It was a day that changed Santa Barbara forever. But out of the tragedy and destruction came the architectural look of the city we know today. On June 29, 1925, the city was rocked by a massive earthquake.
“The earthquake happened between 6:42 and 6:43 a.m. Exactly when, we’ll never get that debate finished. It was estimated at 6.3 on the Richter Scale,” said historian Neal Graffy. He said the quake left 11 people dead, and the core of the city in ruins.
“Downtown Santa Barbara was destroyed. We had a lot of brick buildings with wooden frames. Wood moves during an earthquake, and brick and concrete do not move. So, the interior of these buildings just hammered the exterior walls,” said Graffy. “All those empty fronted buildings in the earthquake photographs, the bricks just got hammered out onto the sidewalks. In residential parts of the city, most houses did okay. They lost their chimneys.”…