite low.  The subcommittee on statistics, whose report was issued one year after the earthquake, stated that there were 674 persons either dead or missing.  The overall number was broken down in the following manner: Of the 322 ‘known dead,’ 315 died in the earthquake or fire, 6 were shot ‘for crime,’ and 1 was shot ‘by mistake.’  The ‘reported missing and not accounted for’ category totaled 352 persons…. The number of fatalities was determined by those deaths that came to the attention of the coroner.  There was no aggressive search for victims such as took place at the World Trade Center.  To a great extent, racial minorities were undercounted…. The city’s Municipal Report of 1908, which covered the events of 1906, listed 478 dead… General Greely said there were 498 deaths, and the State Board of Health put the number at 503…. The numbers remained at those approximate levels until 1980, when San Francisco City Archivist Gladys Hansen became curious.  Library patrons asked for a list of the dead.  She determined that there was none.  So she searched San Francisco and Oakland newspapers between April 18 and May 19, 1906, when the newspapers stopped listing persons directly killed by the disaster.  She compiled a list of 549 fatalities.  Hansen was joined in the search by retired registrar of voters Frank R. Quinn.  They continued to dig through records of the San Francisco Board of Health, the coroner’s office, and the emergency hospitals and looked at inheritance tax and orphan’s records.  They obtained additional names from gravestones at the Presidio National Cemetery.  The toll was to 826 in 1984.  The team then sent a letter to more than one thousand historical and genealogical societies throughout the country asking for evidence of deaths in San Francisco.  They arrived at a total number of 1,498 documented San Francisco deaths.  Hansen published her only article on the basis of those figures in 1989.  Taken from official records, the causes of death, in order of decreasing numbers, broken down as follows:  burns, those crushed to death, asphyxiations, other (includes shootings, explosions, and drownings), exposure, suicides, heart problems, and those killed in the earthquake.  On the list were six dead with Japanese and twenty-two dead with Chinese surnames, which were disproportionately small numbers.  The total did not include those who died outside of the city.  The National Archives in Washington, D.C., the regional Federal Archives and Record Center in San Bruno, and the records of San Francisco funeral homes doing business in 1906 were not searched.  Over time Hansen’s estimate has risen to 3,000 on the basis of information contained in letters she has received.  As more recent information is volunteered, mainly through e-mail, Hansen believes there may have been as many as 4,000 deaths in San Francisco.  If deaths outside the city – at Agnews Hospital, Santa Rosa, and throughout Northern California – were included, the number would rise to between 4,000 and 5,000…. I would place the number of deaths in northern California at between 3,000 and 5,000.”  ( Fradkin 2005, 188-191)

[3] Cites Vale and Campanella. The Resilient City. Page 28.

[4] We derive this number from the Lloyd’s statement that the earthquake and fires took “several thousand lives.”

[5] Cite Hansen and Condon.

[6] “The loss of life was surprisingly light. Most people were able to escape before the fire took hold, and the death toll was 500 — 0.2 per cent of the city’s population. The figure includes a number of people shot for looting.”

–38 Alaskashipwreck.com. Alaska Shipwrecks. “Alaska Shipwrecks 1900-1925.”
–38 Alaskashipwreck.com. Alaska Shipwrecks. “Alaska Shipwrecks A–Z.” (C)
–38 US Bur. Marine Inspection/Navigation. Merchant Vessels…[US]…Year Ended June 30, 1906. 385.

Narrative Information

Alaskashipwreck.com: “1906…Centennial…UNK [unknown location]…324 Foot…Steam Ship…38 [lives lost].” Alaska Shipwrecks. “Alaska Shipwrecks 1900-1925.”

Alaskashipwreck.com: “Centennial (1906). The 324 foot 2,075 ton steam ship Centennial disappeared with 38 crewmen aboard after leaving Hakodate, Japan February 24, 1906 bound for San Francisco. Wreckage of the Centennial was spotted by the steamer Pennsylvania in late March of 1906. The Pennsylvania was travelling from the Philippines to Port Townsend, Washington. The Centennial was found abandoned six years later frozen in the ice off Sakhalin Island in the Sea of Okhotsk by Russian explorers. There were no lifeboats aboard and no sign of the crew of 38. Lost from the Centennial were captain B Gilboy, 1st officer James McCarron, 2nd officer Brent O Lee, 3rd officer Fred Richardson, chief engineer J Flanagan, 1st assistant engineer Owen Hickey, 3rd assistant engineer O P Jensen, stewardess N Eloise Wagner, carpenter John Garrity, sailor T Wynberg, sailor W Ecklund, sailor Jacob Miller, sailor L Olsen, sailor A E Sandberg, sailor John Kamp, sailor Carl Hellman, oiler R DeRoseville, oiler C Keene, oiler J McGinity, fireman Michael Norton, fireman J Legarpu, fireman James Godfrey, fireman S Wizera, fireman James Norton, fireman N Murphy, coal passer William Malone, coal passer George Lescano, coal passer Joseph Fernandez, coal passer J Asarila, coal passer A Allen, coal passer Thomas Moore, chief steward E J Smith, chief cook A Rogers, assistant cook S Manuel, messman H Carlton, messman George Ford, watchman S Middel and waiter H Bohm.

“Mapping and Location: Unknown.

“Comment: This wreck is included in this compilation on the off chance that some of the wreckage washed ashore along the vast Alaska Coastline. WG

“Additional Information: Tonnage 2,075 Gross, 1,184 Net, Length 324, Breadth 35.6, Depth 13.1, Built 1859 at London England, Previous Names Delta and Takasaga Maru, Registered San Francisco CA, ON 127252, Owner Charles Nelson Company [a San Francisco based Co. ].

“Sources: 1. Merchant Vessels of the U S (1906) Pg 385, 2. Merchant Vessels of the U S (1905) Pg 204, 3. Port Townsend Daily Leader (April 5, 1906) “Steamer Centennial Wrecked” Pg 1, 4. San Francisco Chronicle (October 24, 1913) “Lost Centennial Is Found Fast In Arctic Ice” Pg 17.” (Alaskashipwreck.com. Alaska Shipwrecks. “Alaska Shipwrecks A–Z.” (C))

United States Bureau of Marine Inspection and Navigation: “127252 [official number]…St. s. [steel steamer]…Centennial…2,075 [gross tonnage]…1859 [year built]…38 [on board]…38 [lives lost]…Foundered…Sailed from Hakodate, Japan, Feb 24, 1906, and has not since reported.” (“Part IV. Loss of American Vessels Reported During Fiscal Year 1906,” p. 385.) (US Bureau of Marine Inspection and Navigation, Thirty-Eighth Annual List of Merchant Vessels of…[US]…For the Year Ended June 30, 1906. Washington DC: Government Printing Office, 1906.)

Sources

Alaskashipwreck.com. Alaska Shipwrecks. “Alaska Shipwrecks 1900-1925.” Accessed 11-19-2021 at: https://alaskashipwreck.com/alaska-shipwrecks-1729-2012/alaska-shipwrecks-1900-1925/

Alaskashipwreck.com. Alaska Shipwrecks. “Alaska Shipwrecks A – Z.” Accessed 11-18-2021 at: https://alaskashipwreck.com/shipwrecks-a-z/alaska-shipwrecks-c/

Casetext.com. “Schooner Mahukona Co. v. Charles Nelson Co.” 1-10-1906. Accessed 11-19-2021 at: https://casetext.com/case/schooner-mahukona-co-v-charles-nelson-co

United States Bureau of Marine Inspection and Navigation, Department of Commerce and Labor. Thirty-Eighth Annual List of Merchant Vessels of the United States…For the Year Ended June 30, 1906. Washington DC: Government Printing Office, 1906. Accessed 11-19-2021 at: https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=uc1.b3330070&view=1up&seq=8&size=125&q1=centennial

— 136 Blanchard on the death toll number. We choose to follow the Report to the U.S. Federal
Commission of Investigation into the loss of the Valencia.

— 136 McClary. “Valencia, SS, the Wreck of (1906)” Online Encyclopedia of WA State History.
— 136 U.S. Federal Commission of Investigation. Wreck of the Steamer Valencia. 1906.
— 129 Berman, Bruce D. Encyclopedia of American Shipwrecks. 1972, p. 227.
— 129 Oakland Tribune, CA. “Shipwreck One of Worst Since Janeiro’s Loss…” 8-30-1929, D3.
— 126 U.S. Bureau of Navigation. Merchant Vessels of the United States…1906, p. 386.
— 121 U.S. Steamboat Inspection Service. Annual Report 1906, p. 13.
— 117 Gibbs, Jim. Oregon’s Salty Coast. Seattle: Superior Publishing Company, 1978, p. 96.
— 117 Port Renfrew Online. “Shipwreck Map Guide.”

Narrative Information

McClary: “On Monday, January 22, 1906, the coastal passenger liner SS Valencia, en route from San Francisco to Seattle with 108 passengers and 65 crew aboard, passed the entrance to the Strait of Juan de Fuca in foul weather, and ran aground on the southwest coast of Vancouver Island. The ship was on a reef, trapped between sheer rock cliffs and pounding breakers. Uncharted rocks and fierce storms made it impossible for rescue vessels to approach from seaward. Scores of passengers drowned when their lifeboats were wrecked or capsized in the surf. Over the next 36 hours, terrified people huddled on the hurricane deck or clung to the rigging as huge waves slowly broke the ship apart. Finally, as rescuers watched, horrified and powerless, a huge wave swept the remaining passengers and crew into the sea. There were 37 survivors, but 136 persons perished in one of the most tragic maritime disasters in Pacific Northwest history.

“The Vessel

“The SS Valencia was 1,598-ton, 252-foot, iron-hulled passenger steamer built by the reputable William Cramp and Sons shipyard in Philadelphia in 1882. The ship had three cargo holds and four watertight compartments protecting the engine and boiler room, but was not fitted with a double bottom and her bulkheads were alleged to be insubstantial. The Valencia had a cruising speed of 11 knots and was licensed to carry 286 passengers. She carried seven lifeboats with a capacity of 181 persons, three life rafts with a capacity of 54 person, 368 life preservers and a Lyle line-throwing gun with 1,500 feet of manila line. When the Valencia was inspected on January 6, 1906, all of her equipment was accounted for and in good working order.

“The Valencia was owned by the Pacific Coast Steamship Company who purchased it from the Pacific Packing and Navigation Company in 1902. The vessel was primarily engaged on the route between California and Alaska. But, in January 1906, she was diverted to the San Francisco-Seattle run, temporarily replacing the SS City of Puebla, laid up for repairs in San Francisco. The ship’s new master was Captain Oscar M. Johnson, who had been with the company 12 years, working his way up from quartermaster.

“Thick Weather

“On Saturday at 11:20 a.m., January 20, 1906, the Valencia left San Francisco in good weather bound for Victoria, B.C., and Seattle. On board were 108 passengers, nine officers and 56 crewmen. The ship reached Cape Mendocino, 190 miles north of San Francisco, early Sunday morning. Then the weather began to deteriorate, with constant rain and haze. Mariners call it “thick” weather. That was the last land or light seen by the Valencia until she wrecked on Vancouver Island.

