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The devastation to San Francisco caused by the 1906 earthquake that struck the region on April 18 has been well-documented over the past 118 years. The 7.9-magnitude quake caused over 3,000 deaths and the loss of more than half the city’s buildings from fires that burned out of control for days due to ruptured gas and water mains. But how did Palo Alto, just 30 miles down the Peninsula, fare in the massive quake?
While San Francisco suffered more damage, the earthquake’s effect on Palo Alto was extensive as the earth shook for 47 seconds along the San Andreas fault, which runs through the Santa Cruz Mountains. In less than a minute, half the chimneys in Palo Alto reportedly had fallen to the ground and nearly every business in town had been damaged. A few buildings collapsed, including F.C. Thiele’s new $30,000 store on University Avenue. H.W. Simkins’ three-story brick department store lost its first-floor walls, while the two top stories were reported by local papers to be “some 3 feet out of plumb,” according to PaloAltoHistory.org. The quake caused an estimated $150,000 ($3.6 million today) in damages to local businesses and residences. At nearby Stanford University, two people were killed by falling debris, and several campus buildings, including Memorial Church, the new library, gymnasium and Encina Hall sustained nearly $3 million in damages (about $104 million today), according to multiple news reports.
The city and Stanford University immediately begin clearing out the debris and rebuilding. Less than two weeks after the quake piled the streets high with debris, the wreckage was being cleared.
From the destruction, came opportunity. City leaders launched a campaign to attract residents fleeing San Francisco to settle in Palo Alto, which was barely 12 years old at the time and was hoping to grow its population.
09 Jun 1906, Sat San Francisco Bulletin (San Francisco, California) Newspapers.com
‘Why not live in Palo Alto’ campaign
Just two weeks after the earthquake – and following efforts from the Palo Alto and Stanford Relief Committee to provide food, clothes and other supplies to those in need – residents formed a promotion committee and launched the campaign for a greater Palo Alto with the slogan “Why not live in Palo Alto? The home city of California.”
With $2,167 in pledges and other donations, the committee printed advertisements, posted signs and formed delegations to bring San Francisco refugees down to Palo Alto. The committee hoped to attract 2,000 to 4,000 new permanent residents to the city.
“The opportunity is ours to make a bigger, better, busier Palo Alto than ever before,” Marshall Black, president of the Palo Alto Board of Trade and an agent at the J. J. Morris Real Estate Company, wrote in the Daily Palo Alto Times/Peninsula Times Tribune on May 1, 1906. “The efforts of San Francisco men will be confined largely to restoring its business importance. Its residence section will be neglected. … Herein lies Palo Alto’s opportunity. Ours is pre-eminently a home city; our advantages as a place of residence are beyond dispute. But the tide of San Francisco commuters will not turn our way unless a concerted action is made on our part.
“Palo Alto has more advantages to offer to the home-seeker than any other town in California … Our climate is unequaled. Our University, best in the world, and together with our accredited high school , excellent grammar school and some half dozen private schools make Palo Alto an education center. And the fact that there are no saloons in Palo Alto or Mayfield makes an environment unusually attractive for people who are seeking the best social and moral conditions.”
17 May 1906, Thu The Peninsula Times Tribune (Palo Alto, California) Newspapers.com
Real estate boom & ‘over-asking’ sales
In May, the Peninsula Times Tribune reported that a boom in suburban real estate was being felt among the entire Peninsula. About 25 or 30 families had taken permanent refuge in Palo Alto.
“Already the local market is feeling the enlivening influence and inquiries for property as well as for rentals being received daily by the real estate firms,” the paper reported.
Houses were being rented as rapidly as repairs could be made, according to the paper.
Furnished cottages were advertised in local papers for below-normal rental rates ranging from $17 ( about $589.96 today) a month for a three-bedroom home to $70 (about $2,429.25 today) for an eight-bedroom home. One ad offered residents interested in relocating to Palo Alto the opportunity to trade their San Francisco home for a lot in Palo Alto.
Marshall Black told the Peninsula Times Tribune that he had experienced “little trouble in renting to all who had applied to him.” Black said he had rented about 20 houses within two weeks.
01 May 1906, Tue The Peninsula Times Tribune (Palo Alto, California) Newspapers.com
“We have made no raise in the price of rentals,” Black said. “This is a great drawing card for Palo Alto. … Cities across the Bay have doubled on their prices and have imposed on the San Francisco renters In many ways. When It has become generally known that all can get a square deal in Palo Alto, we will have more business than we can handle.”
Demand was largest for furnished houses of eight or 10 rooms, but there also were inquiries for unfurnished houses, the Daily Times reported. The supply in Palo Alto was still large enough to meet the rental demand because many families who were there only for the Stanford school year had reportedly left the city for the summer after the quake shut down the campus early.
A. M. Thompson of the Co-operative Land and Trust Company said that he had relocated several San Francisco families to Palo Alto, and that some of them had expressed the intention of remaining in Palo Alto permanently.
The Co-operative Land and Trust Company also reported two sales to San Francisco firms for higher than pre-earthquake asking prices. One was a vacant 50-foot by 11-foot lot on Emerson Street that sold for $5,000 (about $173,000 today), which was several hundred dollars over the asking price. The month prior to the earthquake, large city lots with a concrete walk and curbing were advertised for $500 and 1-acre lots were listed for $800.
09 Jun 1906, Sat The Peninsula Times Tribune (Palo Alto, California) Newspapers.com
A new population of residents
Local merchants also saw a boom due to the migration of residents from San Francisco.
“Many old customers are gone for the summer, but we have dozens of new ones, and I feel as though business prospects were just as good as before the quake,” grocery manager G.H. Gardner told the Daily Palo Alto Times/Peninsula Times Tribune on June 6, 1906. “We are selling a great quantity of house furnishings and goods, especially kitchenware, which indicates that the town Is rapidly filling with new families.”
No official count of new residents had been made, but local papers estimated that several hundred families had moved into the area. The Palo Alto School District reported that the number of students had jumped from 672 to 725 in June, calling for the addition of one new teacher, according to the San Francisco Call and Post. By 1907, the population of children in Palo Alto had expanded by 95 youth, or about one-third greater than that of any other town on the Peninsula. Sunnyvale reported the second largest gain of 61 new children, the Peninsula Times Tribune reported on May 20, 1907.
Palo Alto’s population grew by 3,000 new residents between 1900 and 1910. It jumped from 1,600 in 1900 to 4,600 in 1910, according to the U.S. Census. Whether or not the committee reached its goal of attracting 4,000 new residents to the city within 12 months following the earthquake, its campaign efforts proved successful in the long run, cementing Palo Alto as a desirable residential enclave with unparalleled schools 118 years later.