After a massive earthquake rocked the urban total of San Francisco on Apr xviii , 1906 , fires erupted all some the urban total from ruptured gas lines , overturned stoves together with electrical wires. This laissez passer on notice would rage for iii days causing equally much equally 90% of the impairment brought inwards yesteryear the earthquake. As the conflagration moved from block to block together with district to district , every available fire-fighter together with laissez passer on notice engine was pushed into service. Unfortunately , along amongst gas lines H2O mains were broken also together with many of the city’s laissez passer on notice hydrants ran dry out leaving the city’s locals together with fire-fighters scrambling for H2O sources.
up the incline. Mission district’s residents , who had gathered at Dolores Park , responded yesteryear the hundreds , tugging together with pushing the engines upwards the colina amongst ropes. After a seven-hour battle , the flames were stopped together with the neighborhood was saved from certainly destruction.
In the slow 1960s , a dentist together with historian Doc Bullock asked the thence Mayor Joseph Alioto if he could pigment the hydrant inwards aureate to accolade the battle. The mayor agreed. Since thence , every twelvemonth on the anniversary of the earthquake families of survivors together with electrical current members of the Fire Department assemble some the still-active hydrant that saved Mission District together with apply a fresh coat of golden paint.
There is similar a shot a memorial plaque on the “Little Giant” that reads:
Though the H2O mains were broken together with dry out on Apr xviii , 1906 yet from this Greenberg hydrant on the next nighttime at that topographic point came a current of H2O allowing the firemen to salve the Mission District.
Dedicated to principal Dennis Sullivan together with the men who fought the Great Fire together with to the spirit of the people of San Francisco who regardless of their losses brought our urban total from its ruins to survive host of the populace amongst their 1915 Pan Pacific Exposition together with the edifice of our Civic Center.
May their dearest together with devotion for this urban total survive an inspiration for all to follow together with their motto ‘The urban total that knows how’ a calorie-free to atomic number 82 all hereafter generations.
Photo credit: Steven Damron/Flickr
Photo credit: Marcin Szychowski
Photo credit: Google Street View
A horse-drawn laissez passer on notice engine.
San Francisco Mission District burning inwards the aftermath of the San Francisco Earthquake of 1906. Photo credit: Chadwick , H. D./US Gov War Department
Sources: SF Examiner / Explore SF / Atlas Obscura