“The weather remained thick with strong winds blowing from the southwest. The Valencia was forced to navigate by dead reckoning, using compass courses and approximate distances sailed, to determine the ship’s position. Captain Johnson reckoned the Valencia would reach the Umatilla Lightship around 9:30 p.m. on Monday, January 22, 1906. Then the quartermaster would start to take soundings to determine their position relative to the coastline. But a following wind and a strong three-knot northern current positioned the vessel more than 20 miles farther north than expected. The ship passed the entrance to the Strait of Juan de Fuca and, at 11:50 p.m., went onto Walla Walla Reef at Shelter Bight, 11 miles southeast of Cape Beale, on the southwest coast of Vancouver Island.

“A Night of Wind and Rain

“It was high tide when the Valencia went aground, with rain, strong southeast winds blowing 25 to 35 miles an hour and heavy swells coming in from the ocean. First the ship struck a rock a few hundred yards offshore, rupturing the bottom of the hull and flooding the middle cargo hold. Then a large wave lifted the Valencia over the rock, driving her inshore. As waves swung the ship around, Captain Johnson, believing the ship would sink, ordered her beached, stern first. The vessel wound up on the reef, with the bow toward the open ocean, in about four fathoms of water, less than 100 yards from shore.

“The coastline was a continuous 100-foot sheer rock cliff constantly pounded by heavy surf. Proceeding along the shoreline was impossible, and the top of the bluff was covered with trees and dense underbrush. A telephone/telegraph line, following a crude trail blazed through the forest, had been strung in the trees linking the Carmanah Light Station to Cape Beale and Bamfield Creek. The Valencia was trapped in an uninhabited wilderness with no means of communication or escape.

“Panicked Actions and Errors

“As a precaution, Captain Johnson ordered the crew to lower six lifeboats from the hurricane (uppermost) deck to the saloon deck and made fast to the rail, with no order to abandon ship. When the engines stopped, the electricity went out, leaving the ship in total darkness. The passengers, in a mild panic, began boarding the lifeboats, calling out to the deck hands to lower away. In the darkness and confusion, the davit crews, unable to determine if the orders were official, began launching the lifeboats. Within a half hour all six boats were gone.

“One lifeboat had been loaded beyond capacity and the aft davit broke away, spilling more than 21 persons into the water. Everyone in the boat drowned. While lowering two of the lifeboats, one end hung up in the falls (an accident called “cockbilling”), upending the boats and dumping about 25 people into the sea. One crewman was rescued; all the others perished. Three lifeboats, carrying approximately 50 persons, were successfully launched; one disappeared, her fate unknown, and the other two capsized in the huge breakers. Only 12 men made it to relative safety, the others either drowned or were dashed against the rocks.

“One survivor clambered onto a large rock near shore, only to be swept away by a large wave hours later. Two survivors gained entrance to a shallow cave, but the rising tide forced them onto the face of the cliff where they fell to their deaths. Nine survivors reached shore about 500 yards northwest but out of sight of the wreck. The party spent the night huddled among the rocks. At dawn on Tuesday, they climbed the 100-foot cliff.

“Disaster by Light of Day

“Early Tuesday morning, January 23, 1906, the Valencia started to break apart. Huge waves were breaking over the bow, pounding the forward house and gradually destroying the upper works of the vessel. At about 8:00 a.m., Captain Johnson called for a volunteer crew to launch the last lifeboat. The plan was to land on the beach, return to the ship overland and receive a lifeline for the breeches buoy. The lifeboat, manned by Boatswain Timothy J. McCarthy and five crewmen, was launched successfully, made its way through the breakers into the open sea, then steered northwest looking for a place to land.

“About 9:00 a.m., the Lyle line-throwing gun was set up on the hurricane deck in preparation for rescue. Two lines were fired; one became tangled and immediately broke, the other was successfully launched over the precipitous cliff into the trees. A third line was kept in reserve as their last hope.

“A Wrong Turn

“Meanwhile, the nine survivors, led by Frank F. Bunker (who’d been en route to Seattle to become assistant superintendent of schools), discovered the Carmanah-Cape Beale telephone line strung in the trees on top of the bluff. Believing the Valencia had run aground on the Washington Coast, they decided to turn left (toward Cape Flattery) for help. Had the Bunker Party turned right and traveled a short distance, they could have received a lifeline shot from the Lyle line-throwing gun. The Valencia’s stern was fewer than 250 feet from the top of the cliff and a breeches buoy could have been rigged, rescuing the remaining passengers and crew.

“The Bunker Party followed the telephone line with great difficulty through the dense forest and across swollen streams, eventually arriving at a lineman’s shack on the west side of the Darling River about 2:00 p.m. While searching for food, Frank Bunker found a telephone and connected it to the circuit. After repeated failures, he finally established communications with the Carmanah Light Station, giving the outside world the first news of the disaster. Carmanah relayed the information to Bamfield, who then cabled the information to Victoria, B.C. The Valencia had been on the reef for 15 hours and it would be many more hours before rescue vessels arrived.

“Desperate Attempts

“McCarthy’s lifeboat finally landed about 12:30 p.m. on the western shore of Pachena Bay about eight miles northwest of the wreck, but the men were unable to proceed back to the ship through the dense forest. The crew found a lifesaving trail on the beach and sign reading “Three miles to Cape Beale.” This was their first indication the Valencia wrecked on Vancouver Island, not the Washington Coast as everyone believed. They hiked up the trail to the Cape Beale Light Station, arriving about 3:00 p.m. The station keeper, informed of the Valencia’s condition and location, telephoned Bamfield but news of the wreck had already been received from Carmanah several minutes earlier.

