Beautifully engraved cancelled $1000 bond certificate from the <font color="#0000FF">City and County of San Francisco</font> issued in 1908/ This historic document has an ornate border around it with a vignette of the Great White Fleet. Punched cancelled.  This item has the signatures of the City's mayor and treasurer.

At 05:12 AM Pacific Standard Time on Wednesday, April 18, 1906, the coast of Northern California was struck by a major earthquake with an estimated moment magnitude of 7.9 and a maximum Mercalli intensity of XI (Extreme). High-intensity shaking was felt from Eureka on the North Coast to the Salinas Valley, an agricultural region to the south of the San Francisco Bay Area. Devastating fires soon broke out in San Francisco and lasted for several days. More than 3,000 people died and over 80% of the city was destroyed. The event is remembered as the deadliest earthquake in the history of the United States. The death toll remains the greatest loss of life from a natural disaster in California's history and high on the list of worst American disasters.

As damaging as the earthquake and its aftershocks were, the fires that burned out of control afterward were far more destructive. It has been estimated that at least 80%, and at most over 95%, of the total destruction was the result of the subsequent fires. Within three days, over 30 fires, caused by ruptured gas mains, destroyed approximately 25,000 buildings on 490 city blocks. The fires cost an estimated $350 million at the time (equivalent to $10 billion in 2025).

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The Great White Fleet was the popular nickname for the group of United States Navy battleships that completed a journey around the globe from 16 December 1907, to 22 February 1909, by order of President Theodore Roosevelt. It consisted of 16 battleships divided into two squadrons, along with various small escorts, and earned its moniker for the stark white paint on its hulls.

History from RM Smythe.