Estey & Rogers Collection of 1906 Earthquake

All photos are from the Estey & Rogers Collection of the Oakland History Room, Oakland Public Library. Please credit accordingly. Reproductions are available. For information about reproductions, please contact the Oakland History Room by telephone or email your query to eanswers@oaklandlibrary.org.

The Oakland Public Library is part of the 1906 Earthquake Centennial Alliance, a group of more than 200 organizations and institutions throughout the Bay Area involved in recognizing the 100th anniversary of "The Great Calamity."

On April 18, 1906, just after 5:00 a.m., a stretch of the massive San Andreas Fault ruptured near Daly City, resulting in one of the most violent earthquakes ever experienced on the North American continent. In San Francisco, the tremor ruptured gas lines and toppled lit coal- and wood-fuelled stoves, causing fires to ignite across the city. The fires would converge at Market Street and engulf the entire central city in flames.

Oakland was largely spared the disaster, benefiting instead by a large influx of displaced refugees of the disaster who would stay to bring their contributions to this city. Photographer Charles Victor Estey would arrive as one such refugee, bringing with him a set of glass-plate negatives of photographs he made in the hours and days following the great earthquake of 100 years ago.

Upon Estey's death here in Oakland in 1940, those negatives were donated to the collections of the Oakland History Room. As part of the commemoration of the centennial of that disaster, a selection of that series is available for viewing here.

At the time of the earthquake, Estey worked as an independent photographer at a studio at 1012 Fillmore Street in San Francisco, although he would later establish himself at a shop and residence in East Oakland.

Oakland Public Library is part of the 1906 Earthquake Centennial Alliance