“The wind moderated and the sea was calmer on Tuesday afternoon. Two crew members made separate attempts to swim ashore with a lifeline, but the fierce undertow and waves strewn with dead bodies and wreckage, made the journey perilous. Neither swimmer made it to shore and, exhausted, had to be hauled back to the ship.

“Late Tuesday afternoon, three men from Carmanah Point, government lineman David Logan, assistant station keeper Philip C. Daykin, and fur trapper Joseph D. Martin, formed a rescue party and proceeded overland toward the Valencia, a distance of about 18 miles. They were unable to cross the swollen Klanawa River in the dark and had to wait for daylight before continuing.

“Disaster’s Second Night

“Towards evening, the strong east winds, heavy ocean swells, and rain returned. On Tuesday night the Valencia’s survivors congregated on the hurricane deck with some climbing into the rigging. The crew made a crude shelter of tarpaulins to protect the women and children and several of the men stayed in the last dry cabin on the saloon deck. Waves pounded the Valencia against the reef throughout the night, gradually destroying her hull. By early morning, most of the forward upper works had broken away and the aft cabins on the saloon deck were under water. The entire ship’s company was now forced to occupy the hurricane deck or climb into the rigging. Wind, rain and heavy seas continued.

“Meanwhile in Seattle, the Pacific Coast Steamship Company (PCSC) received a message from their agent in Victoria, B.C., about 3:30 p.m. on Tuesday, stating the Valencia had gone aground on Vancouver Island, somewhere between Cape Beale and Carmanah Point. General Manager James E. Pharo attempted to dispatch ocean-going tugboats, but none were available. The Puget Sound Tugboat Company said there were tugboats at Neah Bay, but unfortunately the telephone line was down and they were out of contact.

“The PCSC passenger liner SS Queen, outbound from Seattle to San Francisco, was in Victoria, B.C., boarding passengers. Pharo ordered her master, Captain N. E. Cousins, to discharge the passengers and proceed toward the scene of the wreck. Four master mariners, acquainted with Vancouver Island’s coast, and an experienced Puget Sound pilot went along on the rescue mission. The ship arrived off Carmanah Point about 10:00 p.m., cruising the area until daylight.

“Another PCSC steamship, the SS City of Topeka, was in Seattle discharging cargo. Pharo ordered her master, Captain Thomas H. Cann, to stop discharging and prepare to depart for the southwest coast of Vancouver Island. Pharo and Captain James B. Patterson, the company’s port captain, went with the Topeka, along with a doctor, two nurses, medical supplies, 17 extra seamen, an insurance claims adjuster, and the press. The ship finally left Seattle about 10:00 p.m.

“Hope and Despair

“On Wednesday morning, January 24, 1906, Carmanah Light Station advised the Queen that the wreck was about 18 miles up the coast near Pachena Point. The Queen, accompanied by the Canadian salvage steamer Salvor and tugboat Czar, located the Valencia about 9:30 a.m. Captain Cousins saw survivors on the hurricane deck and in the rigging, but the Queen, a large 300-foot vessel with a 21-foot draft, was unable to approach closer than a mile. The ocean bottom was uncharted in this area and the sea was too rough. The Czar, a small ocean-going tug, made a run toward the wreck but started shipping water and withdrew. At about 10:15 a.m., the Salvor and Czar left for Bamfield to organize an overland rescue party. Shortly thereafter, the weather thickened and the Queen lost sight of land and the Valencia.

“Meantime, the Valencia’s crew spotted the Queen and fired three shots from the Lyle gun to attract her attention. The ship had only two life rafts, one having been washed overboard. At 10:00 a.m., the first life raft, with only 10 men aboard, was launched and rowed out through the surf without much difficulty. Most of the survivors, believing that rescue was imminent, refused to take the risk. The second life raft was launched but stayed tied to the ship for 15 minutes while the crew urged the women to get aboard, declaring it was their last chance. The women refused and the raft left the Valencia with a full compliment of 18 men. As the life raft departed into the waves, the women sang “Nearer My God to Thee.” Using four oars and pieces of wreckage for paddles, the rowers guided the raft through the breakers, heading toward the Queen.

“The City of Topeka arrived in the vicinity about 11:00 a.m. relieving the Queen. The Topeka was a smaller ship with a shallower draft and had been specially equipped for the rescue mission. Pharo told Captain Cousins of the Queen to return to Victoria, B.C., board her passengers, and proceed to San Francisco. It was a controversial decision that cost Pharo his job. Although several other vessels were arriving at the scene to augment the rescue effort, critics felt both ships should have been used to search the water for survivors.

“The Final Catastrophe

“On Wednesday morning, the rescue party from the Carmanah Light Station crossed the Klanawa River and continued following the route of the telephone line toward the wreck. About 11:30 a.m., they found a manila line lying across the trail and followed it through the underbrush to the bluff overlooking the Valencia. The rescuers arrived just in time to witness a huge breaker demolish the last of the upper works. As they watched, horrified and powerless, about 40 persons, all wearing life preservers, were swept into the water. Some drowned or were beaten to death against the rocks, while others, clinging to pieces of wreckage, were carried out to sea, dying from exposure. The rescue party left the bluff and proceeded to the lineman’s shack on the Darling River where they found the Bunker Party. There, lineman Logan telephoned Bamfield with news of the final catastrophe.

