Santa Barbara Earthquake Centennial

Resources

History of the SB Courthouse and how the 1925 Earthquake transformed it.

City of Santa Barbara Poet Laureate’s Poem

June Ruins Rise

Julia Morgan was knocked down to her knees.

Not by the men who couldn’t fathom

a woman could out-architect them,

but by the Earth, its tectonic crust

ripping past itself, sending a forceful roll

right up State Street, so fluid someone

could practically surf it from the harbor

to the soon-to-be ruins Arlington Hotel.

A never-ending, it seemed, nineteen seconds,

the ground itself screaming, a noise

one witness said sounded like

“a million dogs crunching bones.”

The shock scattered the blueprints

tucked under Julia’s arm: a hotel

for professional women designed for her client

Pearl Chase waiting for her uptown. Crawling,

at first, Morgan knew enough to keep away from

brick storefronts sure to shear off, a horror

she had witnessed in San Francisco, 1906.

Her scientific instinct never failed her,

so she mentally took notes of what stood,

what collapsed, averring the strength

of the reinforced concrete she championed,

material recently used for the unharmed Granada.

Not that Morgan ever forgot the people

in her buildings, but she didn’t brook sentiment,

realizing each catastrophe’s clearing

allowed for a step toward the future.

Architecture, that science where

the prayer part doesn’t get said aloud.

Why just lament the dead if you could

honor them with structures that made

of their loss a lesson? And yes, beauty.

That is to say: unlike Frisco, Santa Barbara

didn’t burn, but still soared from its ashes.

Morgan rose to her feet, shook off

as much dust as she could,

kept her appointment amidst aftershocks.

That hotel for professional women

would welcome occupants in a year.

Just one of the many structures—

white stucco walls gilt in California sun,

red tile roofs resplendent, and soon

Moorish flourishes, hidden courtyards,

a nod to the past that

hadn’t quite ever existed, but who wouldn’t

have wanted to live there.

In this way Santa Barabra built a future,

standing, standing to this day.

George Yatchisin