by Paul R. Spitzzeri
An article from Sunday’s Los Angeles Times noted that there have recently been several small earthquakes in the region and wondered “is this the beginning of something bigger?” especially as a half-dozen incidents in a week “is not a common occurrence” even for a place denoted as “earthquake country.” While the answer from experts is that the rash of tremors was not to be seen as indicative of what may happen, the piece did note that the future likelihood of a major earthquake was not, as commonly believed, to be limited to the famous San Andreas Fault.
Instead, the article highlighted three “thrust fault” systems in greater Los Angeles, including along the east-west, or transverse, hills and mountains, the Compton along the coastal plain in parts of Orange County as well as southern Los Angeles County, and the Puente Hills, which covers a wide swath of the San Gabriel Valley, north Orange County, and much of Los Angeles.
This latter, only discovered a quarter century ago, “is particularly worrisome when it ruptures in its entirety” because of the dense population living within its range, as well as the number of older, vulnerable structures. Moreover, much of this area is comprised of sand and gravel washed down from the mountains and far more likely to be subject to violent shaking and significant damage and loss of life.
It was commented upon that the fault only has massive quakes every couple of thousand years or so. As one expert said, although it can be hard to provide any guidance on when a major tremor will hit the region again, “these little earthquakes . . . serve as a useful reminder that we need to prepare ourselves for the inevitable future seismic storm, the likes of which hasn’t occurred in L.A. in at least a thousand years.”
In the written record, the earliest large-scale quake was one that rocked the region when the Portolá Expedition, the first European incursion into California, passed through at the end of July 1769. On the 28th, the group was literally shocked by an estimated 6.0 tremor that led them to call the Santa Ana River, near which they were camped, the Rio de los Temblores (Earthquake River.)
Over four decades later, in December 1812, an estimated 7.0 quake caused the collapse of the church at Mission San Juan Capistrano during Sunday services that killed some 40 persons, while Mission San Gabriel suffered some significant damage. Fifteen years later, in September 1827, just after Jonathan Temple settled in San Diego prior to moving to Los Angeles, an estimated 5.5 tremor struck.
A prior post here discussed the last “Big One” to hit our region, in early January 1857, when a seismic jolt along the San Andreas at an estimated 7.9 measurement destroyed most of Fort Tejon, north of Los Angeles, caused two deaths and also brought about some damage in the Angel City in environs. Much of the discussion since then has been about what would happen if a similar or larger event happened along that fault now in terms of damage and casualties.
With respect to 4.9 quakes of larger, these were the ones that have been recorded, although the subject of this post, a tremor that hit on 11 June 1878 did not quite meet that standard. Still, the shaking caused a good deal of concern among rattled citizens and visitors and comment in the press, with recollections of previous seismic events going back over three decades to the earliest recalled larger earthquake. This took place on 10 July 1855 with the weekly Los Angeles Star of three days later, reporting,
On last Tuesday evening, our city was thrown into commotion by the most violent shock of an earthquake ever before experienced in this country. The walls of some of our most substantial buildings were riven from top to bottom. Nearly every house was deserted by the terrified occupants.
The account continued that store shelves were emptied by falling goods “and some of our brick buildings,” the first of these erected just three years prior, “have been materially injured, although no walls have yet fallen down.” The tremor struck at 7:45 p.m. and lasted only five seconds or so, but was felt as far east as “Coco-mungo,” 45 miles from Los Angeles.
At Mission San Gabriel, “the bells of the church were thrown down and the ground cracked open,” while it was opined that if an aftershock the same size (the estimate is 6.0) had occurred, “our city would have been a mass of ruins. The last large quake was said to have taken place in 1847, but not as severe as this one.
There were a series of reports of small shakings from 1860-1862 with the Los Angeles Semi-Weekly Southern News of 27 January 1860 recording “two severe shocks” after midnight that day and such that “it moved a bedstead from the wall to near the middle of the floor.” The Star of 21 December 1861 (three days before a series of rainstorms brought unprecedented rainfall and flooding to the region through most of January) noted that recent shaking on Santa Catalina Island caused residents to be “considerably alarmed” and observed that further quakes might “permit the little island to topple over into the domain of Neptune.”
The News of 19 February 1862 stated that, three days prior, “a severe shock of an earthquake . . . was preceded by slight vibrations followed instantly by a loud and distinct report” so that “crockery, &c., in houses and stores were considerably shaken.” An early June tremor “commenced with an explosive sound” and then “strong vibrations of at least a minute and a quarter in length.”
Two shakers took place in August 1868 with the Star stating “old mother earth is becoming very frail of late . . . she seems to be troubled with ague [a fever causing shivering] fits,” although some of the tremors were considered very weak “and could be detected only by an indicator attached to the superb time-piece, or ‘regulator'” in the jewelry and clock store of Charles Ducommun at Main and Commercial streets. Three years later, on 20 July 1871, two late evening quakes were recorded and were felt throughout Los Angeles County.