“The weather continued too thick for the Topeka to catch sight of land. Waiting for the weather to lift, the ship slowly patrolled the coast searching for the Valencia and, at times, was in only 10 fathoms of water. About 1:00 p.m., the Topeka sighted the second life raft with 18 men aboard. After being rescued, the survivors told Pharo the Valencia was doomed, but there was another life raft adrift with 10 men aboard. Still unable to see land, the Topeka searched for the raft until dark, then headed for shelter at Neah Bay.

“On Thursday morning, the Topeka returned to the scene of the wreck, continuing to search for survivors. The shallow-draft steam whaler Orion was able to run in close to the reef, but saw no signs of life. Late that afternoon, the Topeka decided that further efforts would be fruitless and returned to Neah Bay. On Friday, January 26, 1906, the Topeka, having collected McCarthy and his crew from Cape Beale, left for Seattle with 24 survivors.

“The Last Survivors

“Meanwhile, the first life raft, with 10 men aboard, drifted 18 miles northwest past Cape Beale into Barkley Sound, landing on Turtle Island late Wednesday night. Only four of the survivors were still alive: two had fallen overboard and four had died from exposure. After walking around the island all day Thursday, they were discovered by a party of Indians who gave them food and water. The survivors were taken to Toquart, a small village near Ucluelet, by the inland steamer Shamrock, then to Victoria, B.C., on Saturday January 27, 1906, by the Salvor.

“On Friday, a six-man relief party from Bamfield finally reached the Darling River, a distance of 15 miles, with food and clothing for the Bunker Party and rescue party from Carmanah. Some of the survivors were without boots, their feet cut and bruised. Early Saturday morning, the survivors, assisted by the rescuers, left the lineman’s shack for an agonizing 12-hour hike back to civilization. After arriving in Bamfield, the Bunker Party was taken onboard the U.S. Revenue Cutter Grant. That evening, the Grant picked up the four Turtle Island survivors in Victoria, B.C., and sailed to Seattle.

“Investigations

“There were two official investigations into the causes of the Valencia disaster. The first investigation, commencing on Saturday, January 27, 1906, was conducted by Captains Bion B. Whitney and Robert A. Turner, U. S. Marine Inspection Service. Since the vessel had been totally destroyed, the inspectors relied on testimony from the 37 survivors to reconstruct the accident. That investigation concluded on February 13 with their final report to the Department of Commerce and Labor dated March 17, 1906.

“On February 7, 1906, President Theodore Roosevelt (1858-1919) ordered Lawrence O. Murray, Assistant Secretary of Commerce and Labor, to establish a Federal Commission of Investigation into the wreck of the Valencia, focusing not only on the causes, but also on prevention and navigational safety along the coast and inland waters of Washington. President Roosevelt appointed Murray as the chairman, and Herbert Knox Smith, Deputy Commissioner of Corporations and Captain William T. Burwell, U. S. Navy, Commandant of the Puget Sound Navy Yard, as members.

“The Federal Commission commenced the investigation in Seattle on February 14 and concluded on March 1, 1906. They examined 60 witnesses, collecting 1,860 pages of testimony and more than 30 exhibits. The lighthouse tender SS Columbine took the Commissioners to Neah Bay, around Cape Flattery looking for locations to build life-saving stations, and finally to the scene of the wreck on Vancouver Island. Their report to the president, including conclusions and recommendations, was published on April 14, 1906.

“Foul Weather and Navigational Errors

“Both investigations concluded that navigational errors by Captain Johnson, exacerbated by foul weather, caused the Valencia to run ashore on Vancouver Island. Captain Johnson should have headed out to open sea until the weather lifted and the ship’s position could be absolutely determined. There had been no lifeboat drills during the voyage, resulting in mass confusion and the loss of many lives. With the exception of one boat davit breaking away and possibly weak bulkheads inside the Valencia, none of the loss of life was due to any defect in the ship. The rescue vessels had done everything reasonable to assist the Valencia but, through a series of unfortunate circumstances and missed opportunities, had failed. The Federal Commission commented, however, “…there was certainly no display of the heroic daring that has often marked other such emergencies in our merchant marine.”

“According to the Federal Commission of Investigation, the Valencia left San Francisco with nine officers and 56 crew. There were at least 108 passengers on board; 80 men, 17 women and 11 children, not identified on the passenger list. The official death toll for the disaster was 136 persons; seven officers, 33 crewmen and 96 passengers. There were 37 survivors; two officers, 23 crewmen, and 12 passengers. All of the women and children perished. An exhaustive search of the area by ship and of the coastline and islands by search parties produced the bodies of only 33 victims; the rest were never found. No one alive witnessed the fate of Captain Johnson, but all the survivors praised him, stating that everything humanly possible had been done to save all under his command.

“Phantom Ships and Ghosts at Sea

“In 1910, The Seattle Times and other newspapers reported that mariners claimed to have seen a phantom ship resembling the Valencia on the rocks in the vicinity of the Pachena Point. Rumor also held that Indian fishermen had sighted a lifeboat manned by skeletons.

“In 1933, Valencia’s lifeboat No. 5 was found drifting in Barkley Sound, still in good condition despite 27 years of exposure to the elements. Part of the lifeboat, bearing the name Valencia, is on display at the Maritime Museum of British Columbia in Victoria, B.C.

“The treacherous, stormy southwest coast of Vancouver Island has a history of shipwrecks dating back to 1786. Known as the “Graveyard of the Pacific,” almost 70 ships have wrecked there. Lighthouses were established at Cape Beale in 1874 and at Carmanah Point in 1891, linked by a telegraph line. The Valencia disaster finally shocked the Canadian Government into building another lighthouse at Pachena Point in 1907.

