Illustration from a book on the earthquake and fire

1906

A plate from "The History of the San Francisco Disaster and Mount Vesuvius Horror" by Charles Eugene Banks and Opie Read, rushed into print in 1906. Books of this kind paired the earthquake with the Vesuvius eruption of the same year and sold to a national audience within months. The Commons file is catalogued with the Chinese temples of Chinatown destroyed in the fire.