178 EARTHQUAKES ON THE PACIFIC COAST 



nothing- was broken; while at a saloon not half a block away the 

 proprietor did not even know that an earthquake happened till 

 the ringing of the fire bell summoned him to duty — not an article 

 of glass in his place was broken or disturbed. 



1892. April 19; Winters; 2b. 50m. a. m. 



Everjr brick and stone building in the town is damaged more or 

 less, and some of them are total wrecks. 



The fine new schoolhouse, just completed, lost its chimneys; the 

 plaster is cracked, and the brick foundation is badly shattered. 

 It is estimated that the loss to the town will be from $50,000 to 

 $60,000. 



The large new Devilbiss hotel suffered considerably, much of the 

 brick front caving into the street. 



Sixty feet of the fire wall of the new Cradwick building on Main 

 Street toppled westward upon the frame roof of Judy Brothers' 

 stable, and crashing through completely buried six horses in their 

 stalls, though singularly not badly hurting them. To-day the 

 schoolhouse, just finished by the contractor, was to have been 

 turned over to the trustees. The brick foundation was cracked, 

 the chimneys thrown to the ground, and the plaster torn. The 

 old schoolhouse is so badly wrecked that no school is being held 

 to-day. The loss to the town is estimated at between $70,000 and 

 $100,000. At the graveyard tombstones were wrenched around or 

 completely shattered. Near the town the bank of Putah Creek, 

 ten feet wide, caved in, and along the bottom of the creek for a 

 great distance rents were made by the shocks. West of here 

 about three miles, an acre of ground slid into the creek. 



Two miles southeast of Winters, J. E. Wolfskin's stone house was 

 totally wrecked. In Pleasanton valley a lamp in J. N. Thissell's 

 house was thrown down. It exploded and a fire followed. The 

 house was wholly consumed. In the residence -of J. A. Devilbiss 

 the w^all was separated from the floor so that a man might put 

 his leg down the aperture. Up the Berryessa road the passage 

 is blocked by immense bowlders, some weighing several tons, 

 which were thrown down the hillsides into the road. It is near 

 this point where the rents in the road were noticed. William 

 Barker's adobe house across the creek was so shaken that it is 

 dangerous to enter it, and other houses were wrenched from their 

 foundations. From all around come reports of wells filling up 

 with caving earth and narrow escapes from awful fires and death 

 by the falling of burning lamps in sick rooms. What is most 

 mystifying in the face of all the damage done is that no lives were 

 lost and very little injury to persons is reported. The bank 

 building on Main Street was wrecked. There is not a whole 

 ■windov7 left in any house on that street. In the office of the 

 Express forms were pied, type emptied from the cases, and the 

 old Washington press, weighing over a ton, knocked over. A big 

 job press suffered similarly (VIII). 



