The admission price was one dollar. Thousands of spectators decided it was too much. On November 29, 1900, a large crowd gathered in San Francisco for the annual Big Game between the California Golden Bears and the Stanford Cardinal. Rather than pay to enter, hundreds climbed onto the roof of the San Francisco and Pacific Glass Works factory that loomed over the field's north side. What happened next became known as the Thanksgiving Day Disaster -- the glassworks roof collapsed like a trap door, sending spectators plummeting into a furnace filled with 15 tons of molten glass, killing 23 people and injuring more than 100 others.
The Big Game was already one of the most anticipated sporting events in California by 1900. The rivalry between Berkeley and Stanford drew passionate crowds, and the Thanksgiving Day setting made it a holiday spectacle. When the gates opened, those who could afford the one-dollar admission filed in. Those who could not, or simply would not, sought free vantage points. The San Francisco and Pacific Glass Works had just opened a brand-new building across the street from the stadium, its shiny corrugated iron rooftop offering a clear view of the field. Between 500 and 1,000 spectators packed onto the factory roof. Twenty minutes into the game, the roof gave way. Those standing above the factory's furnace plummeted 50 feet into a 3,000-degree oven containing 15 tons of molten glass.
The collapse killed 23 people and injured more than 100 others. Those who fell through the roof plunged into the active furnace below, filled with 15 tons of molten glass at 3,000 degrees Fahrenheit. The disaster prompted immediate public outcry about the safety of structures near large public events and the lack of crowd control at sporting venues. A subsequent trial jury declared the victims responsible for their own deaths, stating that no one else could be held accountable. The Thanksgiving Day Disaster remains one of the deadliest accidents at a sporting event in American history. In an era before modern building codes and crowd management protocols, it served as a grim lesson about what happens when hundreds of people climb onto a structure never built to hold them.
The Big Game between Cal and Stanford has been played annually since 1892, one of the oldest college football rivalries in the West. The 1900 disaster became part of the rivalry's lore, a reminder that the passions these games generate can have physical consequences. The game itself -- which team won, which plays mattered -- has been largely forgotten. What endures is the image of a crowd so desperate to watch a football game that they risked their lives on a structure that was never meant to hold them. San Francisco would continue to be a city where enthusiasm outpaces infrastructure, from the crowds at the 1906 earthquake relief stations to the million-plus spectators at modern-day Giants parades.
The 1900 disaster site was in San Francisco at approximately 37.77N, -122.41W. The Big Game has since moved between various Bay Area venues. Nearest airports: KSFO 10nm south, KOAK 9nm east.