“As protection against further catastrophes, the overgrown and poorly maintained telegraph route was transformed into a lifesaving trail for shipwrecked mariners, complete with wooden shelters built at suitable intervals. The 47-mile West Coast Trail, as it is known today, has been improved and preserved for recreation and historical purposes by Parks Canada as part of the Pacific Rim National Park Reserve. The 100-foot cliffs above the scene of the disaster have been named the Valencia Bluffs. From there, the tangled wreckage of the Valencia, now a protected artifact, can be seen, sitting on rocks in four fathoms of water, rusting away.” (McClary. “Valencia, SS, the Wreck of (1906).”)

Port Renfrew Online: “(S.S. VALENCIA) In 1906 the tangled mass of wreckage below the precipitous walls of Vancouver Island, near Pachena Point marked the grave of the “S.S. Valencia and the 117 persons who perished with the ship.” (Port Renfrew Online. “Shipwreck Map Guide.”)

US Bureau of Navigation: Thirty-eight survivors. (U.S. Bureau of Navigation. Merchant Vessels of the U.S.…1906, p. 386.)

US Federal Commission of Investigation 1906: “The passenger steamer Valencia, owned by the Pacific Coast Com¬pany, was built in 1882 by Cramps in Philadelphia. She was reg¬istered as of the port of New York, but for many years had engaged exclusively in the Pacific coast trade. Her allowed route was the Pacific Ocean, coast, and Bering Sea. She was licensed to carry 286 passengers. Master, Oscar Johnson. Her last annual inspec¬tion was on April 27, 1905, at Seattle. In November, 1905, she was reinspected, and on January 3, 1906, she was again specially rein-spected at San Francisco.
(Federal Commission of Investigation 1906, Wreck of the Steamer Valencia, p. 7)

“The Valencia was an iron, single-screw, steam-steering, steam vessel; length 252 feet, beam 34 feet, draft 19 feet without load. She had 3 cargo holds, 4 water-tight metal bulkheads, 2 boilers, with 6 furnaces altogether, and was allowed a steam pressure of 100 pounds. She was equipped with 6 lifeboats and 1 working boat, with a total carrying capacity of 181 persons (each lifeboat being swung on davits), and 3 life rafts, with a total carrying capacity of 44 persons. Two of these rafts were of tule, a buoyant Californian reed. She had 368 life-preservers, 315 of which were of tule and the rest of cork; a Lyle line-firing gun of the standard pattern, with 1,500 feet of line; 4 anchors, with 90 fathoms of chain for each, and was otherwise equipped as the law and regulations required…. She had three decks—a saloon deck, mostly open to the weather; below that the main deck, and below that the lower deck. Imposed upon the saloon deck were two series of cabins, forming- houses. On top of the after series of cabins, known as the “after-house,” was a hurricane deck, and on top of the forward series of cabins a so-called “fiddler’s deck.” The lifeboats in question were carried three on each side, the four forward ones on a level with the fiddler’s deck and the two rear ones on top of the after-house on the hurricane deck. (FCI 1906, Wreck of the Steamer Valencia, p. 8)

“She carried on this trip… A total crew list of 65. Inasmuch as the passenger list for this trip is not entirely accu¬rate, and the bodies of many of the victims were never found, and many of those found were incapable of identification, an exact enumeration of the personnel is not possible. The figures given below are, however, substantially correct and can not differ by more than two or three from the actual facts. When the Valencia left San Francisco on the trip on which she was wrecked, she carried 46 first-class passengers and 62 second-class passengers. It appears that there were on the vessel 17 women in all, and a few children. Of the total officers and crew of 65, 40 were lost and 25 saved. Of the total passenger list of 108, 96 were lost and 12 saved. The ratio of passengers lost to number of passengers was therefore 88 per cent, and of crew lost to number of crew 61 per cent. In all, of the total ship’s company of 173, 136 were lost (a per¬centage of 78) and 37 saved. All the women and children perished… (FCI 1906, Wreck of the Steamer Valencia, p. 9)

“The Valencia left her dock at San Francisco at 11.20 a.m. Satur¬day, January 20, 1906, bound for Victoria, B. C., and Seattle. She proceeded up the coast on her usual route, keeping a course gener¬ally parallel to the line of the coast and within from 5 to 20 miles thereof, at various points, intending, when she reached Cape Flattery, to turn in around said cape to Puget Sound and proceed down that Sound to her point of destination. Cape Flattery, where she would have made the turn to the east, is about 667 miles from the entrance to the Golden Gate and San Francisco Harbor. Leaving San Fran¬cisco at the tune she did, she would, in the ordinary course of events, have reached Cape Flattery at the entrance to the Straits some time within a few hours before or after midnight Monday, the third day.

“She proceeded up the coast without especial incident, and early Sunday morning passed Cape Mendocino, about 190 miles north of San Francisco, which cape and the light thereon were the last land and light that were clearly seen by the Valencia until she went ashore. From that point the weather was hazy, and neither by night nor day did she see any lights thereafter or hear any fog signals.