While it was more than 200 miles way, a massive quake, estimated at 7.4, that hit the Lone Pine area of Inyo County in the eastern part of the state on 26 March 1872, was felt in this area for about 50 seconds. It was considered more gentle, though, than the quakes of 1855, 1857 and 1860, though the distance almost certainly accounted for what the Star of the following day accounted as a “well-balanced” seismic event.
Helpfully, the paper cataloged some past quakes going back a quarter-century, including on 4 January 1848; 26 November 1852 (with an adobe wall collapsing); 1 January 1853, the 20 July 1855 one mentioned above and which damaged 29 structures; 6 April and 2 May 1856; and 26 March 1860, during which appeared “small seams here and there in abandoned adobe walls.” Local reports included minor damage, such as the Aliso flour mill where a gate was displaced and some floor sections sunk, while Ducommun said “it was like being rocked to sleep compared with some of the visitations of ’56, ’57 and ’60.”
The third floor of the Temple Block building at the north end where Spring, Main and Temple streets then intersected was denoted a “Bachelors’ Hall” because of all the gents who “reside there in all the miseries of single blessedness.” The 2:40 a.m. shaker was such that “it was laughable . . . to witness this cavalcade of hungry lovers make its exit” including one denizen who darted out in a “night-shirt that looked more like the tail of a kite” than a nightgown, while the Star poked run at other fleeing gents, some “grouped in shivering attitudes, near the window of the [Temple and Workman] Bank.” Given that the quake was centered so far away, the paper could make light of what would have been a disaster if it burst forth from a local fault.
In its New Year’s Day 1875 promotion of the region, the Los Angeles Herald admonished readers “Don’t Fear the Earthquake!” as it answered one of the questions in its pamphlet with 1,001 questions and which inquired, “how often have you earthquakes about Los Angeles and how many are killed each year by reason thereof?” The paper responded,
Well, you can come to Southern California and settle here without nursing that great bug-bear—the earthquake. Earthquakes are very rare in this section, and of late years never severe. A nice harmless shake is a good thing, and if it happened more freequently [sic] it would be better for us—turn our attention from things worldly to things celestial. But one earthquake attended with loss of life has ever visited this country and that was over a half-century ago [the 1812 tremor]. Since then, this section has had repeated shocks, but so faint as to be hardly perceptible . . . Don’t be fooled by the earthquake scare.
After a November 1875 tremor that hit more strongly in San Diego than in Los Angeles, the Los Angeles Express ruminated about earthquakes in the region, echoing its rival that “the only disastrous earthquake ever experienced in Los Angeles county” was the 1812 one and it added, “we believe that this is the only episode arising from earthquakes which ever involved loss of life” in the region. Actually, the January 1857 quake led to the death of an elderly Los Angeles man who was crossing the Plaza when he fell and died, perhaps of a heart attack from the shock.
As to the recent tremors, the paper observed that “there were six distinct shocks here the other day” but called them “vibrations rather than shocks” and “so slight that a visitor, who was sitting in our office at the time, did not observe them.” Even the 1872 Long Pine quake and other severe seismic events in California “are a mere bagatelle to those of Central and South America, and all pale before terrible earthquake of Lisbon [Portugal], of over a hundred years ago [1755.]”
A strange tangent was the claim that “with most people, they are preceded or followed by a decided nausea at the stomach” with Juan José [Jonathan Trumbull] Warner, a resident of more than forty years, stating that there were “instances of ladies having been attacked with a nausea so violent as to amount to an emetic [an agent causing vomiting], just before the shock was felt,” though the Express added “we leave the explanation of this singular circumstance to natural philosophers.”
Joseph D. Lynch, the writer of the piece and co-publisher, with James J. Ayers, of the paper, related his first earthquake experience, though he did not give the date, only the time of 2:20 a.m. Still awake in his quarters in a wood-frame building attached to a hotel, Lynch thought an animal was under his bed trying to lift it up when the tremor hit and, after inspecting his room and the structure from the outside, went to sleep.
Only later in the day was he told of the seismic event “and [the royal] we wondered that we had been so stupid that the idea had never occurred to us.” It was the only quake he experienced in eighteen months in San Diego and Lynch asserted that “one thing is undoubted. In the last two years, contrary to the usual impression, earthquakes have been more frequent in the Eastern states than in California.”
With this preamble, we’ll return tomorrow with the second and concluding part of this post, specifically dealing with Angel City press coverage of the 11 June 1878 earthquake, so be sure to join us then.
Similar to the western United States, Taiwan and Japan also sit along the Pacific “Ring of Fire” seismic belt; however, the latter two frequently experience many more earthquakes throughout the year.
We are so accustomed to tremors that we usually aren’t frightened by the back-and-forth horizontal swings. It’s only the up-and-down vertical jolts that cause us to freak out.