The start of Christmas 1899 was anything but merry for the Inland Valley.
In the space of 10 hours, the region experienced a very strong earthquake and a train derailment. And remarkably, amid these calamities there was at least one man who experienced both and somehow escaped without a scratch.
Walter Korn was the lucky, or maybe unlucky, man who was shaken, rattled and unharmed by the events of Dec. 24 and 25, 1899.
There’s not much known about Korn, who was unhurt in a deadly Christmas Eve railroad derailment in Pomona. A few hours later at home in San Jacinto, he was awakened by one of the region’s strongest earthquakes, barely escaping serious injury early Christmas morning.
For those two communities, and Korn, those 10 hours were hardly holiday experiences to remember.
Our only word of Korn’s adventures come from an article in an Anaheim newspaper in which his uncle F.A. Korn related his nephew’s near-death encounters to a reporter.
He said Walter Korn and other passengers were on an eastbound Southern Pacific train from Los Angeles to San Bernardino that was running about 10 minutes late on Christmas Eve. The train tried to negotiate a curve near Cypress Street in Pomona at too high a speed, and the engine and several passenger cars left the tracks. At least four passengers and the engineer died in the 6:57 p.m. wreck and more than 20 were injured.
The toll of those hurt amid the broken train cars was made all the worse because Pomona had no hospital at that time. The best rescuers could do was set up a temporary aid center in the fire hall with some of the more seriously injured having to return to Los Angeles by train for treatment. The lack of a hospital that day led to the movement to build what today is Pomona Valley Hospital Medical Center.
Korn told his uncle that he had walked back to the last car on the train just before the derailment occurred. As luck would have it, that was the only car to remain on the tracks.
What is a bit unclear was how Korn managed to get home to San Jacinto so quickly after the wreck. However, his uncle said he had just gotten to sleep when the earthquake estimated at about 6.5 to 6.7 (the Richter scale hadn’t been devised then) struck the Hemet Valley just before sunrise on Christmas.
The quake flattened San Jacinto’s downtown and did nearly as much damage in Hemet. Every brick building or chimney in that area was leveled, although the number hurt or killed was remarkably low due to the holiday’s early hour. The quake was felt as far away as Needles.
“The main street is choked with fallen debris,” said the Los Angeles Record on Dec. 26 about San Jacinto. “The ruined structures will all be rebuilt, it is said.”
Six women on the nearby Soboba reservation died when an adobe building collapsed on them. A Christmas Eve dance had been held there, and “the old women were sleeping on the floor, intending to rise early and cook viands for a Christmas feast,” reported the Record. The women “were basket weavers, almost the last of their tribe.”
With no TV news in those days, many in the region were anxious to view the destruction they had read about in newspapers — today we call such tourists “looky-loos.” Special trains on Dec. 27 brought the sightseers from San Bernardino for a two-hour visit to Hemet and San Jacinto. Some even carried early-day photographic equipment.
“Kodaks were brought into active use, and every point of interest will be shown to friends as soon as the pictures can be developed,” reported the Sun newspaper, Dec. 28.
Los Angeles newspapers reported the sudden appearance of two sulfur geysers south of Hemet after the quake, while several artesian wells in the vicinity curiously stopped flowing.
Reports also came from the direction of Tahquitz Peak in the San Jacinto Mountains to the east that “mysterious subterranean noises and rumblings had been heard in the vicinity of the peak for a number of days,” wrote the Record.
And for Korn, his luck held again.
The Anaheim Weekly Gazette article about Korn said he ran downstairs after being awakened by the quake. “When on the stairway, the front wall fell out into the street,” wrote the newspaper. “Had it fallen in, he would have been killed. The building eventually collapsed.”
That Christmas shaker was the strongest quake in recorded history in the San Jacinto area until a slightly larger quake in the same area on April 21, 1918, estimated at 6.8.
Tours return
Tours of one of the most iconic buildings in Pomona will resume Sunday at the Phillips Mansion, built in 1875 by Louis Phillips, then one of the wealthiest residents of Los Angeles County.
The tours of the mansion, 2640 Pomona Blvd., Pomona, by the Historical Society of the Pomona Valley are from 2 to 4:30 p.m. The cost is $15.
Also at the site is the Currier House, saved from destruction years ago when it was moved from the city of Industry. Completing its rehabilitation is a goal of the historical society.
Phillips Mansion tour tickets should be purchased in advance at
Joe Blackstock writes on Inland Empire history. He can be reached at joe.blackstock@gmail.com or Twitter @JoeBlackstock. Check out some of our columns of the past at Inland Empire Stories on Facebook at .