“Keeping her course almost entirely by compass and dead reckon¬ing by the log, she failed to locate correctly her position in relation to Cape Flattery, missed the entrance to the Straits and Puget Sound, and went ashore at about 11.50 p. in. Monday, January 22, on the southwest coast of Vancouver Island. It appeared that she first struck a rock or ledge a few hundred yards offshore, where she hung for a few minutes, and during these few minutes the vessel turned upon this rock as a pivot, and then, coming off, drifted or was driven inshore so that in her final berth she lay at substantially right angles to the shore line, with her bow heading out to sea and her stern not over a hundred yards from the cliff which formed the shore line. She remained in that position with life on board her until Wednesday noon or 1 o’clock p. m., January 24, breaking up gradually up to that time, and then her upper works went to pieces completely, so as to be wholly submerged except for her two masts and the tops of her boilers, and so as to be entirely untenable for human life, except for a few people in the rigging. During this period, from Monday night to Wednesday noon, various attempts were made, both by the ship’s company and by outside parties, to rescue those on board, as will later be set forth in detail.

“The wind was variable during her voyage, but was of considerable strength from the southeast when she struck and for two days there¬after, and the sea was fairly heavy. The weather was cold and wet. The coast line where the Valencia lay is substantially a con¬tinuous rock cliff, rising almost sheer from the water, about too feet in height, covered with trees and beaten by a very heavy surf. The exact location was about midway between Cape Beale, 9 miles to the west, and Carmanah Light, 12 miles to the east, these being the two nearest lights and the nearest inhabited places…” (U.S. Federal Commission of Investigation. Wreck of the Steamer Valencia. 1906.)

US SIS: “…steamship Valencia [wrecks] on the south side of Vancouver Island, British Columbia, on January 22, 1906, by which 121 lives were lost….

“The wreck of the steamship Valencia, the most serious of the several casualties of the year, was thoroughly investigated by the officials of this Service, and was also made the subject of a special investigation by a commission appointed by the Secretary, in accordance with Executive order of February 7, 1906.” (U.S. Steamboat Inspection Service Annual Report 1906, p. 13.)

Sources

Berman, Bruce D. Encyclopedia of American Shipwrecks. Boston: Mariners Press Inc., 1972.

Gibbs, Jim. Oregon’s Salty Coast. Seattle: Superior Publishing Company, 1978.

McClary, Daryl C. “Valencia, SS, the Wreck of (1906)” HistoryLink.org. The Free Online Encyclopedia of Washington State History. Accessed 9-21-2021 at: http://www.historylink.org/index.cfm?DisplayPage=output.cfm&file_id=7382

Oakland Tribune, CA. “Shipwreck [San Juan] One of Worst Since Janeiro’s Loss, 1901.” 8-30-1929, D3. Accessed at: http://www.newspaperarchive.com/FullPagePdfViewer.aspx?img=105413307

Port Renfrew Online. “Shipwreck Map Guide.” Accessed 9-21-2021 at: http://www.portrenfrew.com/wrecks.htm

United States Bureau of Navigation, Department of Commerce and Labor. Thirty-Eighth Annual List of Merchant Vessels of the United States…For the Year Ended June 30, 1906. Washington: Government Printing Office, 1906. Digitized by Google. Accessed 9-21-2021 at: http://books.google.com/books?id=ROEYAAAAYAAJ&printsec=frontcover&dq=editions:LCCNsn88028129&lr=#v=onepage&q=&f=false

United States Federal Commission of Investigation. Wreck of the Steamer Valencia (Report to the President of the Federal Commission of Investigation). Washington: Government Printing Office, April 14, 1906, 67 pages. Accessed 9-21-2021 at:
https://www.google.com/books/edition/Wreck_of_the_Steamer_Valencia/ZrJBAAAAIAAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=U.S.+Federal+Commission+of+Investigation.++Wreck+of+the+Steamer+Valencia.+1906.&printsec=frontcover

United States Steamboat-Inspection Service. Annual Report of the Supervising Inspector General, Steamboat-Inspection Service to the Secretary of Commerce and Labor for the Fiscal Year Ended June 30, 1906. Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1906. 345 pages. Digitized by Google. Accessed 9-21-2021 at: https://books.google.com/books?id=ZVcpAAAAYAAJ&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false

–3,258 Census Bureau. Mortality Statistics 1906. 1908, p. 56. Death rate of 7.9 per 100K. p.84.

California (100) Bureau of the Census. Mortality Statistics 1906. 1908, p. 342.

Colorado ( 70) Bureau of the Census. Mortality Statistics 1906. 1908, p. 343.

Connecticut ( 94) Bureau of the Census. Mortality Statistics 1906. 1908, p. 343.

District of Columbia ( 15) Bureau of the Census. Mortality Statistics 1906. 1908, p. 343.

Indiana (140) Bureau of the Census. Mortality Statistics 1906. 1908, p. 343.

Maine ( 21) Bureau of the Census. Mortality Statistics 1906. 1908, p. 341.

Maryland ( 31) Bureau of the Census. Mortality Statistics 1906. 1908, p. 348.

Massachusetts (345) Bureau of the Census. Mortality Statistics 1906. 1908, p. 348.

Michigan (157) Bureau of the Census. Mortality Statistics 1906. 1908, p. 348.

New Hampshire ( 84) Bureau of the Census. Mortality Statistics 1906. 1908, p. 349.

New Jersey (182) Bureau of the Census. Mortality Statistics 1906. 1908, p. 349.

New York (1,117) Bureau of the Census. Mortality Statistics 1906. 1908, p. 349.
NY City 600 Rosner. Hives of Sickness…Epidemics in [NYC]. 1991, p. 31.

Pennsylvania (385) Bureau of the Census. Mortality Statistics 1906. 1908, p. 349.

Rhode Island ( 74) Bureau of the Census. Mortality Statistics 1906. 1908, p. 349.

South Dakota ( 5) Bureau of the Census. Mortality Statistics 1906. 1908, p. 349.

