San Francisco Sightseeing Articles

The beautiful city San Francisco this week is in the awkward situation of commemorating an event last generation were desperate to forget - the great earthquake of 1906.
The major quake, which struck on April 18, 1906, has been ignored for long, denied for decades and even been erased, with photographs altered to minimize the damage.
A hundred years ago - as well as today - business leaders are very sensitive to the word "earthquake."
"They were fearful that East Coast investors would not put money in the rebuilding of San Francisco if they thought it would fall down some years later," said Jim Lazarus, vice president of San Francisco Chamber of Commerce. "And so I think that continued even to this day."
That's the reason 1906 earthquake, the worst in American history, was known for a long time simply as the "great fire." The three days of fires that followed the earthquake finished the job of destruction, leveling 500 city blocks and leaving more than half the population homeless.
Nobody questioned the strikingly low official death toll of 478 until the 1960's, when historian Gladys Hansen began scouring old records.
"I just kind of stopped at 3, 000," Hansen said. "But I know it's a lot higher than that."
The higher death count wasn't officially accepted by the city until last year.