These restored cottages are surviving examples of the small wooden refugee houses built across San Francisco after the 1906 earthquake and fire.
Details
- Type
- Historic Site
- Accessibility
- Limited accessibility
Emergency housing
The 1906 earthquake and fire left roughly a quarter of a million people homeless. As winter approached, about 5,300 small wooden cottages were built in refugee camps run largely by the U.S. Army. At their peak, the cottages housed more than 16,000 people.
Rent toward ownership
Residents paid two dollars a month, which counted toward a purchase price of fifty dollars. The terms were designed to keep the camps temporary: once a family bought a cottage, they were required to move it off the camp land. Many cottages were hauled to lots around the city, where some were combined or built upon and still survive within later houses.
Survivors
A small number of these cottages have been preserved and restored to show how the city's displaced residents lived during the recovery. They are plain, single-story frame structures, a record of one of the largest disaster-relief housing efforts of the era.