USA > California > Sonoma County > History of Sonoma County, California, with biographical sketches of the leading men and women of the county, who have been identified with its growth and development from the early days to the present time > Part 26
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A STEAMY, SMELLY GARDEN OF METALS.
It is a steamy, smelly, druggy place. that Canyon of the Geysers. It is a garden of metals where iron, copper, sulphur, borax, alum, ammonia grow spontaneously, nourished by the hot volcanic fumes that seep through the soil. In the near vicinity of these malodorous boilers are springs of cold water which somehow have run the gauntlet of burning chemical to gush from the hills healthful and sweet as the waters Moses struck from the rocks of Rephi- dim. Reaching to this place ideal to the tourist and scientist are several roads over high ranges and through deep ravines; along the walls of touring peaks and the crests of ridges so narrow that the stage-coach passengers may look down on either side over the pine-tree tops into the levels far below. One of
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the grades of this order is the "Hog's Back," not a title bristling with euphony, but answering to the description to the letter-as if some mammoth swine crossing the valley had suddenly become petrified, or molded into a mountain. Up and down and around the sharp turns of this dizzy highway-this thin air- way between a cliff and a cloud Foss or Van Arnim used to rush their teams. With the lines taut so he could feel the heart of each horse beating up to his finger-tips, the charioteer of the aerial plains would pull out for an alpine run. Along the way there was to the passenger an ever-present possibility of being pitched from the grade into the groves of oak, madrona and manzanita in the gorges beneath. "I have all the road I can use," was the general reply of the driver to the anxious queries ; and he at least was satisfied if the outside wheels did seem to roll on air.
FLOODS OF SATANIC BREW.
Only by seeing can the visitor fully appreciate the rare scenic grandeur of this region. The famous geysers of the Yellowstone gush amid the sublimity of desolation, and Hecla of Islandic solitudes play within the dreary surround- ings of frigid latitudes. The geysers of Sonoma spring from their basic cal- drons under hills and valleys clad in the beauty of almost eternal verdure. The hot sulphurous streams, the steaming caverns in many instances are overgrown with trees and shrubs. On the quivering ground of the canyon grows the "copa de oro," the golden poppy of California. The phenomenon of the eternal intermittent ebb and flow of the seething waters have long been the visitors' chief subject of discussion. It is held that the everlasting heat is produced by the combination of certain chemicals or mineral substances-as the action of water and lime; but a stronger and more general belief is that these boiling springs have a common origin with volcanoes active or dead. The great Ger- man chemist, Bunson, of Heidelberg, who has made a special study of geysers in all their spouting stages, says: "A crevasse or hole reaching down to sub- terranean heat is filled with water, and this becomes hot, exceedingly hot, at the lower end of the tube, this decreasing in layers toward the upper end where the pressure is less. Anything which disturbs one of these horizontal layers will lift it a little higher and relieve the pressure upon it. The water of this layer will then be above the boiling point and will burst into steam. The steam lifts the whole column, thus relieving pressure on all water below the dis- turbance. The steam and water escape from the crevasse, the tube refills, but until the new waters are heated for the recurring maneuver the geyser is dor- mant. The vent-pipes from the great boilers below will perform their inter- mittent functions relieving the old globe from its steam pressure as long as the fires flame in its center. The chemicals are thrown up in solution and left by the cooling or the evaporation of the water, where they fell. These geysers were discovered in April, 1847, by William B. Elliott, the pioneer of Mark West creek, near Santa Rosa. With one of his sons he was tracking a bear when the hunters observed a huge volume of smoke arising from the canyon. Believing it came from an Indian rancheria, they turned aside to visit the place and found the boiling springs, the locality uninhabited except by the bear they were seeking. The animal was a full-grown grizzly, and the big fellow put up a good fight for his domain. Fight and domain he lost, also his life soon after the rifles of the invaders began their deadly work. The Elliotts learned that the springs for ages had been used by the Indians as a "health resort."
