Louis P. Selby was working in his family's confectionery shop on Market Street when the greatest natural disaster that ever hit San Francisco, the 1906 earthquake, shook the city to its core. Selby grabbed a camera, and with his brothers in tow, took to the streets to document the devastation in the days after the event.
For 110 years, those images remained in a leather-bound album kept in Selby and his wife's Bay Area home. In March, Selby's grandson, Doug Gist, unearthed the photos and published them in a book, "When San Francisco Burned: A Photographic Memoir of the Great San Francisco Earthquake and Fire of 1906."
Here's what transpired in San Francisco through the eyes of the Selby family.
On the morning of April 18, 1906, the people of the Bay Area awoke to an earthquake. It lasted only a minute, but its consequences were devastating.
Source: National Archives
Fires followed the quake, swallowing entire city blocks whole. The tremors broke the city's water mains, making it nearly impossible for firefighters to quell the blaze.
Source: HISTORY
The fires burned for several days and decimated some 500 city blocks. Half of San Francisco's population — roughly 250,000 people — was left homeless.
Source: National Archives and HISTORY
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