Twain & Ina Coolbrith

When Mark Twain heard that Ina Coolbrith lost nearly all she owned in the 1906 San Francisco Earthquake, he offered a few of his autographed portrait photographs to be sold for her benefit. I mention that because there is a park named after her. Here is a video of the park, which is perched on a Russian Hill precipice at the intersection of Taylor and Vallejo and interrupting Vallejo itself because it is too steep for vehicles. I passed by it many times on the way to some incident or other.​

Coolbrith (1841-1928), poet, writer, librarian, first California Poet Laureate, the first of many

​I assigned a story to one of my students born in San Francisco, a report that was written by Jack London, “The Story of an Eyewitness”, special correspondent, Collier’s, the National Weekly, May 5, 1906. The earthquake occurred at 5:12 in the morning of April 18, 1906, magnitude 7.9.

My nana, born Nita Leonard, April 17, 1894, San Francisco, lived at 120 Church Street. The house her father built still stands. The fire stopped four blocks from the Leonard home.​

This photograph by Arnold Genthe shows Sacramento Street and approaching fire.
Steinbrugge Collection of the UC Berkeley Earthquake Engineering Research Center
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