by Owen J. Hurd
Unlike the Chicago Fire of 1871, there was no individual to pin the blame on for the San Francisco Fire of 1906. In this case, it was of course the earthquake that severed gas lines. The temblor also ruptured the water main connecting the city to its only source of fresh water. But San Franciscans attempted to deny or at least downplay the earthquake’s role in starting the fire—as hard as that may be to believe. Their motive was financial. Insurers would cover fire damages but not losses occurring as a result of an act of God like an earthquake. In fact, some less scrupulous insurance companies tried to deny all claims, arguing that what had burned were not intact structures but worthless piles of rubbish demolished by the earthquake.
Lacking a convenient scapegoat for the disaster, San Franciscans would eventually find a vessel for their collective anguish in Mayor Schmitz, along with his wily political ally, Abraham Ruef. Even though he was popular among the working classes and did a fairly admirable job of responding to the crisis (notwithstanding the heavy-handed shoot-to-kill order), Schmitz was opposed by well-to-do members of San Francisco society, in part due to his pro-union sympathies but also because of his fairly obvious penchant for corruption. An effort to oust the mayor had actually begun even before the earthquake and fire. Special prosecutor Francis Heney hired private detective William Burns to investigate reports of bribes paid for preferential treatment. In one scheme the United Railroad Company was said to pay $200,000 in return for an exclusive city contract to build and operate the city’s streetcar system. The alleged ringleader was kingmaker and political insider Ruef, who distributed the bribes to Schmitz and members of the board of supervisors, keeping $85,000 in “legal fees” for himself.
Less than a year after the fires burned out, a grand jury indicted Ruef and Schmitz for numerous counts of bribery. Ruef cut a limited immunity deal with the district attorney and pled guilty. In return for his testimony against his former ally Schmitz, Ruef hoped for leniency from the court. The jury in the Schmitz trial found the mayor guilty and sentenced him to five years in jail. But each man’s fortunes changed dramatically: Schmitz’s conviction was overturned on appeal, but Ruef was sentenced to fourteen years in prison. With his name cleared, to a certain extent, Schmitz ran for mayor again but never again attained that office. He settled for a seat on the board of supervisors. After almost five years in prison, Ruef was released on good behavior, and the governor of California eventually pardoned him in 1920.
Phelan and Spreckels, two of the crusaders who helped engineer the downfall suffered by Ruef and Schmitz, were also behind an effort to beautify and bring order to their ravaged city. Even before the disaster of 1906 they had spearheaded an effort to overhaul the city, which had grown organically but erratically, resulting in a built environment largely without logic, grace, or distinction. Wealthy, civic-minded boosters created the Association for the Improvement and Adornment of San Francisco. They hired architect and urban planner Daniel Burnham to submit a master plan for a wholesale redesign of the city.
Known for his urban planning skills, as well as for building skyscrapers of muscular grandeur, like The Rookery in Chicago and the Flatiron Building in New York, Burnham modeled his plans for San Francisco on elements borrowed from Paris and Washington, DC, including a centrally located city hall, from which broad avenues extended like spokes, and connecting streets formed radiating concentric circles. Copies of Burnham’s plan arrived at City Hall on April 17, 1906, the day before the calamity struck. History seemed to be repeating itself, in urban planning terms, as much like what happened in Chicago, catastrophe had provided a young, rapidly growing city with a blank canvas upon which to construct a new, more beautiful and more logical city.
It was not to be. A large faction of the city’s merchant class, eager to resume business as soon as possible, desired to rebuild quickly, using the existing city layout. Aesthetics lost out to commercial interests, and the city beautiful movement bypassed San Francisco.
Unfortunately for the Chinese residents of San Francisco, many citizens united behind another unique opportunity created by the disaster: to get rid of Chinatown—or at least move the Chinese enclave to another—that is, less desirable—part of the city, opening up valuable real estate for development. The consensus objective, voiced in an editorial, was to “preserve this fine hill for the architecture and occupation of the clean and moderate Caucasian.”
