On the night of April 18, 1906, the entire city was awakened by irregular tremors. Although the earthquake lasted less than a measly minute, it caused extensive damage. Many fires broke out across the city; San Francisco burned in an uproar. In the early 1900s, Theodore Roosevelt took office after McKinley's assassination. Unfortunately, that wasn't the only turmoil at the time. A ship with rats infected with bubonic plague started the first plague epidemic in the continental United States. Plague survivors believed the corpses were still contaminated, so all burials were banned in San Francisco. Fifteen blocks of China Town were quarantined because the Chinese were blamed for causing leprosy, smallpox, and malaria. Fortunately, the plague was finally eradicated in 1905. The Bay Area experienced success and growth from its formation during the Gold Rush of 1849 until the San Francisco earthquake of 1906. On April 18, 1906 at 5:12 a.m., a strong shock woke many people from sleep. “It seemed like I had just fallen asleep when I was woken up by a frightening sound: the Chinese porcelain I had collected in recent years had fallen to the floor... The whole house was creaking and shaking, the chandelier was swinging like a pendulum and I felt like I was on a ship tossed by a rough sea.”1 Thought Arnold Genthe, German emigrant and photographer. Enrico Caruso arrived in his cozy room on the fifth floor of the Palace Hotel after playing Carmen at the Grand Opera House in San Francisco the night before the earthquake. He says he "went to bed feeling very happy," although he woke up feeling a very different way. “But what an awakening! ... early Wednesday morning I wake up around 5...... middle of the paper......ncisco Earthquake, 1906." National Archives and Records Administration. National Archives and Records Administration, nd Web. May 9, 2014 " San Francisco Earthquake." History.com. A&E Television Networks, May 9, 2014. "The Great San Francisco Earthquake and Fires of 1906." Quick Facts on the 1906 Earthquake and Fires, n.d. Web 2014. "The Great Earthquake and the San Francisco fires of 1906." The San Francisco Earthquake of 1906, n.d. Web. 10 May 2014. "The Great Earthquake: 1906-2006 / Rising from the Ashes." 10 May 2014. "The most terrible was yet to come ": 1906 San Francisco earthquake and fire." Map of time A journey into the past. Np, nd Web. May 10, 2014. “United States. National Park Service. "1906 Earthquake: Law Enforcement." National Park Service. U.S. Department of the Interior, April 27, 2014. Web. May 10 2014.