James D. Phelan, former Mayor of the city and one of its richest capitalists, immediately announced his intention of rebuilding his properties at Market and O’Farrell Streets, in the heart of the ruined business district.  William H. Crocker, one of the heaviest losers, a nephew of Charles Crocker, who founded the Central Pacific Railroad with Collis P. Huntington, Leland Stanford and others, stated emphatically that he would put his shoulder to the wheel.  On receiving the first news of the disaster, and before he knew what his losses would amount to, he said: 

“Mark my words, San Francisco will arise from these ashes a greater and more beautiful city than ever.  I don’t take any stock in the belief of some people that investors and residents will be panicky and afraid to build up again.  This calamity, terrible as it is, will mean nothing less than a new and grander San Francisco.  It is preposterous to suggest the abandonment of the city.  It is the natural metropolis of the Pacific coast.  God made it so.  D. O. Mills, the Spreckels family, everybody I know, have determined to rebuild and to invest more than ever before.  Burnham, the great Chicago architect, has been at work for a year or more on plans to beautify San Francisco.  Terrible as this destruction has been, it serves to clear the way for the carrying out of these plans.  Why, even now we are figuring on rebuilding.  More than that, I am confident that, except for what fire has absolutely laid waste, it will be found that the buildings are less injured than was supposed.  Plastering, ornamental work, glass and more or less loose material has been shaken down, but the framework, I am sure, will be found intact in many big buildings.”

D. Ogden Mills, of New York, who owned enormous properties in the stricken city, was equally confident.

“We will go ahead,” said he, “and build the city, and build it so that earthquakes will not shake it down and so fire will not destroy it, and we will have a water system which will enable us to draw water from the sea for fire extinguishing service and other municipal purposes.  We will thus have less to fear from the destruction of the land mains.  The whole point with all of us who own property down there is that we have to build.  To let it lie idle, piled with its ruins, would mean the throwing away of money, and I am sure none of us intends to do that.  The city will go up like Baltimore did, and Galveston, and Charleston, and Chicago, and there will be no lack of capital.  California spirit and California enterprise, which are always associated with the State of California, will rise superior to this calamity.”

George Crocker, elder brother of William H. Crocker; Archer M. Huntington, son of Collis P. Huntington; Mrs. Herman Oelrichs, Mrs. W. K. Vanderbilt, Jr., members of the wealthy Spreckels family and others all expressed, before the great conflagration had ceased burning, the confident expectation that the city would rise, Phoenix-like, from its ashes and become more beautiful and prosperous than it had ever been in the past.