Earthquake/Fire: Nob Hill Panorama
"Panorama San Francisco, Taken on First Day of the Fire" from a Behrendt foldout looks south from the Hopkins Institute of Art on Nob Hill (Powell/Pine) toward Market Street on the morning of April 18, 1906 (earthquake day). The fire is burning very actively south of Market, but it has not burned the Call Building yet, so it must be before 11 A.M.; all the buildings shown will burn within the next 24 hours. The image consists of two separate photos joined at the center. All the postcards below use the left half or right half of this image. A copy of the left-hand photo at the Bancroft Library has © 1906 Stewart & Rogers etched into the plate; the cards below show different copyrights.
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Publisher Adolph Selige in St. Louis issued "Panorama of burning San Francisco, Cal." as two separate cards. The low contrast images are very dark.
- Selige 3224 (left).
- Selige 3223 (right).
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The first three postcards use the left image, each cropped slightly differently. The fourth postcard uses the right image.
- Rotograph, "Panoramic view of the fire", © 1906 S.F. Ruins Pub. Co., with stylized red flames.
- Judge, "San Francisco Burning after the Earthquake Shock", © Judge Co. 1906, postmarked 4/10/1907.
- Rieder-Cardinell, "Skyscrapers in the grip of the San Francisco fire", © 1906 Rieder-Cardinell Co., postmarked S.F. 7/24/1906.
- Rieder-Cardinell 6932, "Awaiting their doom in the San Francisco fire", © 1906 Rieder-Cardinell Co., postmarked 2/xx/1907 (day not printed). Just below center, a group of half a dozen people on the roof of The Oliver (southeast corner Pine/Mason) watch the fire, discuss their prospects, and await their doom.
Steve's SF postcard pages:
