Santa Barbara’s Quake Of 1925 Focus Of Museum Exhibit
Talkof “the next Big One” usually refers to one of two things in California: Wildfires and earthquakes.
Monday marked the90-year anniversary of the devastating quake that rocked Santa Barbara at 6:44 a.m., back in 1925.
The destructive 6.3 magnitude quake (the Moment Magnitude Scale, or MMS, a more modern measurement, ranks the 1925 quake as a 6.8) is documented in the Santa Barbara Historical Museum in a special exhibit running through July 5.
Front page headlines, from as far as Fargo, North Dakota, dot the exhibit walls; Red Cross uniforms hang draped on headless mannequins.
Once the museum lights dim, flowing curtains begin to shake and black and white images of the earthquake destruction appear. Visitors are taken back to 1925 with the sound of falling bricks, when the business district of Santa Barbara crumbled.
“The first main shock lasted 18 seconds, followed quickly by four sharp, violent jolts,” a woman’s voice narrates over the images.
The quake was felt as far north as Paso Robles, as far south as Santa Ana, and well east into the Mojave Desert. Therewere more than a dozen casualties and an estimated $8 million in damage.
The epicenter was along the Mesa fault that runs off the coast, near the Channel Islands. The force of the quake and the estimated 200 aftershocks damaged or destroyed roughly 400 homes and buildings, includingthe California Hotel one block up from the waterfront.
“The hotel was completely destroyed as you can see,” said the museum’s chief curator Daniel Calderon. “It was only open a couple of weeks before the earthquake hit.”
Calderon says the majority of homes were wooden Craftsman or Victorian designs and absorbed the shock better, unlike the brick and masonry business buildings that didn’t hold up as well.
Calderon considers an enlarged black and white photo of the collapsed California Hotel one of the better images of the devastation. He reflects on the timing of the early morning disaster.
“Most people were just getting ready, having their breakfast, on their way to work,” Calderon said. “There were 13 lives that we know were lost. Had it happened a couple hours later, it could’ve been in the thousands.”
Remnants that survived the quake are displayed in the museum’s exhibit, including a wooden door and a chandelier from the damaged Arlington Hotel; A framed telegram to Berkeley warnsfriends and family not to come home.
The quake-era artifacts serve as reminders that history does repeat itself. However, from an architectural standpoint, Santa Barbara is better prepared to withstand the next Big One with its Spanish-colonial, seismically-safer designs.
