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Today in San Francisco History - a Gold Rush shaving-saloon

Timecapsule: February 1852 We love personal accounts of the goings-on in our little town more than just about anything. The sights, the smells, the daily routine ... We want the nuts and bolts

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Today in San Francisco History - Ghosts of Lands End

Timecapsule: February 19, 1921 On this date the cornerstone for San Francisco's spectacular Palace of the Legion of Honor Museum was levered into place. The Museum was to be a vehicle

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Today in San Francisco History - The laceration of Rincon Hill

Timecapsule: February 1869 There aren't too many people living who remember this now, but Rincon Hill was once the fanciest neighborhood in San Francisco. You know the place, right? It'

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Today in San Francisco History - Eye of the Gold Rush Hurricane

Timecapsule: February 1, 1849 The spring of 1849 -- dawn of a year forever branded into the national consciousness as the era of the California Gold Rush. And so it was -- but that was

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Today in San Francisco History - San Francisco gets its name

Timecapsule: January 30, 1847 Yerba Buena That was the name given to the tiny bayside settlement back in 1835, a name taken from the wild mint growing on the sand dunes that surrounded

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Today in San Francisco History - Tong boss "Little Pete" assassinated in a Chinatown barbershop

Timecapsule: January 23, 1897 The "tong" secret societies are as American as Chop Suey -- which is to say, invented in San Francisco and completely unknown in China. The first tong was

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Today in San Francisco History - Passing of the notorious Countess Lola Montez

Timecapsule: January 17, 1861 As was undoubtedly marked on your calendar, San Francisco's patron saint Emperor Norton died last week, January 7, 1880. But his was not the only January passing

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Today in San Francisco History - "Small Boy Defends Himself"

Timecapsule: January 14, 1899 In this San Francisco Chronicle story from 1899, a North Beach street urchin defends himself in court. No, we don't know why he was allowed to act

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Today in San Francisco History - "Demon of the Belfry" goes to the gallows

Timecapsule: January 7, 1898 The most notorious criminal of San Francisco's Gilded Age was executed 111 years ago today. Sure, Jack the Ripper had set a certain tone for serial killing

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Today in San Francisco History - the First Cliff House Burns

Timecapsule: December 25, 1894 On Christmas Day, 1894, the first San Francisco Cliff House burned to the ground. As the Chronicle poetically reported the next morning, San Francisco's most historic landmark

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Today in San Francisco History - Escape from Alcatraz, maybe

Timecapsule: December 16, 1937 Braving armed guards, bone-chilling water, and a mythical one-finned shark named Bruce, Theodore Cole and Ralph Roe take advantage of the heaviest fog on record to escape

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Today in San Francisco History - "Miss Goldie Griffin Wants to Become Cop"

Timecapsule: December 9, 1912 Another item culled directly from the pages of our historical newspapers, this one from the period in which California women had just won the right to vote -- something for

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Today in San Francisco History - Wyatt Earp Referees a Boxing Match

Timecapsule: December 2, 1896 Frontier lawman Wyatt Earp, legendary for his role in the archetypal Western gunfight, "Shoot-out at the O.K. Corral", is called upon this afternoon to officiate

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Today in San Francisco History - "Haberdashery Issue Stirs Butchertown"

Timecapsule: November 24, 1899 This item flowed from the pen of some long-forgotten San Francisco Chronicle beat writer, a little piece in which a neighborhood dispute is lovingly detailed. Butchertown was a

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Today in San Francisco History - Unknown San Francisco author takes New York

Timecapsule: November 18, 1865 Mark Twain's improbable wild west tale about an inveterate gambler and a jumping frog becomes the talk of New York City. Mark Twain -- or, let's

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Today in San Francisco History - Mary Ann Patten, Heroine of Cape Horn

Timecapsule: November 15, 1856 We ran across this little item while looking for something else altogether, and couldn't resist passing along such an amazing and (almost) ready-for-Hollywood story. It

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Today in San Francisco History - "Kolb and Dill"

Timecapsule: November 3, 1910 We noticed a short notice in the local papers from, oh, 98 years back, announcing that the entire theatrical wardrobe of Kolb and Dill -- the most popular comedy team

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Today in San Francisco History - The Black Cat Café

Timecapsule: October 31, 1963 On Halloween night, the "Black Cat Cafe" -- that notorious, flamboyant and most historically significant of San Francisco's gay nightspots, held a final celebration before closing

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Today in San Francisco History - "A Hoodlum Raid"

Timecapsule: October 20, 1880 Sometimes we like to let the past speak in its own words, and even better, on subjects that never show up in history books. Here's an item

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This week in SF History - the First Cliff House opens

Timecapsule: October 15, 1863 The first Cliff House opened its doors on this date 145 years ago. The brainchild of a real estate speculator and a State Senator, this first of umpteen incarnations

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This week in SF History - Waaay back when, the dedication of Mission Dolores

Timecapsule: October 9, 1776 Two hundred and thirty-two years ago this week (!), the original "Mission San Francisco de Asis" -- better known as Mission Dolores -- was officially dedicated on the banks

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This week in SF History - Blackie Swims the Golden Gate

Timecapsule: October 1, 1938 On a foggy Saturday in 1938, a swaybacked, 12-year-old horse named Blackie swam - dog-paddled, really - completely across the choppy waters of the Golden Gate. The horse

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This week in SF History - The Head of Joaquin Murieta

Timecapsule: September 24, 1855 The preserved head of Joaquin Murieta and the hand of Three-Fingered Jack were sold at auction today to settle their owner's legal problems. Joaquin Murieta was

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Chaplin Film shot in San Francisco - 1915

File this -- again -- under "there's ALWAYS a San Francisco connection". We recently discovered that Charlie Chaplin, America's favourite clown (and perhaps the most influential performer in motion

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"Not Even Jackassable"

We perused the recent SFist post about the pitiable state of San Francisco's streets with a certain sense of nostalgia for the good ol' days. You know, the days before