#59: Starr King and the California Civil War (pt. 1)
Over 100,000 people a day travel the Geary Street corridor. But how many glance over and notice the grey statue standing watch at Franklin Street? Only a very few look even further, and notice the low...
9 Apr 200739min
#58: The Crocker Spite Fence
History is rife with bizarre confrontations and grand feuds, but in San Francisco none were more bizarre than the showdown between Charles Crocker (bellicose railroad robber baron) and Nicholas Yung (...
21 Feb 200733min
#56: Lotta Crabtree — the San Francisco Favourite
In this week’s podcast we’ll marvel at beautiful Lotta Crabtree, quintessential star of the late 1800s. She was the protege of Lola Montez, the highest paid performer on Broadway, the darling of the e...
30 Apr 200627min
#55: Caruso, the Palace, and the 1906 earthquake
This week’s podcast chooses just one of the many thousands of individual stories to emerge from the catastrophe, following the eccentric Italian superstar and the storied hotel through their respectiv...
16 Apr 200644min
#54: The Notorious Lola Montez
This week’s podcast grapples with the unbelievable legend of Lola Montez, the gorgeous Irish peasant girl with the soul of a grifter and the heart of a despot. She lived about three lifetimes’ worth o...
8 Apr 200636min
#52.5: The Trolls of San Francisco
The history of one of these hidden layers is, however, little known and rarely spoken of – I refer of course to the San Francisco trolls. Though some hold that the trolls are a primitive people origin...
1 Apr 200610min
#52: Adolph Sutro, the Populist Millionaire
This week’s podcast explores the history of the millionaire philanthropist who gave so much to our city and whose story is — amazingly — almost forgotten. For further edification: » The Western Neighb...
25 Mar 200627min
#51: The Columbarium and the Caretaker
In an attempt to answer the oft-voiced question "what is that thing, anyway?", in this week’s podcast a visit is finally paid to this sumptuous Victorian repository for cremated remains, the baroque c...
19 Mar 200628min