Immediately after the devastation, the surviving Chinese were shunted into an ad hoc refugee camp on Fort Point, thereby enabling the city’s “clean and moderate Caucasian” population to loot the remnants of hard-hit Chinatown. Military troops stood idly by—or partook in the free-for-all themselves. Meanwhile, city planners were trying to figure out if it was feasible to relocate Chinatown to Hunters Point—or even on the more distant and secluded Angel Island. The Chinese government intervened, pointing out that they owned a good deal of real estate in the area and that they had no intention of rebuilding their consulate building in any other part of the city. The city knuckled under pressure from the Chinese government and Chinese Americans who made a strong stand for their rights.
LOOSE ENDS
Fire chief Dennis Sullivan spent three days trapped beneath the debris of his demolished apartment building. Splayed across a ruptured steam radiator, he suffered extensive burns and later died of his injuries.
Frederick Funston later became Woodrow Wilson’s pick to lead U.S. troops in World War I, but Funston died before he got the chance, on February 19, 1917. The assignment went instead to General John Pershing.
During the prosecution of Abraham Ruef, assistant district attorney, Francis Heney, was shot in the head by a disgruntled jury candidate. Heney recovered and later ran for district attorney but lost.
Private detective William Burns went on to open his own agency in 1909. Long a rival of Allan Pinkerton, Burns was involved in a number of high-profile cases, including the strangulation murder of Mary Phagan, a teenage Georgia factory worker. Her boss, Leo Frank, was found guilty in a trial that many regard as a mockery of justice. Frank was sentenced to hang, but when the sentence was commuted to life in prison, a mob of vigilantes stormed the jail, abducted Frank, and lynched him. A Jewish man, Frank’s death led to the founding of the Anti-Defamation League. Burns later became the head of the Bureau of Investigation (now the FBI), but his career was derailed thanks to his involvement in the Teapot Dome Scandal.
Rudolph Spreckels remained active in business and politics. His vast fortune, which peaked at approximately $30 million, was wiped out in the Great Depression. By 1938, he was reduced to selling off “all the worldly goods” in his possession to settle an outstanding income tax debt.
James D. Phelan was elected U.S. Senator representing California in 1915. His unsuccessful reelection campaign slogan, “Keep California White,” neatly summarized his position on Chinese and Japanese immigration.
One of the more celebrated visitors who fled San Francisco after the earthquake was famed tenor Enrico Caruso, who kept his promise never to return to the scene of such horrific destruction. His operatic contemporary, Luisa Tetrazzini, was less skittish. She returned to San Francisco in 1910 to rave reviews. A local chef ensured the soprano’s legacy by creating a new dish in her honor—you guessed it, Chicken Tetrazzini.
CHAPTER EIGHT
WILD WEST OUTLAWS
AND SHERIFFS
AFTERMATH stories about outlaws of the Wild West are usually brief or nonexistent. Gunslingers typically led short, eventful lives that ended early and violently. But some of those who lived long enough eventually went straight and led somewhat productive lives. And many of the lawmen who tracked and shot down robbers of trains, banks, and cattle ranches lived to tell the story. Some found less dangerous ways to make a living, but others fell victim to the harsh brand of justice meted out in the lawless West.
Billy the Kid’s Killer Gets His
Live by the sword and die by it—a lesson demonstrated repeatedly in the Wild West but rarely
heeded. True, Pat Garrett was the Lincoln County Sheriff, which made it his job to bring Henry McCarty, aka William Bonney, aka Billy the Kid, to justice. But he didn’t have to kill him, especially not the way he did.
Acting on a tip, Garrett tracked Billy the Kid down to Pete Maxwell’s place at Fort Sumner, New Mexico, where Billy was known to seek the accompaniment of Maxwell’s younger sister, Paulita. Garrett could have given word to a go-between that he was there to bring the Kid in for the numerous murders he committed, most recently two guards killed during the Kid’s escape from Lincoln County jail, two weeks ahead of his scheduled execution, but he didn’t. Instead, on July 14, 1881, Garrett crept into Maxwell’s room late at night, asked him about Billy’s whereabouts and then, when Billy unexpectedly entered the room, Garrett shot him without warning.
