The 1906 San Francisco Earthquake and Fire

Early in the morning of April 18, 1906, the San Andreas Fault underneath San Francisco slipped, sending a massive shock wave under the city. Like most San Franciscans, Hellman was asleep in his bedroom on Franklin Street when the earthquake struck. He and his wife Esther soon hurried outside to nearby Lafayette Park, away from shaking walls and falling plaster.

Hellman went to work as usual that day, but by 10 a.m. the fire department ordered the employees of Wells Fargo to evacuate. The clerks hurriedly put the bank ledgers into a massive vault and fled. By that time, flames were licking their way up Market Street, eating the famed Baldwin and Palace hotels and everything else around. It was not long before the Wells Fargo Bank building on Pine and Montgomery was reduced to a smoking shell. Most of the city’s banks shared the same fate.

Hellman was determined to help his customers. Shortly after the calamity, he and other bank officials gathered at 2020 Jackson Street, the home of Hellman’s daughter and son-in-law, Clara and Emanuel Heller. They converted the stately mansion to a makeshift bank, as well as Heller’s law offices. Soon, Wells Fargo was back in business.

For three weeks after the fire, however, Hellman was unsure if the bank’s vaults had survived. The bank couldn’t open the vaults until they had cooled off completely. If they opened the vaults prematurely, the infusion of oxygen would ignite the contents. Hellman hired a security firm to guard the vaults 24 hours a day. On May 16th, a group gathered among the scorched bricks and ashes that once had been a majestic bank building. Hellman ordered flame-retarding chemicals to be kept close at hand in case there was a flare-up. When workmen removed the brick casing around the vault, the iron safe underneath was distorted from the heat of the fire. When the vault was cracked open, a pile of ashes sat at the bottom. One ledger with customer accounts had burned. But 15 others had survived, ensuring the continuity of the bank.

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