William Henry Irwin - The City That Was

The City That Was

Irwin's biggest story and the feat that made him a professional writer was his absentee coverage for the Sun of the San Francisco earthquake of April 18, 1906 and subsequent days. Weigle and Clark describe his activities as follows:

"Because he knew the city so well, he was assigned to write – mostly from memory, supplemented by scant telegraphic bulletins – the story of the quake. Before the last-edition deadline on the first day, April 18, 1906, he wrote fourteen columns of copy. and he kept writing, eight columns or more a day, for the next seven days, as fire swept the ruined city. The booklet, for which Irwin is most widely known, resulted from six or seven columns of general description of pre-earthquake San Francisco that he wrote on the afternoon of the third day of the story."

Irwin was hired by S.S. McClure in 1906 as managing editor of McClure's Magazine. He rose to the position of editor but disliked the work and then moved to Collier's, edited by Norman Hapgood. He wrote investigative stories on the movement for Prohibition and a study of fake spiritual mediums.

Back on the Pacific coast in 1906–1907 to research a story on anti-Japanese racism Irwin returned to San Francisco and found it flourishing. For the San Francisco Call several years later he wrote an article on the city's rebirth entitled "The City That Is". He concluded

"It is a larger city, a more convenient city, and since it is also a more beautiful and more distinctive city I announce myself a complete convert. This city that was business is the old stuff."

Irwin's series on anti-Japanese discrimination appeared in Collier's in September–October 1907 and Pearson's in 1909.