Garrett couldn’t have been proud of the manner in which he earned his fame. He had violated the unwritten gunslingers’ code, which proscribed that you never shoot an unarmed man, and you never shoot a man in the back. In his defense, Garrett claimed that he did not feel obligated to offer the Kid a fair fight. Here’s how he put it in his book The Authentic Life of Billy the Kid, first published in 1882: “Whenever I take a contract to fight a man ‘on the square,’ as they put it…, that man must bear the reputation, before the world and in my estimation, of an honorable man and respectable citizen.” Garrett also claimed that the Kid was armed with a butcher knife in one hand and a revolver in the other. Witnesses have corroborated the knife, with which some have surmised the Kid intended to retrieve a piece of beef jerky from Pete’s supply. Most other accounts of the events say there was no gun, however.
Afterward, things didn’t go terribly well for the man who shot Billy the Kid. First, he had a hard time collecting the bounty offered by outgoing New Mexico governor Lew Wallace. The attorney general of New Mexico Territory argued that the wording of the governor’s proclamation made it sound like a personal offer, not one sanctioned by the government. Wallace, the private citizen, wasn’t offering a reward from his own pocket, so the matter was set aside. Meanwhile, other private citizens who benefited from the Kid’s demise—cattle ranchers and the companies that insured them—stepped in, making donations that totaled approximately $5,000, enough money to help Garrett get into the cattle business himself.
But the restless Garrett didn’t stick with anything for long. He later ran an unsuccessful campaign for a legislative seat in New Mexico Territory. He also dabbled in farming, a nursery, and a dairy operation. He invested in real estate developments, a hotel, and Thoroughbred racehorses. Most of these schemes ended in failure. Eventually Garrett accepted an offer to hunt down rustlers in Texas. But the money he made from that didn’t come close to covering his gambling losses and rising debts. With more and more mouths to feed—Garrett and his wife eventually had nine children—the erstwhile lawman decided to return to doing what he did best. He ran for Chaves County sheriff in 1889 but lost to one of his former deputies. Garrett settled for a deputy sheriff position back in Doña Ana County, New Mexico. By the time he became head sheriff, he found himself in the middle of the county’s most sensational murder case.
In the years after Billy the Kid’s death, one of his defense lawyers, Albert J. Fountain, had made a name for himself as a successful legislator and prosecutor. He was also good at making enemies, including an outfit of cattle rustlers he had recently helped bring to justice. On his way home from one such prosecution, Fountain and his eight-year-old son were bushwhacked. The bodies were never found, but an abandoned wagon and two pools of dried blood were proof enough that they met a grisly end. Garrett was called on to track and capture the murderers. His posse cornered the main suspects, Oliver Lee and James Gililland, but his deputy got shot and needed medical attention, so they backed off. Lee and Gililland surrendered several months later and engaged influential attorney Albert Fall to represent them. Garrett’s case failed to sway the jury, and the defendants were set free.
Garrett had had enough of law enforcement. Between the public criticism and the danger, he decided to pursue his many business opportunities. Unfortunately, he still had the same gambling habits and poor business instincts, which meant more hard times, increasing debts, and unpaid back taxes.
What he needed was a steady paycheck, and he found it in his new benefactor, none other than president of the United States Theodore Roosevelt. It was no secret that Teddy was infatuated with the Wild West and had a deep admiration for rugged lawmen like Garrett, Bat Masterson, and Wyatt Earp. Some of Garrett’s friends (and even frequent adversary Albert Fall) endorsed Garrett for the El Paso customs inspector position, but Roosevelt was worried about Garrett’s gambling and drinking. Against his better judgment, he ignored the many opponents to the appointment. Using language the frontier sheriff and gambler well understood, Roosevelt told him, “Mr. Garrett, I am betting on you.” Garrett replied, “Mr. President you will win that bet.” As usual Garrett was overplaying a weak hand.
Problems surfaced almost immediately. Garrett refused to hire an experienced rancher to appraise cattle imported from Mexico, preferring to do the job himself. Importers were rankled not only by what they considered excessive duties levied on cattle, but also by Garrett’s rigid, imperious nature. Complaints reached Garrett’s boss, Secretary of the Treasury Leslie M. Shaw, who pulled rank and hired an independent appraiser, George Gaither, on a thirty-day trial basis. The situation seemed to improve, but after thirty days Garrett summarily dismissed the temporary inspector.
