The story has been lost in time. But the houses are still here.

The three San Francisco homes, on the south side of Green Street between Leavenworth and Jones, become easier to miss with each passing decade. Russian Hill has grown upward and around them, with enough surrounding high-rise apartment buildings to cast shadows at any point during the day.

But 113 years ago, they were all that was left on the top of this hill. In a fit of bravery or temporary insanity, a handful of civilians withstood the 1906 earthquake, then, with no access to running water, successfully battled the inferno that followed. As a result, a block of homes — including a historic octagonal house built in the 1850s — survived on a side of the city that was decimated.

“Amid the ruins of Russian Hill, almost hidden from view by the mass of half-destroyed brick walls and chimneys, a number of fine residences … are still standing, with green trees and lawns in the rear, like an oasis in the arid waste,” The Chronicle reported on April 24, 1906. “Sightseers who do not know of the desperate fight to save that row of homes remark upon the luck of the owners in escaping the holocaust. It was not luck that caused the flames to pass by and leave this little line of residences untouched.”

The octagonal home, known as the Feusier House after the family that occupied it continuously for 84 years, was built at 1067 Green St. in the 1850s. A neighborhood developed around it, as several smaller houses were built on the block beginning in the 1860s.

The first octagon houses were designed to withstand tornadoes, with a frame of concrete and burned lime, and surface area distributed to deflect wind. It turned out to be a good build for earthquakes as well.

The 1906 quake hit before dawn on a Wednesday, and disorganization and terror followed. San Francisco Fire Chief Dennis Sullivan was crushed and killed when a theater chimney hit his firehouse. Water lines were broken, hospitals were overwhelmed, and the police threatened to shoot looters on sight.

So the only first responders on the 1000 block of Green Street were the residents themselves. Using the small amount of water left in their boilers and bathtubs, the homeowners wet blankets to put out small fires —then used shovels and dynamite to create a mini-firebreak around the homes.

The front-page Chronicle story on April 24, 1906, headlined, “BLOCK SAVED ON RUSSIAN HILL,” stands out among the devastating postquake news.

“Outbuildings and fences of all kinds were torn down by a score of willing hands,” The Chronicle reported. “When the fire had been beaten off from the Jones and Vallejo streets side, a new menace presented itself from Leavenworth Street, where the houses south of Green were seething furnaces.

“Judicious use of wet blankets on shingle roofs and the removal of small timber from the path of the fire finally accomplished its purpose, and, after several hours of the hottest work few men have ever been called upon to do, five residences were saved in a district otherwise entirely consumed.”

But that wasn’t the end. Hours into the ordeal, young San Francisco police officers showed up with dynamite, and orders to destroy the houses to create a fire break.

“The earthquake didn’t do a particle of damage to the house. A brick or two fell out of the chimney, and that was all,” resident Clarence Feusier told The Chronicle in a 1949 interview. “When it became apparent that the fire menaced this neighborhood, however, some dynamiters came up the hill and were prevented from blasting the house to bits only by the firm resistance of my brother-in-law.”

Instead, the officers decided to blow up a horse stable down the hill, using 324 sticks of dynamite — that’s three entire crates, and about 314 sticks more than were needed for the job.

“In this house, which had just survived the earthquake unscathed, the explosion shattered every window, blew doors off their hinges, sent dishes crashing to the floor and completely terrified my family,” Clarence Feusier recounted in that interview.

According to The Chronicle article, most of the remaining police had moved west of Van Ness Avenue, so the Russian Hill families organized their own guard after the earthquake, “standing duty for two hours each night.”

The Feusiers passed the home to another local family in 1954, selling the octagonal house and an adjacent four-story apartment building for $125,000. By the late 1960s, the block was back in newspapers, as the new owners announced plans to demolish the structure and build another tower in its place.

“The 122-yr-old Feusier octagonal house on Green St. — earmarked for destruction so that a 21-story condominium may rise — is also the location of the only cemetary on Russian Hill,” Chronicle columnist Herb Caen wrote in 1970. “Buried in the garden are five members of the Feusier family, cremated and in urns.”

But by then in newspaper stories, there was no more mention of the fire, or the dynamite, or the heroics. The history of the Feusier house seemed to begin with the preservationists’ fight. It was declared City Landmark No. 36 in the 1970s.

Three of the five houses saved in the 1906 earthquake are still standing, and they’re a strange trio in 2019. The octagonal home at 1067 Green St. is now one of the 10 oldest homes still standing in San Francisco. (Published construction completion dates range from 1852 to 1858.)

Next door is an arguably even more impressive home at 1055 Green St., built in 1860 and redesigned in 1916 with grand touches by famed architect Julia Morgan.

The final survivor, at 1045 Green St., has a more weathered vibe, with faded wood shingles, and an east wall that’s dominated by the four-story building under construction next door.

The first two homes have made news in recent decades — in stories on real estate news sites. The Julia Morgan home was listed for $7.95 million in 2013. SFGate wrote a story about the Feusier home last year, announcing that it’s renting for $10,500 per month.

But the real estate reporters, while mentioning early owner Louis Feusier’s history as a winemaker, mining entrepreneur and friend of Leland Stanford and Mark Twain, don’t mention the heroics that saved the block.

During a recent Thursday, a “Tales of the City” tour walks by the homes, on the way to Armistead Maupin’s “Barbary Lane” stand-in Macondray Lane a block away. The three houses are not on the official tour.

One of the city’s most cinematic moments, no fiction or embellishments needed, were somehow forgotten in the passage of time.

Peter Hartlaub is a San Francisco Chronicle writer. Email: phartlaub@sfchronicle.com