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Over one jet of steam a rude scaffold of tree-branches had been constructed, and upon this platform the rheumatic, or other afflicted member of the tribe, was deposited to be treated as the Great Spirit above, or the underground pow- ers of evil, decreed. No mind may fix the day when these safety-valves of the globe began their functions, but for unrecorded centuries they have faithfully performed their office, relieving the awful pressure below. While the geysers live -- while "Proserpine's Grotto" remains hot and steamy, while the lid of the "Devil's Tea Kettle" is occasionally lifted to let out some of the expanding vapor or a few million gallons of the Satanic brew, St. Helena will remain a-slumber and only the earthquake will remind the people of the Range that Vulcan is yet at his forge down under the hills.
DEAD TREES THEIR OWN GRAVESTONES.
Another scenic freak of this wonderland is the near-by Petrified Forest. Petrifaction of vegetable matter under certain chemical conditions is a simple affair whenever Nature concludes to do some "preserving." but this is the only instance known where she dried, or canned or put in cold-storage a whole grove of full-grown redwood trees. When she did it, and why she did it, and how she did it are three eternal queries hovering over this arboreal cemetery- where each one of the dead is its own gravestone. They are big fellows, too, not slender saplings easy to handle, change or destroy. No miniature terrestrial or atmospheric disturbance threw down those great trunks and embalmed them for after ages, and no chance force felled them to lie all in one direction. There was method in the geological madness, but-why and how and when ?- the questions will bubble upward. Some of these huge logs have been exhumed from the dry ashy soil-the volcanic output of long ago. Several of the big sticks have been broken or cut into equal lengths, as for some prehistoric saw- mill-who was that woodman? Had the petrifaction struck him when it found his woodyard, that question might be answered. But the dead sequoias lie in their everlasting cerements, with heads to the south as they fell when the great boreal gale blew through their living boughs. They are the mummies of a past vegetable age, and the Russian flowing through its noble valleys is the Nile; and the wondrous fertility of an Egypt shows in the newer vegetation along its fruitful shores.
But the noted Petrified Forest near Geyserville does not complete the list of Sonoma County's scenic freaks. A short time ago three redwood trees were unearthed in the town of Occidental. perfect petrifactions, but much larger than the Geyserville fossils, and in fact larger than any petrified trees ever found. Their diameters are twenty-three feet, thirteen feet and twelve feet respectively, while the largest trunk in the Geyserville grove measures eleven feet. Like the other dead sequoia the Occidental trees lie north and south, showing that the same mighty force tending in the same direction acted in the same manner on these once-growing giant trees. The grain and other markings on the great shafts are clearly shown in the stone, and in one of the dead trunks the rotted heart was petrified-the natural decay was arrested by the mysterious chemical power that turned the wood to stone. The younger redwood trees have grown thickly over the dust and debris of the centuries that have passed since the older trees were felled and petrified, and this later grove has hidden the fossils till this latest day. Oh, the rare wonders of this wonderland!
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CHAPTER XLI. IN THE EARTHQUAKE'S DEADLY ZONE.
The great earthquake of April 18, 1906, which rocked and wrecked the heiglits and levels of the California coast, wrought an architectural revolution in Santa Rosa. It took something like a half-minute to make the change, but out of the fallen buildings that crushed their occupants, out of the flames that consumed the ruins, arose the new city. San Francisco was a victim of the subsequent fire that swept that metropolis with a besom of destruction, and other places within the zone of disaster suffered when this portion of the continent heaved in the throes of terrestrial agony. Santa Rosa, midway in the belt of death lay under the ashes of herself when the pent forces had found release and the trembling globe had grown still. The scene of that morning's tragedy can never fade and its story can never grow old. Scientists burrowing in the tomed wisdom of centuries, or down in the earth "faults" and the cleavage of seismic forces, have sought to locate the center of disturbance, and the source and course of the waves of oscillation. However, the Santa Rosan who felt the universe around him rolling up like a scroll and the streets swing under him as the tide flowed and ebbed below, is convinced that the vortex of the jumble, the middle-point of the whirl of trouble was just where he stood. It was a calm April morning when the air hung soft and sweet between the solemn sky and the solid earth,-a California spring-dawn when nature is in the last rest- ful moments of night-slumber and dreams are rounding to their finish. Little shudderings passed through the atmosphere and through the ground as the sen- sitive. subtle ether became responsive to premonitions of a disturbing element. Then followed the heavy shock, and the grinding crash as the planet crust lifted, buckled and broke- as the opening notes of that hellish dies irae burst on the world.
