S.F. gathers at Lotta’s Fountain before dawn for 116th commemoration of the 1906 earthquake and fire

The annual pre-dawn tribute to the earthquake and hearth that started on April 18, 1906 was again to welcome the general public the primary time because the coronavirus pandemic and stay-at-home orders shut it down in 2020.

Although there was a last-minute commemoration final yr it was deliberately unannounced as a small and subdued, masked affair and even Sarlatte, the longtime occasion emcee, didn’t make it.

There was an air of willpower and appreciation among the many roughly 100 folks in attendance. The period-costume dressers from Actions Previous previous have been up at 2 a.m. to get into their corsets and bustle attire and feather hats.

Additionally up at 2 a.m. was Joe McCaughey, 93, who got here all the best way type Merced to characterize his late uncle, Eugene Schmitz, mayor of San Francisco from 1901-1908.

“It’s good to be out right here and see that town remains to be alive,” mentioned McCaughey, a retired mortician.

The Nice Disaster, as it’s usually known as, struck at 5:12 a.m., cracking open fuel traces that fed a conflagration that didn’t cease till it hit Van Ness Avenue, heading west.

Earlier than the fires have been lastly crushed again, half of town’s 400,000 residents have been homeless. Yearly, the 1-minute quake and 3-day hearth is paid tribute at Lotta’s Fountain, the place Kearny, Geary and Market Streets intersect. That is the place town’s shocked populace met to seek for misplaced family members. and for indicators of hope.

For years, Eric Kingsbury has put the commemoration on his calendar and set his alarm, and for years he has slept via it. However he lastly obtained there with a push from his girlfriend, Isabelle Malouf, who moved to San Francisco just a few years in the past from Texas.

“It’s price it to see the 1906 costumes, completely,” mentioned Malouf. “To have occasions like this at this early hour is one purpose we love town.”

As emcee, Sarlatte needed to get via 9 typed pages of textual content that included a timeline of the calamity, all earlier than the ceremonial sounding of a siren at 5:12 a.m., when the earth shook and the sky started to burn.

“By the top of the primary day, the Metropolis by the Bay would endure 26 aftershocks and would succumb to a raging inferno that will present no mercy to its bewildered residents for 74” hours, Sarlatte mentioned.

His remarks, timed to the minute, additionally allowed for a second of silence for Charlotte Maillard Shultz, chief of protocol, who died in December at 88; and Ron Ross, founding father of the San Francisco Historical past Affiliation, who died in February at 85. It additionally allowed for speeches by each former mayor Willie Brown and Mayor London Breed. Each linked town’s restoration after the quake to the continued restoration from the pandemic and its lockdown.

“That is actually a logo of how San Francisco can get well,” mentioned Brown. “I’ve been coming right here for 34 years and I’ll preserve proceed to return again as a result of that is the spirit of town.”

He was adopted by Breed, who arrived in interval gown with a courtroom of aides additionally in interval gown.

“Identical to in 1906, when town got here collectively,” she mentioned, “we’re stepping up and placing town again collectively and making it extra robust and resilient than ever earlier than.”

The fireplace chief, police chief and sheriff all spoke, and one way or the other Sarlatte managed to carry the present in at 5:10 a.m. “I really feel like Ed Sullivan,’’ he mentioned. “It’s awfully shut, possibly yet one more minute.”

After the siren sounded and the commemorative wreath was positioned on the fountain, the procession continued to the Mission District for the annual portray in gold of the hearth hydrant credited with saving town. The individuals from Actions Previous then repaired to the Palace Lodge for breakfast in costume.

However most individuals stood round to soak up the reminiscences, that are by now a number of generations eliminated. The final precise survivor, Invoice Del Monte, died in 2016, at age 109.

Additionally lengthy gone is Josephine Demaria, who was a little bit lady throughout the earthquake and advised the tales lengthy sufficient that her nice granddaughter, Melissa Geissinger, set about committing them to a paper. She was halfway via when the Tubbs Fireplace took her personal home in Santa Rosa and that solely elevated her willpower. Geissinger’s historic novel, “Nothing Left however Mud,” is lastly completed.

Geissinger rousted her son, Apollo, 4, at 3:15 a.m. to drive down from Santa Rosa, to start his indoctrination to the household story.

“He was not joyful about getting up that early,” Geissinger mentioned, “but it surely’s vital to cross alongside the custom.”

Sam Whiting is a San Francisco Chronicle employees author. E mail: swhiting@sfchronicle.com. Twitter:@samwhitingsf