1875 Poetry Book Returns to San Francisco Library 120 Years After 1906 Quake
Updated
Updated · The New York Times · Jun 1
1875 Poetry Book Returns to San Francisco Library 120 Years After 1906 Quake
1 articles · Updated · The New York Times · Jun 1
Returned in April, the 1875 first edition of “Echoes of the Foot-Hills” resurfaced at San Francisco’s Mechanics’ Institute Library after being presumed lost since the 1906 earthquake and fires.
Smoke-darkened pages and faded Mechanics’ Institute stamps suggest the volume was one of the books that survived because it had been checked out when the disaster destroyed the library’s original brick building.
About 200,000 volumes in the institute’s main collection were lost in the collapse, part of a wider catastrophe that destroyed nearly 500 city blocks and killed an estimated 3,000 people.
Only a handful of pre-1906 books are known to have survived at the library, whose archivist said some likely endured because borrowers had them out at the time.
How many other priceless artifacts from the 1906 earthquake might still be hidden in plain sight today?
Bought for $35 online, what makes this smoke-damaged book a priceless symbol of a city's survival?
A book lost in 1906 returned after 120 years. Who was the woman who last checked it out?