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The San Francisco Police Department got off to a ceremonial start in the twentieth century with a new Hall of Justice built on Kearny Street in front of Portsmouth Square. Opened in 1900, the elaborate brick and terracotta building was short-lived. Six years later, on April 18, 1906, the structure became, as a contemporary expressed it, one of the city's "damnedest finest ruins," courtesy of the San Francisco earthquake and fire.
The earthquake and fire tested the department as never before. Police Chief Jeremiah Dinan, who had become Chief on April 5, 1905, had been to a performance of Carmen starring the legendary Enrico Caruso the night before. A few hours later, with terrified Caruso fleeing the city, vowing never to return (a promise he kept), Chief Dinan was ordering all police records to be taken out of the burning Hall of Justice to Portsmouth Square, where cinders threatened every minute to burn the canvas pulled over the documents. (In typical San Francisco style, officers poured bottles of beer from the saloon across the street onto the canvas; it worked.)
The department got a lot of help from the military, as soldiers from the Presidio, Angel Island and Fort Baker joined up with sailors and marines from the Mare Island in a joint effort to preserve order. This was a precursor to joint operations that would characterize emergency operation procedures in future policing plans.
The post-earthquake years saw a veritable building boom for police facilities. Richmond, Park and Ingleside stations were built, all in 1910, each designed by a noted architect, and Potrero, Northern, and Harbor stations soon followed, in 1913. The new Hall of Justice, thoughtfully constructed this time with a steel frame and concrete floors and roof, opened in 1912 on the same site as the earlier Hall.
This was also a time of innovation as well as building. The department was one of the first in the country to use fingerprinting to identify criminals. In 1909, the department instituted what would later evolve into the Solo Motorcycle Unit when Chief Jesse Cook (appointed 1908) detailed three officers to motorcycle duty to stop speeders (then known as "scorchers") and other reckless motorists. Chief David White (appointed 1911) was the first to devise a modern record-keeping system. San Francisco was also one of the first police departments to hire women, when, in 1913, three women protective officers joined the SFPD.
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