Vermont ( 17) Bureau of the Census. Mortality Statistics 1906. 1908, p. 349.

Narrative Information

Census Bureau: “Many deaths returned simply as meningitis [7,244] are undoubtedly due to tuberculous meningitis, traumatism, and other causes, and are tabulated here on account of the lack of accurate distinction in the certificates of death. This is also in evidence as applied to the separation of deaths from simple meningitis and from the specific infectious disease known as epidemic cerebro-spinal meningitis or cerebro-spinal fever [3,258 deaths]…” (p. 56.) [A table on this page entitled “Number of Deaths from Meningitis,” shows an aggregate of 10,502 deaths.]

“The highest death rate for the year was that of New Hampshire (50.4)…” (p. 57.)

Sources

Rosner, David (Ed.). Hives of Sickness: Public Health and Epidemics in New York City. Rutgers University Press, 1991, 236 pages. Partially digitized by Google. Accessed 3-29-2018 at: http://books.google.com/books?id=o34QxI6lHwAC&pg=PA70&dq=1916+Polio+Epidemic&ei=Cy5DSZWvMIXAMpqalOYN#PPP7,M1

United States Bureau of the Census. Mortality Statistics 1906. Seventh Annual Report. Washington: Government Printing Office, 1908. Accessed 3-30-2020 at: https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/vsushistorical/mortstatsh_1906.pdf

–10  Ogden Standard, UT. “Terrible Wreck Occurs on the Union Pacific.” 12-7-1905, p. 1.

–10  Railway Age. “Recent Accidents,” Vol. XL, No. 25, 12-12-1905, p. 801.

 

Narrative Information

Railway Age: “In a head collision on the Union Pacific between a freight train and the eastbound Overland Limited near Rock Springs, Wyo., on December 7, 10 persons were killed and some 20 were injured. Of the killed three were dining car cooks, three were mail clerks, two electricians, one a passenger engineer and one a passenger brakeman. The freight train had received orders to meet four passenger trains, the last of which was the Overland Limited. It took the siding at Ahsay, 5 miles west of Rock Springs, and then three of the trains, all running near together, had passed that point, the freight started west and met the limited at full speed about a mile beyond the station. The freight conductor admitted that he had become confused and believed that all four trains had passed. Both engines were demolished and three cars of the limited caught fire and were destroyed.” (Railway Age. “Recent Accidents,” Vol. XL, No. 25, 12-12-1905, p. 801.)

 

Newspaper

Dec 7: “Omaha, Neb. Dec. 7.–Ten persons were killed and eleven train employes and eight passengers were injured in a wreck of Overland Limited passenger train No. 2, on the Union Pacific, five miles west of Rock Springs, Wyo., just before 2 o’clock this morning. The Limited was run into head-on by a freight train and both engines were demolished and the dynamo car, mail car and dining car on the Limited were burned up. Several of the bodies of the dead were incinerated.

The Dead.

First Cook James Busbee, Omaha,

Second Cook Ed Rosenbaum, Oakland, Cal.

Fourth Cook John Lawless, Omaha.

Three mail clerks were killed — J. W. Newsom, J. F. Phillipar, Frank Peterson.[1]

Electrician Stigers of Ogden and assistant, Frank McKenna.

Engineer Brink of Rawlins, [WY]

Brakeman Smith, of Rawlins.[2]

“….An extra freight train was given an order, before it left Rock Springs, to meet four east-bound passenger trains, of which the Overland Limited was the last one, at Ah Say, a siding five miles west of Rock Springs. The freight took the siding at Ah Say and waited until three of these trains had passed east and then pulled out. When a mile and a half west of Ah Say the freight med the Limited and crashed into it head-on. Both engines were demolished and the three first cars of the Limited immediately caught fire and ere entirely destroyed.

“Engineer Brink of the freight train, who, it is stated officially, was responsible for over running his orders, was one of the killed. Several trains had been badly delayed at Green River, with the result that the four passenger trains were running close to each other. The freight had receivd positive orders to meet all four of these trains at Ah Say and the officials say that the orders were either misunderstood or misread.

“Relief trains with wrecking cars and a large number of physicians were immediately dispatched from Rock Springs and Green River… The Wyoming state hospital, located near Rock Springs, was convenient to the point where the wreck occurred and to this institution the injured were removed….” (Ogden Standard, UT. “Terrible Wreck Occurs on the Union Pacific.” 12-7-1905, p. 1.)

 

Sources

Ogden Standard, UT. “Omaha Victims.” 12-8-1905, p. 8. Accessed 9-12-2017 at: https://newspaperarchive.com/ogden-standard-ogden-city-utah-dec-08-1905-p-8/?tag

Ogden Standard, UT. “Terrible Wreck Occurs on the Union Pacific.” 12-7-1905, p. 1. Accessed 9-12-2017 at: https://newspaperarchive.com/ogden-standard-ogden-city-utah-dec-07-1905-p-1/?tag

Railway Age, Vol. XL, No. 25, 12-12-1905, p. 801. Google digitized. Accessed 9-12-2017 at:

https://books.google.com/books?id=09ZLAAAAYAAJ&printsec=frontcover#v=thumbnail&q&f=false

 

[1] Notes near end of article that all three mail clerks were from Cheyenne, WY. Another source, though, writes that  “a cook, J. E. Newsome, one of the mail clerks,” was from Omaha. (Ogden Standard, UT. “Omaha Victims.” 12-8-1905, p. 8.)

[2] Provides list on the injured at this point and later notes that none seemed to have received fatal injuries.