A fire in 1906 burned 200,000 books. In 2026, one was returned

Summary: A charred book from the Mechanics’ Institute in San Francisco returns home more than a century after the institution was destroyed in a fire. Book collector Randall Schwed found the soot-stained volume online and donated it to the library. The book now sits in a display case alongside other survivors of the 1906 earthquake.

The AI-generated summary was reviewed by a CNN editor.

Inside a charred book, soot-dotted pages tell the story of San Francisco’s rise to the epicenter of the gold rush. Barely surviving the earthquake of 1906, this book was supposed to burn to the ground.

The city’s oldest continuously operating library assumes it did. After all, there were nearly 200,000 volumes inside the Mechanics Institute. That was until Randall Schwed donated the book to the library in December. While searching an online marketplace, Schwed found the book “Echoes of the Foot-Hills” listed for $35.

“What’s interesting about this book is that he’s a survivor,” Schwed told CNN. “I needed to send him home.”

Fires caused extensive damage to the city during the 1906 earthquake and other fires followed. While no one knows which fire the book survived, here’s what we know about the mystery surrounding it.

Library Director Miles Cooper was racking his brain for an explanation of how the book had gotten home. In a fire that followed the earthquake that destroyed 200,000 volumes, how could this book appear more than a century later?

Has it been checked? Was he rescued from the rubble of another fire? Was it hidden somewhere?

Cooper is certain the book is from the institute in San Francisco, evident by the stamp and date: December 10, 1874. Schwed, a collector, said his first instinct was to look for the owner.

Agnes Quigley is written in ink at the top of the first page of the book. In 1898, a woman named Agnes Quigley took out an ad in the San Francisco newspaper, the Call and Post, Schwed said.

The ad is about a young woman and says: “From the East, she wants to work as a chambermaid and nanny.”

Schwed said there was no way to prove whether the Quigleys were the same person. But he has two theories about how Quigley got the book. She could have checked the book. Or Quigley somehow found the charred book and wrote her name inside it.

Cooper agreed that both theories were plausible. He added another theory: There was “a lot of looting in San Francisco during the 1906 earthquake.”

But “Echoes of the Foot-Hills” is not the only survivor. Other volumes, such as archival and reference materials, were in a safe location elsewhere during the quake, Cooper said. Another book, entitled “Marriage, Rights, Customs and Celebrations” survived and remained in circulation until 2001.

Now, the soot-stained book is not available for payment. It is locked in a display case beneath an 1854 map of San Francisco that also survived the earthquake. Nearby, there is a large atlas bearing drawings of earthquake activity caused by pendulums.

“It’s like a library fantasy,” Cooper said. “It’s really magical.”

In San Francisco’s financial district, the Mechanics Institute stands two stories high. The membership organization is home to the nation’s longest-running chess club, book groups and classes.

In the 1850s, the institute was established to provide education to gold miners. Decades later, in January 1906, the institute merged with the Commercial Library to form the largest library in the city. Three months later, the institute lost this title.

“It destroyed our library like not many other buildings. I mean, it came down completely,” Cooper said. “There was only one wall and one story of brick left, and it was all burned down.”

The institute, like San Francisco, has begun discussing a plan to rebuild, Cooper said. They have raised thousands of dollars and books from donations. Many of these books are related to architecture, mining, and railroads, things San Francisco needed to rebuild.

“It’s definitely part of the DNA of San Francisco to rebuild and rethink things, that we’ll always have a place to preserve history, and people’s stories won’t get lost,” Cooper said. “We will be a place that has the capacity to hold those stories.”

As a longtime San Franciscan, Cooper said the earthquake story lives on through word of mouth. Today, no witnesses to the earthquake and fire are alive.

The institute plans to place acid-free cards inside the book to explain its story. It is common for the owner to write his name inside an old book. Asdaa’ Foothills has had three owners during its 150-plus year life: Quigley, Schwed and the Institute.

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