The smoke was still clearing on April 22, 1906, the city was under martial law, and mothers continued to wander San Francisco’s streets looking for lost sons and daughters.

Some manhole covers were reportedly so hot from the post-quake fires, they still could not be removed safely.

And yet, just four days after the greatest disaster in the history of San Francisco, a defiant humanity emerged that was every bit as inspiring as the original moment was tragic.

“I have enough left to buy an annuity and live like a fighting cock for the rest of my days; but none of that for me,” Raphael Weill, owner of the White House department stores, told The Chronicle. “I am going into the work of rebuilding with all my soul. I am 70 years old, but I love San Francisco with a love that is filial, and I am going to work on the restoration of the city as if I was only 30.”

There’s a good chance you’ve seen an image of the famous newspaper after the April 18, 1906, quake; a Call-Chronicle-Examiner combined edition that came out the next day, printed on Oakland Tribune presses. “Earthquake and Fire: San Francisco in Ruins,” the headline reads in two decks, on top of an article documenting layer upon layer of doom in detached horror.

But that document was only the bleak opening chapter. By the time The San Francisco Chronicle was producing news on its own again, the stunned population had emerged from their daze, hands balled into fists, ready to fight for their city. And some of the moments of fraternity, bravery and kindness are startling.

I discovered all of the above in that single “comeback” edition of The Chronicle, published April 23, 1906. In just eight pages, it speaks volumes about what the city was, what it became and what it can continue to be.

The earthquake hit before dawn on a Wednesday, and the inferno that followed torched most of the east side of San Francisco. By the weekend, The Chronicle building was still smoldering on fire-gutted Market Street. “The Chronicle office is at 1804 Fillmore Street,” a front-page advertisement blared. “Carriers and newsboys will receive papers at this address.”

But, unlike the combined Call-Chronicle-Bulletin newspaper that came out the day after the earthquake — which read like a telegram with a single story in all capital letters — the stories of San Francisco in The Chronicle the following Monday were filled with nuance, detail and an invested emotion.

Tales of woe and suffering were still plentiful. The paper reported that one woman dragged her broken body to the fourth-floor window of a hospital and jumped in apparent suicide. “Police Sergeant Crazed,” another headline read, detailing a cop who had seen too much death on too little rest, and was committed to a mental ward. San Francisco Fire Chief Dennis Sullivan suffered a slow and frustrating death, partially crushed by a theater chimney that hit his firehouse. He was taken to a Mission District hospital, and when the flames approached that building, transferred to a second hospital where he died three days later.

But no section of The Chronicle was more tragic than the personals, spanning two full pages, with most classifieds asking for whereabouts of missing friends, relatives and sons and daughters. (“Will some one of 1206 Market St. inform me of the safety of my children?” one Oakland woman wrote.)

San Francisco police were shooting looters. With the water lines still broken, the military was threatening to jail citizens who set fires to keep warm without authorization. Fear was rampant, and it was often hard to know who was in charge. In one of the few moments that seems humorous in retrospect, The Chronicle reported that California Secretary of State Charles F. Curry refused to help clean up rubble on Market Street, and was forced “under the suggestive encouragement of the bayonets of soldiers” to work like every other able-bodied man at the scene.

But the overwhelming sentiment on the third day after the disaster was hope and optimism, often appearing in the least likely places.

In the burned-out Financial District, which had been felled by the triple threat of earthquake, flames and dynamite to create a fire break, came this Chronicle dispatch:

“'Don’t Worry: Get Ready to Get Busy’ is the advice inked on the lid of a pasteboard box and hanging on the only standing column of what had been a handsome business block on Geary street, above Mason. … The same San Francisco spirit was manifested on a number of similar signs in other parts of the burned districts. For instance: 'Blank & Co. Will Occupy These Quarters.’ The date was left blank, presumably for the reason that the bricks, iron columns and girders are yet too hot to handle.”

The Chronicle offered a similar sentiment, with an editorial titled “The Situation Brightening.”

“There is no discouragement. On the contrary, there is perfect confidence,” the editorial read. “There is not merely energy, but enthusiasm. And we are all pulling together for a new and more glorious San Francisco.”

But the greatest encouragement for the future of San Francisco was with action, not words. Tales of heroism, big and small, started to emerge, bolstering the spirit of anyone who survived the ordeal.

