N.L. CHRISTENSEN Scripps League Newspapers. 
At 5 o’clock the morning April 18, 1906, widow Hasel Yardley slipped out of her apartment near Market Street to look for bargains at adjacent fruit and vegetable stalls, leaving 2-year-old daughter Annie asleep.
Suddenly in the gray dawn she was terrified by the rumble and shock of a powerful earthquake. Large buildings swayed; more flimsy ones collapsed.
Mrs. Yardley rushed back to her flat, found it wrecked. She was told by rescuers that nobody could be alive inside. She clawed at the rubble, found an oval-framed photograph of Annie. This she clutched as she stumbled from one group of refugees to another looking for the little girl.
That was 74 years ago this week, the day the great San Andreas Fault which extends up and down the California Coast settled violently in San Francisco, touching off a sweeping three-day fire that left most of the city in ruins.
You wouldn’t suspect today, as you tour bustling, modern-day San Francisco, that this wu the scene of one of the greatest disasters in the history of the country.
Hazel Yardley’s story ended happily, under the circumstances. Miraculously, according to Gordon Thomas and Max Morgan Witts in their book, “The San Francisco Earthquake” (Stein and Day of New York, publishers), the woman and daughter Annie were reunited at a refugee camp outside Oakland. A neighbor, Harry Adams, had rescued the little girl from the collapsed apartment and taken her with his own family to the camp.
Countless others weren’t that fortunate. Statistics from various source books tell the tragic story: Between 500 and 700 persons were dead or missing. Untold numbers were injured. More than 2000,000 were left homeless. A four square-mile area comprising more than 490 city blocks was devastated.
More than 28,000 buildings lay in ruins. Property damage was estimated in the neighborhood of $500 million. Insurance companies and San Francisco financial houses estimated close to $300 million was paid in insurance, though many companies failed in the attempt to meet their obligations and others repudiated them.
Citizen of America and European and Asiatic communities contributed $10 million for relief. Additional millions in food and clothing were rushed to the stricken city. Countless inhabitants slept in remaining houses, parks and streets for weeks, or in refugee camps established in nearby areas, particularly Oakland.
The fires had started at various points in the city from ruptured gas and power lines as well as overturned lamps and stoves. Fire-fighting was hampered by brokers water lines. Ultimately dynamite was used to “back-fire” against the flames. Many of the city’s most expensive buildings – business and residential otherwise not severely damaged, were thus sacrificed.
Against the background of tragedy and amid predictions of an “encore” temblor on the Andreas Fault, the people of San Francisco refused to accept defeat.
Almost immediately the struggle to rehabilitate and rebuild began. With the aid of banks and insurance, the city went forward step by step and within a very few years following the catastrophe, San Francisco was taking on a somewhat normal appearance. New structures were planned along more costly and substantial lines.
Today’s reborn San Francisco thus rose from the debris and ashes of disaster.
The city – founded as Yerba Buena (good herb) in 1776 with the named changed to San Francisco in 1847 – resumed its growth pattern and had a population of 417,000 by 1910, a substantial gain from the 342,000 at the turn of the century.
In 1915, San Francisco invited the world to see the rebuilt city by holding the Panama-Pacific International Exposition, celebrating the opening of the Panama Canal. which stimulated trade in the city.
The San Francisco of 1980 is one of the world’s most interesting cities-a center of culture, finance, industry, trade, and commerce. Its scenic beauty and mild climate have helped win it a reputation as one of America’s favorite cities.
Predictions persist that sooner or later there’ll be a major earthquake replay. But the San Francisco Bay area continues to grow and expand, forming what World Book calls the second largest metropolitan area on the Pacific Coast.
Maybe the description of Bret Harte is still applicable: “San Francisco, serene, indifferent to Fate.”