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January - February 2022
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Bottles and Extras
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GLASSHOUSE DISASTER Thanksgiving Day started innocent enough on November 29, 1900, in San Francisco. Excitement was in the air as the traditional ninth annual football game between the University of California Golden Bears and the Stanford University Cardinals was scheduled in the Mission District. The San Francisco Bulletin reported, “Thanksgiving Day dawned clear and bright, and a fairer day could never have been desired by the veriest of football enthusiasts.” The city was in a holiday mood which would quickly change to shock by mid-afternoon.
Years later, the day would be referred to as the “Thanksgiving Day Disaster” because of what
happened during the game. The most horrific accident that one can imagine occurred, resulting in many deaths and injuries to the spectators. In what was referred to as the largest crowd to ever witness a sporting event west of the Mississippi, some 19,000 onlookers packed the stadium. At the same time, thousands more came to the stadium grounds hoping to find a ticket or be part of the excitement. Admission was $1, which prohibited many from obtaining a ticket, especially young lads who worked hard for their money or had no job. Like many enthusiastic fans, these young men were adventurous, fearless and, with a pack mentality, determined. They came hoping to catch a peek of the game or, better yet, find a perch outside the stadium that would allow them to see the distant plays and hear the roar of the crowd. This misadventure usually involved jumping over a fence, avoiding the police, and finding a roof to settle on to watch the game. The turn of the century was an era in American sporting events before the tremendous concrete and steel stadiums named for sponsors and known throughout the country. The San Francisco sporting grounds resembled something we might now see at a big high school football game except much more significant and constructed quicker in ways that may have defied safety and stability. Like old roller coasters, wood was the primary construction material. Just three years earlier, a section of the San Francisco’s Recreation Park roof collapsed under the weight of the football crowd with only one serious injury, which seemed like a miracle. Many of these early ballparks were erected in industrial areas alongside active factories and warehouses because large affordable land plots were available. Contractors typically would be rushed to complete the project before the scheduled events. The newest neighborhood addition to San Francisco Mission District stadium park was the nearly completed San Francisco and Pacific
The disaster appeared on the front page of the New York Times and dominated local papers.
University of California Golden Bears vs. Stanford University Cardinals ticket
Glass Works, which occupied an entire block between Folsom and Harrison on 15th Street, just across the street from the stadium. The Mission District was a predominantly working-class neighborhood dense with Irish and German families. The new glassworks had stoked up their east furnace for more than a week to reach 3,000 degrees ahead of the formal beginning of operations the coming Monday. The firing-up was in preparation for making glass, bottles, and jars. The furnace was an enormous, enclosed brick structure whose inside white-hot walls held 15 tons of seething molten glass that was only tended to by a skeleton crew. The four-story factory rooftop above offered an enticing endzone-to-endzone view of the field from above the ballpark’s northern wall. Only a fence and a few glasshouse security watchmen stood between the anxious who advanced on the glasshouse in hopes of finding a rooftop seat. Well before the scheduled 2:30 p.m. kickoff, the factory’s shiny, corrugated iron rooftop was packed with 500 to 1,000 spectators. It “was black with people,” reported someone speaking to the San Francisco Chronicle. People on the stadium grounds watched with concern as this dangerous spectacle unfolded before them. Twenty minutes after kickoff, the crowd was tense as Cal made its first foray deep into Stanford territory. Then a crash from the field’s north side brought play to a halt. The roof of the glassworks had collapsed like a gallows’ trap. The game came to a stop, and people looked around, trying to identify the source of the loud interruption. Then, by one account, a Berkeley fan, fearing a Stanford diversion, yelled,