Two examples follow:

* Among the hundreds of more depressing personal ads, came this bit of good news: “Little Ruth Wolferd is at the home of Captain Duke of the police department, who resides at 526 Seventh avenue. This will be good tidings to the distracted parents, who believe that their six-year-old child is not among the living. Ruth was found wandering about Alta Plaza last Wednesday afternoon by the police.”

* One of the shorter Chronicle reports documented my pick for the toughest earthquake survivor. “On Saturday night triplets were born to one of the homeless at the Presidio,” the dispatch began. At a time when medical supplies were scarce and pain medication was likely in short supply, eight more babies were born at Fort Mason, including two in a vacant lot next to the fort where the mothers had taken refuge. “The babies are all reported to be healthy youngsters.”

But perhaps the most inspiring moment for any Chronicle reader on April 23, 1906, was an apparent miracle on Russian Hill, not far from the center of the inferno.

On the south side of Green Street between Jones and Leavenworth, the newspaper reported half a block was still standing, “with green trees and lawns in the rear, like an oasis in the arid waste.”

Using blankets wet with water from their bathtubs and boilers, a block of residents banded together to save five residences from fire coming from multiple fronts, tearing down flammable fences while extinguishing spot fires on their roofs. Then, when the houses appeared saved, they faced off against military men and firefighters who wanted to blow up the entire block.

“Only by constant argument and pleadings were the owners able to get the youthful officers in charge of dynamiting to restrain their desire to demolish everything in sight,” the newspaper reported.

Many who still had property left were generous with those who suffered. The Chronicle wrote of society dwellers in Pacific Heights opening their mansions to the homeless — one report documented five Chinatown residents, the family of a cook who worked for the rich, living with a society maven.

San Francisco no longer felt alone on the Monday after the earthquake. Help was coming from across the country — the editor of the Los Angeles Times personally brought $50,000 in aid and medical supplies. Carpenters and masonic union members voluntarily froze their rates to prequake prices to avoid excess profit off the sudden demand for their services. The postal service advertised that they would deliver letters to homeless encampments — without stamps or even envelopes. Residents of Oakland flocked to San Francisco to aid their neighbors.

All of the above foreshadowed the great rebuilding that was to come.

The lights were back on in a matter of days. Streetcars returned not long after that. Owners of hotels and department stores built structures that were even more grand than before. The 1910s brought a new and better City Hall, and the 1915 Panama-Pacific International Exhibition was proof to the world that the city had returned. The 1920s brought a new city skyline, including Art Deco skyscrapers that still rank among the best in San Francisco.

In short, everything in the April 23, 1906, Chronicle that was promised came true, and more. The spirit that started to emerge was sustained, and can be seen in everything that the city has become since.

Reading this old newspaper more than a century later, it’s hard not to think, “What if this happened today? Would people rally like they did in 1906?”

In some ways, San Francisco in the early 1900s wasn’t much different than the city of today. Housing was an issue, as was a seemingly unfair power balance being taken on behalf of the rich. But when disaster happened, good people found compromise for the common good. And the example they set should still resonate 109 years later.

It’s not hard to imagine someone like City Arts & Lectures founder Sydney Goldstein or Giants CEO Larry Baer taking a lead in their community if disaster struck, and split political factions finding common ground for the good of the city. Warren Hellman had a lot of Raphael Weill in him. Marc Benioff appears to carry that gene as well.

Weill, the earthquake survivor who at age 70 pledged to fight for San Francisco as if he was 30, made good on his promise.

He brought 5,000 garments from his stock as a donation to the homeless camps, rebuilt the White House department store, and by all accounts took care of his employees as if they were kin. Still with a little fight after the rebuild, he moved to France in the 1910s to help with the war effort.

Weill was in France when he died in 1920, but still donated much of his estate to San Francisco charities, including the Firemen’s Widows and Orphans Fund and the Children’s Hospital. His hard work after the disaster was mentioned in every obituary.

The last of the 1906 earthquake survivors are gone, but a piece of the history lives in every resident who walks the streets of San Francisco. It will never be forgotten, nor should it.

“The great fire of San Francisco is a thing of the past,” The Chronicle’s editorial read on April 23, 1906. “It was dreadful. It is over. It has passed from the domain of daily journalism. The charity of mankind, abounding beyond all human experience, is relieving all suffering which can be relieved ...”

Chronicle librarian Bill Van Niekerken contributed to the research of this article.

Peter Hartlaub is The San Francisco Chronicle pop culture critic. E-mail: phartlaub@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @PeterHartlaub.