Twenty-eight seconds is said to have been the duration of that awful act, and this was succeeded by a numbing silence that fell over and around the pitiful wrecks. The tumbled roadway and the shattered walls gave off a thick dust-cloud which for a moment veiled the ruin, but as this passed into the upper airspaces, the perfect work of the earthquake was shown. The business portion of the city-almost every building, not constructed of wood-lay a melancholy heap on the ground, and the few not completely destroyed, were more or less damaged. One structure, formerly built and occupied as a Hall of County Records, now the Savings Bank of Santa Rosa, stood fast within that storm- center while its neighbors fell against it. The second Hall, then occupied by the County Recorder, dropped like a card-house. There was a general falling of chimneys and cracking of plaster throughout the city and in the residence portion many old frame buildings were shattered. The deaths-and the cases of serious injury, occurred in the hotels and rooming-houses of the brick section, where the victims were crushed in their beds. That early hour-5:13-found the stores, offices and other public places empty, else the death roll would have
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gone high up in the hundreds. The exterior of a new stone Masonic Temple had been completed and when the wrecking wave had passed an imposing pile of ruins lay on its dedicated corner-stone. The big brick Athenaeum Building- theater above, postoffice below-was scattered around the block. Tragedy in- deed would have been staged there had Death found another hour for his appear- ance. But he faced an empty house. The three floors of the new St. Rose Hotel flattened down into one like an accordion after its melody and life has departed. The fire did not reach the wreck and the sleepers who never awoke were removed for burial. The large Occidental hotel mingled its remains with those of the adjoining buildings. Ex-Councilman Michael McDonough, the landlord of the Grand Hotel, was shaken out of his apartments in the hotel on that eventful morning. His piano went with him, the two survivors landing on the sidewalk very much damaged-very much jangled and out of tune. After the dust had blown away Mike was revealed, patriotically and modestly draped with the national ensign, sitting on the wreck of the instrument-like the Roman, Marius, on the ruins of Carthage. The Grand did not arise phoenix-wise as did its charred neighbors. That piano when it came tumbling down to the base- ment, its breaking harp-strings discordant in the agony of dissolution, twanged its own dirge.
THE RECALL OF THEMIS COMPLETE.
The great dome of the county courthouse rolled from its high estate shat- tering every floor and apartment of the building in its downward path. Themis, goddess of justice, dropped from her roof-pedestal and lay prone on the pave- ment, her sword and scale broken beyond repair. Her recall had been complete. The county jail was slightly damaged, and the prisoners in their steel cells were the only inhabitants in the city who were immune during that dangerous half- minute. When the Odd Fellows' brick hall fell it stopped that issue of the Press Democrat which was on the press in the basement. also the pressman who was operating it. He was found on the sidewalk, with one of the small boy-carriers, where the wrecked walls had crushed them. After the fire had gone through the plants of the Press Democrat and Evening Republican, turn- ing them into picturesque piles of scorched iron, the editors of these journals, E. L. Finley and A. B. Lemmon, pooled their respective issues-not their papers, nor their capital. These assets were in the junk and ashes of the "once were." Sweet's Business College, a wooden building out of the swath of fire, escaped, and in its equipment is a small printing outfit. Professor James S. Sweet im- mediately placed this at the service of the printers and the stranded news men went to work. The morning journal force used the night for operation, and the evening paper the day-each publication about the dimensions of an infantile pocket-handkerchief. Having a rich harvest of real, live news at hand, and a small square of space in which to print it, "brevity," perforce, was the office- motto, consequently the daily issues were gems of the journalistic art. Shortly a small house was erected, press and type borrowed from members of the craft in neighboring towns, and the dual publication began to grow. The first to recover, re-stock and resume business from new permanent locations were these newspaper people. They now occupy large buildings on Fifth street, directly opposite each other. from which their dailies are issued. They have furnished their quarters with expensive, modern machinery, and have the most
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complete printing plants in this portion of the State. These purchases came exceedingly "high" to the burned-out printers, but they had to have them-and they have them.
