Westin St. Francis

The Westin St. Francis, formerly known as St. Francis Hotel, is a hotel located on Powell and Geary Streets in San Francisco, adjacent to the whole western edge of Union Square. The two 12-story south wings of the hotel were built in 1904, and the double-width north wing was completed in 1913, initially as apartments for permanent guests. This section is referred to as the Landmark Building on the hotel's website. The 32-story, 120 m (390 ft) tower to the rear, referred to as the Tower Building, which was completed in 1972, features exterior glass elevators that offer panoramic views of the bay and the square below, making the St. Francis one of the largest hotels in the city, with more than 1,254 rooms and suites.

The St. Francis Hotel was begun by the trustees of the estate of Charles Crocker, one of "The Big Four" railroad magnates who had built the western portion of the transcontinental railway. It was built as an investment for Crocker's two young grandchildren, Templeton Crocker and Jenny Crocker. It was originally meant to be called The Crocker Hotel, but instead it took the name of one of the earliest California Gold Rush hotels, the St. Francis.

It was designed by Bliss and Faville in the style of Chicago architect Louis Sullivan, with a relatively bare facade for San Francisco. The hotel opened on March 21, 1904, and, along with the older Palace Hotel on Market Street, immediately became one of the city's most prestigious addresses.

The San Francisco earthquake of 1906 badly frightened the guests, but did no structural damage to the hotel. John Farish, a mining engineer staying at the hotel, described the experience: "I was awakened by a loud rumbling noise which could be compared to the mixed sound of a strong wind rushing through a forest and the breaking of waves against a cliff...there began a series of the liveliest motions imagineable, accompanied by a creaking, grinding, rasping sound, followed by tremendous crashes as the cornices of adjoining buildings and chimneys tottered to the ground." Actor John Barrymore was also staying at the hotel at the time of the quake reveling with a young woman over champagne. He remained drunk in his evening clothes the following day, searching amidst the chaos for a bar with whiskey.

The earthquake lasted 55 seconds. A hotel page described the pandemonium inside the hotel: "I found the floor crowded with screaming guests running every which way. As the elevators were all out of order the guests headed for the marble stairs, which were broken and cracked and falling below." The hotel manager, James Woods, wearing his bathrobe, tried to calm the guests, but most of them rushed outside onto Union Square. Later in the morning, opera singer Enrico Caruso and Alfred Hertz, the conductor of the San Francisco Symphony, who was hosting a tour by Caruso, who were both staying at the nearby Palace Hotel, fled the Palace and came to the St. Francis, where the restaurant was still open for breakfast. Caruso carried with him a signed photograph of President Theodore Roosevelt, and swore he would never return to San Francisco; he never did, having died in 1921.

The earthquake did not cause major structural damage to the hotel, but it did begin a series of fires along the waterfront which began to sweep west across the city. It also broke the water mains, so firemen were unable to fight the fires. An hour after midnight the fire reached Union Square and gutted the hotel.

When the fire was finally extinguished after three days, it was found that the St. Francis had suffered little serious damage. The copper cornice had warped, and some of the enamelled facing bricks had fallen off in the heat, but otherwise the building was intact. Reconstruction began almost immediately. A small temporary hotel, the little St. Francis, with 110 rooms, was built in the middle of Union Square, to house temporary guests. The hotel re-opened in late 1907.

After its re-opening, the St. Francis hosted dozens of celebrities who came to San Francisco for the Panama–Pacific International Exposition (PPIE) of 1915, ranging from Helen Keller, three-time Presidential candidate and orator William Jennings Bryan, who came to San Francisco to speak against American involvement in the First World War, and former baseball player and evangelist Billy Sunday, who came to San Francisco to denounce sin and the theory of evolution. The exterior of the hotel appeared in the Keystone Studios newsreel/documentary two-reeler, Mabel and Fatty Viewing the World's Fair at San Francisco, which followed the studio's biggest stars, Mabel Normand and Roscoe Arbuckle, as they toured the city and the PPIE. Former President Theodore Roosevelt stayed at the hotel in July 1915, (about midway through the nine-month-long PPIE) and used the occasion to denounce his bitter enemy, President Woodrow Wilson, and to call for American entry into World War I.