“At that time the streets were like bedlam. Soldiers were in control, and while the regulars were almost perfect in their attempts to maintain order the militia men lost their heads. They shot some men without provocation, and never thought to cry ‘halt’ or ‘who comes there?’”
Henry Kohn of Chicago told of a horrible experience he had. “I had a room on the fifth floor of the Randolph Hotel, Mason and O’Farrell streets,” he said. “The first quake threw me out of bed. By the time I reached the second floor the building had ceased shaking, and I went back, got my clothes, and went into the street. In the building across the street twelve persons were killed. About 11 o’clock in the morning we were in the public square, with about 1,500 other refugees, when a severe shock was felt. People became panic stricken; some prayed, women fainted, and children shrieked and cried.
“The stream of people going up Nob and Telegraph hills all Wednesday was a pitiful sight. Many were barefooted and lightly clad. There was nothing to eat or drink.”
Sol Allenberg, a New York bookmaker, was with Kohn at the St. Francis Hotel. “I was sick in my room when the shock struck us,” he said, “and my friend helped me out to a boarding house on the hill. There I had to pay $7 for a room for the rest of the day.
“It was two miles from the fire and I thought I was safe enough when I got into my bed at noon, but about two hours later they awoke me to tell me that the fire was only two blocks away, and we got out only a short time before the house went up in flames.
“No exaggeration of the horrible scenes on the street is possible. There was one poor fellow pinned to earth with a great iron girder across his chest. It in turn was weighted down by a mass of wreckage that could not be moved. He could not be saved from the flames that were sweeping toward him, and begged a policeman to shoot him.
“The officer fired at him and missed him, and then an old man crawled through the debris and cut the arteries in the man’s wrists. The crowd hurried on and left him to die alone.”