SF City Hall ruins from 1906 quake are unearthed

Construction crews have unearthed the massive foundations of the old San Francisco City Hall destroyed in the disastrous 1906 earthquake.

A ruined City Hall, which opened less than a decade earlier, in the aftermath of the 1906 earthquake [Credit: SF]

The wreckage of the building and its 300-foot dome became a famous symbol of the quake.

Workers digging on Hyde Street near Fulton Street for a landscaping project found the ruins on Sept. 14, The San Francisco Chronicle (bit.ly/UCEu32) reported Monday.

Archaeologists from the federal General Services Administration, which owns the adjacent former federal building, were called to examine the foundations.

Rebecca Karberg (left) of the General Services Administration surveys ruins with historians Edward Yarbrough and Joanne Grant [Credit: Lea Suzuki, The Chronicle / SF]

"We were surprised to see it," said Rebecca Karberg, historic preservation specialist for the GSA. "You really never know what's under the surface."

Workers broke ground on the original City Hall in 1871, and the cornerstone was laid the following year. The building opened in 1897 after design changes, cost overruns and political scandals.

Materials believed to the foundation of the original San Francisco City Hall that collapsed during the earthquake and fire of 1906 were discovered during landscaping work at a construction site at 50 U.N. Plaza on Friday, September 21, 2012 in San Francisco, Calif [Credit: Lea Suzuki, The Chronicle/SF]

A minor earthquake the next year damaged the building, which collapsed completely during the 1906 earthquake. The big quake struck in the early morning, so only a few police officers were in the building at the time and all escaped without injury.

It had been the largest municipal building west of Chicago.

When architects and historians finish documenting the ruins, construction will resume on the landscaping project.

"We will bury it all again," Karberg said.

Source: The Associated Press [September 25, 2012]