An eerie sight: The nighttime fire as seen from the old Yacht Club in San Rafael.

This photograph is titled simply “Burning of San Francisco,” with a note that it’s taken from the bay. Note the Ferry Building left of center to find your bearings. Most of these images taken from the water come by way of the Navy, though some were taken by ferry riders or commercial ships.

Battery and East (today Embarcadero). Notice the body of a looter in the street, shot by Presidio soldiers. Other historic photos show soldiers helping themselves to some looting of their own.

Sixth from the left: General Frederick Funston, in command of the Presidio at the time. Funston declared martial law in the city and attempted to fight the fires by demolishing buildings in a bid to create firebreaks, but this generally just made things worse.

A bread line in the Presidio.

Yep, we were a pretty scrappy bunch back then.

These days known as the McElroy Octagon House, at the time this was the home of wine merchant Fiorenzo Cavagnaro. Displaced neighborhood families camped in a nearby vacant lot for a few nights after the quake, including one evening when a gas main exploded nearby.

Not in ruins, but under construction

The view from the top of the Ferry Building at what is today Embarcadero Plaza. This was probably taken a day or two after the quake.

The old Hall of Justice, just across the street from Portsmouth Square. The roof is gone and the cells destroyed, but one SFPD cop is still patiently finishing his shift on guard duty.

Here we see a bread line at a Red Cross Station in Pac Heights, stretching around the block in the days after the quake.

Most of the great mansions on Nob Hill were destroyed, but the Fairmont Hotel (only days away from opening) survived, albeit with considerable fire damage.

A buckled girder in the Mills Building, warped but still standing.

The fire by night, as seen from Alta Plaza Park.

Everything flammable on these onetime cable cars at California and Hyde had been burned away, leaving the twisted metallic remains frozen on the tracks.

The ruins of Union Square, facing Stockton Street.

The Palace survived the quake itself, but was consumed by the fire later that afternoon, to the consternation of famous Italian tenor Enrico Caruso, who was in town with a production of "Carmen" at the time and staying at the Palace.

Newspaper baron William Randolph Hearst had the Nucleus Hotel on Third Street demolished to build his own Hearst Building on the site, adding two stories onto the Nucleus’ then city record of five. Then eight years later Mother Nature simply demolished Hearst’s building too, although the rebuilt structure stands to this day.

Built in 1896, the orphanage provided "for the care and training of orphan, half-orphan and abandoned girls." Newspapers reported the building a "complete ruin," with "the entire front of the building collapsed and now [covering] the once-beautiful flower garden surrounding the house," although it doesn't look quite so bad as that here. Over 100 children were asleep when the quake hit, but no one was seriously hurt despite the building damage.

Quake refugees set up businesses in the camps. Here we see the "Two Orphans," a barpershop, "The House of Mirth," possibly a restaurant or bar, and "The Whole Dam Family," which is anybody's guess.

Citizens examine the damage to rail tracks on Howard Street (cross street unknown).

The haziness in this photo is because officials just dynamited the Odd Fellows Building on Seventh Street in a fruitless effort at making a firebreak. Many of these demolitions simply started new fires of their own.

The remains of the old City Hall, still stately in spite of the ruination. It was nine years until the present building opened a few blocks away.

Not every place in the city was devastated that morning. The Cliff House weathered the quake without much trouble, for example (although it burned down a year and a half later anyway). The rebuilt Cliff House opened in 1909 and of course is still there, although most of the gothic style of the original has been lost over the years.

The remains of City Hall are also visible at the building’s original location in the background of this photo of San Franciscans taking stock of the destruction on Fell Street.

Makeshift kitchens appeared on the streets in front of damaged homes so that people could continue trying to keep their families fed.

The photo's caption: "Fighting the fire at Market & Guerrero Sts. on the aft. of the second day, Apr. 19th, '06."

That’s the Hormel Mansion at the far left, named after James C. Hormel, heir to the canned meat company, US Ambassador to Luxembourg, and early LGBT activist.

Refugees stream into a camp in Golden Gate Park. This photo was probably snapped a day or two after the quake. The sparsely populated western neighborhoods were mostly spared quake damage and made handy sites for refugee camps.

Mission Dolores itself survived with minimal damage, but the quake did upset the cemetery a bit and destroyed the adjacent church.

Searching for survivors of the hotel disaster. The hotel was built on landfill over an old creek, leading to liquefaction, just like in the Marina 83 years later.

Curators label this image “View of City looking from Red Rock Hill ,[...] now Mission Dolores Park,” though this is confusing since the modern Red Rock Hill is in Diamond Heights.

The SS Columbia was thrown into the docks at the old Union Iron Works and took on water. The circa 1880 steamship was eventually repaired, but sank the following year on a voyage to Portland.

Then as now, there’s few better places to take in the sights than Twin Peaks, meaning few spots provided a better vantage of the fire. Note the sun overhead, smothered by smoke.

Written in the margin of the photo: "Fire was coming close, I made a cart to take a few things to a hill. We stayed one night, then back." Apparently the fire wasn't close enough that they didn't have time to pose for the picture.

Cracks in the Great Highway, then a much more widely trafficked thoroughfare than it is today.

The archivists did not record which of the many destroyed Butchertown (modern Bayview) piers are seen here tottering into the bay, but there were plenty to go around.

The gravity of the situation--not to mention the danger of building collapse--apparently didn't stop San Franciscans from dressing up to properly promenade the neighborhood in the days after.

The modern Bayview/Hunters Point area was then known as Butchertown, home to most of the city's slaughterhouses, tanneries, and other businesses that required stockpiling a lot of dead animals in one place.