By a dispensation of the powers that govern earthquakes or the construction of strong buildings, the walls of the fire engine house were not much damaged nor the horses within injured. The two fine steamers were dragged out over the piles of bricks before the flames reached and consumed the building, and there machines were soon working on the burning blocks. Sebastopol had lately purchased a steamer, and on a flatcar this was rushed to Santa Rosa, where it received its first baptism of fire in the flame-swept streets of that stricken city. For days the two departments under the direction of Fire Chief Frank Muther worked among the wrecked buildings saving much damaged and undamaged property. A man caught under a fallen wall-finally rescued before the wreck- age was burned-said that as he lay cramped and bound, choking with the plaster- dust that filled his dark place, he "did not lose heart," for he heard the engines playing on the flames that were drawing near him, and he knew "the boys" would win. And when the cool, refreshing water began to trickle down through the heated mass that enclosed him, he knew they were winning. In the steady throb of the machine was the pulse of life beating, beating, and the rhythm of the stroke sang of hope that lives even in the presence of death.
LABOR THE ONLY CAPITAL.
The local guard, Company E, and Company C, of Petaluma, Fifth Infantry Regiment, N. G. C., joined forces, and patrolling the streets, gave the desolate scene a warlike appearance. By order of Mayor John P. Overton, the saloons were closed and for several weeks the town went "dry." It is said, in conse- quence of this, many workmen saved more money than ever before. A squad of sailors with their officers, one of whom was a surgeon, sent from Mare Island Navy Yard, did good work clearing away the ruins and recovering the bodies of the dead. All the stores being destroyed, the question of food early menaced even those who were not homeless. Measures were immediately taken to re- lieve the destitute, from the carloads of food and clothing sent to the stricken city. Out of the mighty flood of dollars that rolled into California from a gen- erous world, Santa Rosa received approximately $40,000, all of which were judiciously and freely distributed. Even medical treatment was provided for many persons injured. About ninety persons were killed in the falling buildings. The debris was raked off the rails of the electric road on Fourth street, and this "hooked" on to the track of the Northwestern Pacific, both systems being of same gauge, and trains of flatcars of the two lines were run among the ruins. Then everybody worked-even "father." Labor and its logical supply were inexhaustible. All hands, virtually, were out of a job, and broke. It was more practical and more philosophical to shovel brickbats and ashes on to a platform car, than to stand around sadly contemplating the ruin of office and shop. The storekeeper with no store to keep kept his soft hands blistered dragging metal beams, plates and gaspipes out of piles of wreckage. Machinists with no machine in sight except the engine that was hauling the dirt-train, picked and shoveled to the manner born. Youthful attorneys with no cases before the court until the insurance companies began to "welch" on the fire losses, took a summer-school course in railroad construction and the niethod of filling in
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grade-cuts with train-loads of debris from burnt cities. Manual labor was the only recognized profession, and by this Santa Rosa was preparing to rise phoe- nix-like to another life. But in that day of gloom there was heard no complaint. There was no responsive audience for a complaint.
THE BUILDERS BEGAN BUILDING.
"We are all 'busted' together." cheerily called the erstwhile business man over the ashes of his "business," to his neighbor and brother in misfortune. The wizard, Fashion, will drape a malformation into lines of exquisite beauty. It was the fashion here to be "broke," but philosophy, not vanity, made it so. The man who comforted in the knowledge that he was just as hard-up as the other fellow, was a philosopher. And, the earth was still there-a little worse for the wear and tear of that April A. M. when the clocks struck the hour of disaster-and the builder commenced to build anew. Building began when the Creator laid the corner-stone of the Universe, set the foundations of the land and stayed the proud waves of the sea. From star-dust the stellar-systems build themselves, and with its dead-body the coral rears from the dark ocean-floor to the sunlit surface, where the small architect of a continent rests from his labors Then man takes up the work of his late fellow-insect, and builds on. No one can tell how long the coral was on the job, but man is staying with his lap of it, and his end is not yet. Foundations of cities so old that they do not seem to have had a youth, and so dead that they do not seem to have lived, exhumed, uncover successive foundations below. Pavement under pavement marking the building planes of each municipality, the architectural record goes down to the primal substructure, to the handiwork of the pioneer builder toil- ing in the purple dawn of time. It takes one's breath away to think how long ago that was, but evidently he was there piling up stones for a house to live in. True, Babel was not a success in the building line; the Tower which was to be a step-ladder to the sky, grew into the clouds and the workmen on the upper story could not communicate with those at the base. Forty centuries fater they could have used the telephone or wireless, and saved the world the labor of learning more than one language.