The animosity between Garrett and Gaither reached the boiling point during a chance meeting on the street. Garrett called Gaither a “god-damned liar,” and Gaither hauled off and cracked Garrett in the jaw. It took a crowd of passersby to separate the two men, Gaither bleeding from injuries received in the scuffle. The local newspaper reported on the fracas, calling it “more or less ludicrous.”
Somehow, Roosevelt still had faith in his appointment, enough to invite Garrett as a special guest at a reunion of Rough Riders taking place in San Antonio. Garrett foolishly brought with him a friend named Tom Powers, the proprietor of a tawdry saloon and gambling house. Unaware of Powers’s notorious reputation, the president was photographed with Garrett and his dubious friend. It was the last straw. Roosevelt stripped Garrett of his appointment.
Once again without a steady income, Garrett’s life quickly unraveled. Several of his properties were foreclosed on and auctioned off by his creditors. He tried to pull together several deals, but his reputation was equally bankrupt. There was a time in Garrett’s life when he wanted to diminish his role in the killing of Billy the Kid, but now it seemed as if his reputation as a frontier sheriff was all he ever had going for him. His last chance to pull himself from debt and resurrect his dignity was a new book, The Story of the Outlaw, which he worked on with ghostwriter Emerson Hough.
Garrett would never live to see it published. Between Hough’s poor health and difficulties finding a publisher, the project was delayed repeatedly. In the meantime, Garrett had gotten himself into another imbroglio, this time with a tenant leasing one of the ranches he still owned. The tenant, an odd bird named Jesse Wayne Brazel, had imported a herd of goats, which were decimating his landlord’s property. Garrett and Brazel agreed to meet in order to hash out a deal with a third party who offered to buy the property from Garrett. On their way to the meeting, Garrett and Brazel’s paths crossed. With Pat Garrett, unexpected meetings between adversaries usually ended in violence. This was no exception. This time Garrett was the loser, though no one ever found out exactly how, why, or by whose hand. The only certain facts were that Garrett was shot twice—once in the back of the head and once through the stomach. Also, his pants were unbuttoned, leading some to believe that he was executed while relieving himself on the side of the road. Brazel was tried for murder but found not guilty, thanks in great part to the legal defense mounted by his attorney Albert Fall.
LOOSE ENDS
Pete Maxwell never lived
down his role in the Billy the Kid slaying. Billy’s large contingent of friends and sympathizers derided Maxwell for cowardice. After the shots were fired at Billy in his bedroom, Maxwell was seen fleeing the building shouting, “Don’t shoot! Don’t shoot!” His nickname from that day on was Don Chootme.
When New Mexico was granted statehood in 1912, Albert Fall was elected one of its first two senators. Later, he was appointed secretary of the interior by President Warren G. Harding. Convicted of fraud during the Teapot Dome Scandal, he served a one-year prison term in federal jail.
Lew Wallace, the former governor of New Mexico Territory, had a second career as an author of fictional works. His most notable contribution to American letters was undoubtedly Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ, the number one bestselling American novel of the nineteenth century—selling more copies than Uncle Tom’s Cabin and The Adventures of Tom Sawyer.
After the Smoke Cleared at the O.K. Corral
When people hear the name Wyatt Earp, most immediately conjure an image of a fearless sheriff, a hero of the law-abiding Wild West who gunned down a gang of vicious desperadoes. That’s the legend anyhow, the story invented by hack writers of Earp’s day and popularized by Hollywood. The truth is a little bit more complicated, the line dividing bushwhacker and constable a bit fuzzier.
The Gunfight at the O.K. Corral happened on October 26, 1881, in Tombstone, a small mining town in the Arizona Territory. At the time, Wyatt Earp wasn’t even an official lawman, though he longed to be one. Earp had recently vied for the county sheriff appointment, but territorial governor John C. Frémont gave the job to Johnny Behan instead. The only reason Earp was even present at the gunfight that would later make him famous was that he was temporarily deputized by his brother Virgil, the town marshal, to help him run off a small gang of ne’er-do-wells.
