Schools

Grant School & the 1906 Quake

The current Grant Elementary School, situated at the corner of 10th and Jackson Streets, opened in 1972. The school dates back much further, however.

In 1906, Grant Elementary School was devastated by the San Francisco Earthquake. The San Jose Sun reported the recollections of an eighty-year old survivor, Neal Mangin, in a February 16, 1972 article:

"'On the morning of the earthquake, my father made us stand in a doorway. After it was over, we raised up the shades and looked at the school. It was standing there like it was on stilts. Five days after the earthquake, a wind came up. I was just getting ready to go out and peddle milk. The wind came and Grant School shuffled out like a deck of cards. My horse started running down Tenth Street. The earthquake had made the school beyond repair. But they were planning to take things out of it. But before anybody got a chance to take anything out, the wind came along. It was a terrible noise, when it crashed. The last thing that tumbled was the belfry. It was a pile of junk.'"

Mangin, who attended Grant School until the eighth grade, recalled that corporal punishment prevailed. "You either got it across the knuckles with a ruler or with a strap." Mangin's father had attended an even earlier version of Grant School in the 19th century, which burned down.

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