As the 100th anniversary of the famous April 18, 1906, earthquake in San Francisco is observed, a look at the Chattanooga newspapers from that time shows that the Scenic City residents followed it with much interest.

In the days when newspapers and telegrams were the only ways to learn of faraway events, hundreds of people reportedly gathered outside the Chattanooga Times building, now the Dome Building, to read the latest reports as they were posted on the windows. The event was said to have created the most local interest over national or international news since the Spanish-American War of 1898.

Stories about the event, which caused the California city of 350,000 people to be almost completely destroyed by fire, could be found all over the front pages of both the Times and the Chattanooga News for several days afterward. The Chattanooga News, the offices of which publisher J.B. Pound had just relocated to a tall new building on 11th Street that month, wrote in one story, “The California earthquake will be recorded on the book of time as the direst disaster in the history of America.”

Also, somewhat surprisingly, several Chattanoogans were in San Francisco and numerous others had loved ones there. Numerous people supposedly contacted the newspapers to find out information about relatives.

Visiting the famous city by the bay at the time were Mr. and Mrs. T.L. Montague, a prominent Chattanooga family. Mrs. Montague had grown up in San Francisco and was visiting with her mother and other relatives at the time. They had been staying at the Palace Hotel in San Francisco, which was destroyed by the fire.

Mrs. Montague’s sister, Mrs. Ross Faxon, was also evidently in San Francixco during the earthquake or shortly before it struck. Her husband built the large mansion that was later lived in by Coca-Cola bottling official George Thomas Hunter and is now part of the Hunter Museum of Art.

In recent years, Chattanoogan Mrs. Richard (May) Houck, whose late first husband was a son of the Montagues, remembered hearing her in-laws discussing the horrific event. “The only thing I remember them saying was that there was so much fire around them that they went down to the beach to escape the fire,” she said in a 1989 Chattanooga News-Free Press story. “They spent the night on the beach.”

She also remembered the Montagues telling her that numerous people had to make primitive quarters on the beach, while also fearing that a tidal wave from an aftershock might hit the city and drown them.

Although the Montagues survived, others with Chattanooga connections were not so fortunate. Among the estimated 3,000 or so who perished was the sister of F.H. Lewis, an Associated Press operator at the Chattanooga News. Her three children also died.

Also, most of the soldiers of the 12th Cavalry stationed at Fort Oglethorpe just across the Georgia line were born and reared in San Francisco. News reports said they were very distraught worrying about loved ones there.

Some 200 other soldiers had recently been discharged from the 12th Cavalry, and they were feared to have been in San Francisco, which had approximately 350,000 people in 1906.

With the news of the event so much on the collective consciousness of Chattanooga, the Scenic City soon began offering help. Chattanooga Mayor W.L. Frierson made a financial appeal, and numerous contributions were collected. Gus Miller of Miller Bros. Department Store gave a large donation of $300.

Mayor Frierson also let the San Francisco mayor know in a wire of the city’s willingness to help. “I tender the profound sympathy of the people of Chattanooga our desire to be a part in relieving the distress,” he said. “Will immediate contributions by wire be acceptable?”

The earthquake was figuratively felt in Chattanooga, and Chattanoogans in turn felt for their San Francisco brethren.