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George Wittman
George W. Wittman (1857–1950) was a San Francisco Police officer and chief of police.Garvey, John, ''San Francisco Police Department'', Charleston, Arcadia, 2004, p. 14. Wittman is the only San Francisco police chief ever fired outright. During the period before the 1906 San Francisco earthquake, business interests desired the removal of the Chinese from Chinatown, San Francisco, San Francisco's Chinatown because the property was valuable as the city was still centered on Portsmouth Square. The plan was to expropriate the land and move the Chinese to Bayview-Hunters Point, San Francisco, Hunters Point. At a rehearing on Wittman's firing in 1975, both historian Kevin Starr and city historian Gladys Hansen stated that Wittman was railroaded. Hansen stated that the city wanted to move the Chinese and, "to make people believe the removal was for the betterment of the city and not a lucrative business deal, someone in high office had to be blamed for allowing vice to exist in Chinatow ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
1906 San Francisco Earthquake
At 05:12 Pacific Standard Time on Wednesday, April 18, 1906, the coast of Northern California was struck by a major earthquake with an estimated moment magnitude of 7.9 and a maximum Mercalli intensity of XI (''Extreme''). High-intensity shaking was felt from Eureka on the North Coast to the Salinas Valley, an agricultural region to the south of the San Francisco Bay Area. Devastating fires soon broke out in San Francisco and lasted for several days. More than 3,000 people died, and over 80% of the city was destroyed. The events are remembered as one of the worst and deadliest earthquakes in the history of the United States. The death toll remains the greatest loss of life from a natural disaster in California's history and high on the lists of American disasters. Tectonic setting The San Andreas Fault is a continental transform fault that forms part of the tectonic boundary between the Pacific Plate and the North American Plate. The strike-slip fault is characterized by ma ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
