On Friday, April 20, while the fire was still spreading, the general distribution was begun. About 25 wagons were impressed which were used in the distribution of the provisions seized by order of the committee. Refugees were standing in line at the Golden Gate Park Lodge; the Young Men’s Hebrew Association, Page and Stanyan Streets; St. Mary’s Cathedral, Van Ness Avenue and O’Farrell Street; at Jefferson and Columbia Squares, and at the corners of Fifth and Mission Streets and 24th and Douglas Streets, where food stations had already been established by the citizens. The committee made use of these for its own distribution, choosing the Young Men’s Hebrew Association as its base for general distribution.
The bakeries that day furnished 35,000 loaves of bread. The chief difficulty lay in transporting to the city the supplies that were available—5,000 tons of flour at Vallejo and many carloads of donated goods at Oakland.
On Saturday, April 21, the day the fire was brought under control, the city was reported to be divided into districts. Five bakeries were in operation and a committee from Fresno appeared before the Citizens’ Committee to announce that it had brought six carloads of supplies. Committees from some nearby communities put themselves under the direction of the Citizens’ Committee, but the general efficiency of the distribution was lowered by the fact that still other out of town committees undertook to make independent distributions.
On Sunday, April 22, arrangements had been made to have bread baked in the towns of the Santa Clara Valley. It was found necessary to carry into effect the committee ruling to prevent alleged exorbitant retail charges for bread.
On Monday, April 23, there was an abundance of supplies for present use and an over-supply of milk.
On Tuesday, April 24, there was a shortage of sugar and coffee. Sixty food stations had been established. No stores were found on investigation to be charging exorbitant prices for food, but some of the refugees were trying to get more than their share of food. Confusion was still being caused by the work of the independent relief committees.
When two days later the committee on relief of the hungry made its final report to the Finance Committee there had been established 128 stations and sub-stations, a warehouse in the Moulder School, Page and Gough Streets, and a branch warehouse at Spear and Howard Streets. It had had printed a card for the use of the applicant at the food station and had determined that rations, except in cases of emergency, should be issued to each person at intervals of three days. Every card carried a statement of the amount of food required by a person for a day, as follows:
Fresh beef, 11⁄4 lbs. or bacon or ham, 3⁄4 lb.
Salt fish, 3⁄4 lb. [Probably as a substitute for meat and not in addition to it.]
Fresh or canned vegetables, 1 lb.