Soon as the burnt district was cool enough to handle. the indefatigable merchant was digging among the ruins for property perchance not in ashes, stock for a new store. These stores were pitifully primitive. 'Twas harking back to earlier times. Old buildings long relegated to vacancy and back- streets, were rejuvenated and reoccupied, and again became part of the com- mercial world. Lumber from the yards, which were without the fire-zone, went into small frame houses-mere shacks-and into business. The indomitable desire to "put up a good front," and be cheerful about it, was abroad. The old spirit of "Let brotherly love continue," permeated every nook and corner of the jumbled-up town. The two or three dealers whose stocks-in-trade had not been lifted into the great smoke cloud, sold down to the last ounce of food commodity on their shelves, at the old prices and on any terms suiting the sufferer, and never an advantage was taken of the purchaser. There has been recorded no act of selfishness, no act of lawlessness, and not an act discrediting Santa Rosa during those trying days. Her people stood together.
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A CITY RIVETED TO THE PLANET.
Then another Santa Rosa grew-sprang up in the night of the former city's desolation. The master builders-Industry and Energy-wrought in the dark- ness and the morning saw the new rising far above the place of the old. Con- crete walls, that will crystalize into the density of granite, through which runs a warp of steel, have been molded into graceful form. Within these is woven a fabric of metal, reinforcing and binding the mural structures into solid mass. Steel columns, beams and girders tie the entire building to itself, and to its concrete foundations. Nothing has gone into the construction of these houses that is not riveted down-down to the planet below them. Their builders built for the future-and the earthquake. and so, in the limestone, clay and iron, this old globe is made to provide against her own disastrous vagaries. Behind the metal-mesh of these walls was another metal that came at the call of the master-builders, and it gathered, and amalgamated, and reassembled its kindred elements into one, and this combination created the New Santa Rosa. As a substitute for the three or four millions lost in that dreadful day, as many new millions of dollars have been poured into the empty sites. The supervisors of Sonoma county solved their problem of restoration, in the splendid new edi- fice that stands on the place of the old. Their first session was held under a tree in the plaza shortly after the ground was still enough to stand on, and no time was lost at that meeting. A rough board structure for immediate occu- pancy and a bond issue of $280,000 were ordered as a starter. The courthouse, restored, including its rich furnishings, will go over the half million dollar mark, but it is built for all time and the earthquake. From solid concrete foundation reinforced with metal, so firm that every square inch of that bed will support two tons of dead weight, to walls of same concrete riveted to their base and bound in bands of triple steel, this house will stand, and when it falls there will be none here to rebuild it. Even the artistic finish of the interior was placed there to stay. The marble stairways panelled with rare Mexican onyx, corri- dor and chamber lined with marble and scagliola, are not to be shaken from their settings. And the dome-crowning glory of that noble temple-lifts its mass of glass and bronze ninety feet above the pavement, and its rectangular body sixty-five feet long and forty-four feet wide, is so arranged that waves of sunshine-the pure gold of Sonoma's long summertime-will flow into her in- comparable capitol all day long. Under this, laid in the stone floor is the Banner of the Bear-red lone star in right dexter point, grizzly pedant at fesse, legend "Republic of California" at nombril, and red flannel hand along the base. This in heraldry is the State Flag, a knightly ensign with no bar sinister across its argent field. It waved over the plaza of Sonoma from June 14 to July 9, 1846- the briefest life of any flag known, but during that period, and under its folds a Commonwealth was horn. On the marble wall of the entrance to the great building are the names of the supervisors, the builders,-Chairman Herbert Aus- tin, Blair Hart. G. J. Armstrong, Lyman Green, J. A. McMinn, C. J. Patte- son, I. J. Button, Wm. King. Fred L. Wright, clerk of the Board, and J. W. Dolliver, architect.
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