Title: Colored photograph -- The Hansen Collection -- 19060060.jpg

Owning Institution: The Museum of the City of San Francisco

Description: This photograph was so heavily manipulated that it is difficult to find enough detail to place where it was taken, though it appears to be of a scene on Market Street. It could even be a painting taken freely from a photo.

Title: Mission District - Early morning of first day. -- The Hansen Collection -- 19060061.jpg

Owning Institution: The Museum of the City of San Francisco

Description: This appears to have been taken in the Mission District on the early morning of the first day of the disaster, April 18th. The Mission District did not suffer as much damage from the earthquake as the adjoining South of Market area. However, almost of half of the Mission District will soon be destroyed by the fire.

Title: People walking amid the ruins of San Francisco. -- The Hansen Collection -- 19060062.jpg

Owning Institution: The Museum of the City of San Francisco

Description: People walking amid the ruins of San Francisco.

Title: Post fire demolitions on Market Street -- The Hansen Collection -- 19060063.jpg

Owning Institution: The Museum of the City of San Francisco

Description: Hundreds of gutted buildings with dangerous free-standing walls were dynamited in the weeks following the fire. Here we see the great cloud of smoke and dust from the demolition of a structure on Market Street. The fire ravaged Modnanock Building is on the left. Though gutted by the flames, enough of the building remained to allow it to be rebuilt around its core of steel, brick and concrete.

Title: Post fire demolitions on Market Street -- The Hansen Collection -- 19060064.jpg

Owning Institution: The Museum of the City of San Francisco

Description: Hundreds of gutted buildings with dangerous free-standing walls were dynamited in the weeks following the fire. Here we see the great cloud of smoke and dust from the demolition of a structure on Market Street. The fire ravaged Modnanock Building is on the left. Though gutted by the flames, enough of the building remained to allow it to be rebuilt around its core of steel, brick and concrete.

Title: San Francisco’s destroyed financial district. -- The Hansen Collection -- 19060065.jpg

Owning Institution: The Museum of the City of San Francisco

Description: This scene, around California and Montgomery Streets, shows either the still smoldering ruins, or days afterward, with the smoke/dust emanating from demolition work to remove free-standing walls with dynamite.

Title: Art among the rubble. -- The Hansen Collection -- 19060066.jpg

Owning Institution: The Museum of the City of San Francisco

Description: San Francisco’s famed Mechanics Monument in the midst of the burnt Civic Center.

Title: The long work of rebuilding begins -- The Hansen Collection -- 19060067.jpg

Owning Institution: The Museum of the City of San Francisco

Description: This photograph is one of the earliest shots of the devastated downtown being rebuilt. A crane can be seen in the middle of the frame.

Title: Rebuilding starts. -- The Hansen Collection -- 19060068.jpg

Owning Institution: The Museum of the City of San Francisco

Description: Another photo of the ruins undergoing the first reconstruction efforts. Cranes can be seen in the left and right portions of the frame.

Title: The Ferry Building in foreground of the burning city. -- The Hansen Collection -- 19060069.jpg

Owning Institution: The Museum of the City of San Francisco

Description: This eerie shot taken from a boat in the Bay shows the Ferry Building silhouetted against the backdrop of San Francisco being consumed by the fire. This was most likely taken on the late afternoon of the third day of the disaster, April 20th. The sun, beginning its westerly descent, is temporarily obscured by the smoke produced by the fires in San Francisco’s North Beach district. By evening, the flames will reach Meigg’s Wharf, where they will destroy the oil storage tanks and grain sheds near the pier before wrapping around Telegraph Hill and threatening the city’s old North Waterfront before being stopped by a heroic last stand by Naval lieutenant Frederick Freeman and his men.