The Barbary Coast was a
red-light district
A red-light district or pleasure district is a part of an urban area where a concentration of prostitution and sex-oriented businesses, such as sex shops, strip clubs, and adult theaters, are found. In most cases, red-light districts are particu ...
during the second half of the 19th and early 20th centuries in
San Francisco that featured dance halls, concert saloons, bars, jazz clubs, variety shows, and
brothel
A brothel, bordello, ranch, or whorehouse is a place where people engage in sexual activity with prostitutes. However, for legal or cultural reasons, establishments often describe themselves as massage parlors, bars, strip clubs, body rub par ...
s.
[Asbury, Herbert. ''The Barbary Coast: An Informal History of the San Francisco Underworld''. New York: Basic Books, 2002, p.104.] Its nine block area was centered on a three block stretch of Pacific Street, now Pacific Avenue, between Montgomery and Stockton Streets. Pacific Street was the first street to cut through the hills of San Francisco, starting near
Portsmouth Square and continuing east to the first shipping docks at Buena Vista Cove.
The Barbary Coast was born during the
California Gold Rush of 1849, when the population of San Francisco was growing at an exponential rate due to the rapid influx of tens of thousands of miners trying to find gold. The early decades of the Barbary Coast were marred by persistent lawlessness, gambling, administrative graft,
vigilante justice
Vigilantism () is the act of preventing, investigating and punishing perceived offenses and crimes without Right, legal authority.
A vigilante (from Spanish, Italian and Portuguese “vigilante”, which means "sentinel" or "watcher") is a pers ...
, and
prostitution
Prostitution is the business or practice of engaging in Sex work, sexual activity in exchange for payment. The definition of "sexual activity" varies, and is often defined as an activity requiring physical contact (e.g., sexual intercourse, n ...
;
however with the passage of time, the city's government gained strength and competence, and the Barbary Coast's maturing entertainment scene of
dance halls and
jazz clubs influenced American culture.
The Barbary Coast's century-long evolution passed through many substantial incarnations due to the city's rapid cultural development during the transition to the 20th century. Its former location now is overlapped by
Chinatown
A Chinatown () is an ethnic enclave of Chinese people located outside Greater China, most often in an urban setting. Areas known as "Chinatown" exist throughout the world, including Europe, North America, South America, Asia, Africa and Austra ...
,
North Beach, and
Jackson Square.
Gold Rush and a first decade
San Francisco's Barbary Coast arose from the massive infusion of treasure hunters, called
''49-ers'', seeking their fortunes by panning for gold as they searched for a potential gold mine.
Gold Rush of 1849
Before the
Gold Rush of 1849
The California Gold Rush (1848–1855) was a gold rush that began on January 24, 1848, when gold was found by James W. Marshall at Sutter's Mill in Coloma, California. The news of gold brought approximately 300,000 people to California fro ...
, there were only a few hundred people living in tents and wooden shanties within
San Francisco. However, after the gold rush, the population of San Francisco increased fifty-fold in just two years—from 492 in 1847 to over 25,000 in 1849. This extreme growth combined with a lack of strong government created many opportunities for criminals, corrupt politicians, and brothel owners.
[Secrest, William: Dark and Tangled Threads of Crime – San Francisco's Famous Police Detective, Isaiah W. Lees, Quill Driver Books, 2004, p. 153] For many decades murderers and robbers could commit their crimes without punishment, sometimes boldly in public view. As a result, the Barbary Coast became a wild area representative of the
Old West, and had many problems with political corruption, gambling, crime, and violence.
Around 1848, a group of volunteers from the
Mexican–American War were discharged and settled in San Francisco. Many of them were from New York City gangs from the
Five Points and
Bowery districts. About 60 of them organized into a gang named
The Hounds
The Hounds were a nativist or anti-foreigner gang of San Francisco which specifically targeted recently arrived immigrants, particularly Hispanic Americans, during the California Gold Rush of 1849. They were West Coast counterparts of New York's ...
, and they paraded around as if they were military, and even created a headquarters named Tammany Hall within a tent on Kearny Street.
[Lukas 2010, p. 239] In 1849, these thugs began to call themselves the Regulators as they harassed Mexicans and those of Spanish origin as well as extorted money from local businesses for protection services.
Anyone who did not pay was likely to lose a nose, ear, or suffer greater bodily injury. However, after a group of 230 men organized into a militia and confronted the Hounds with possible arrest, they quickly fled from San Francisco.
Sydney Town
The Hounds was not the only group of criminals to set up business on San Francisco's Barbary Coast. By the end of 1849, several ships from Australia brought former members of Great Britain's penal colony – including ex-convicts,
ticket-of-leave men, and criminals – to San Francisco, where they became known as the
Sydney Ducks.
[Montanarelli 2005, p. 92] These Australian immigrants had become so numerous that they dominated the neighborhood.
[Asbury 1933, p. 111] They opened boarding houses and various types of groggeries that had prostitutes affiliated with their businesses.
[Pryor 2002, p. 61] People who entered these groggeries and brothels frequently were beaten and robbed.
A newspaper of the day, the ''
San Francisco Herald'', states of Sydney Town:
The upper part of Pacific Street, after dark, is crowded by thieves, gamblers, low women, drunken sailors, and similar characters... Unsuspecting sailors and miners are entrapped by the dexterous thieves and swindlers that are always on the lookout, into these dens, where they are filled with liquor – drugged if necessary, until insensibility coming upon them, they fall an easy victim to their tempters...When the habitues of this quarter have a reason to believe a man has money, they will follow him for days, and employ every device to get him into their clutches...These dance-groggeries are outrageous nuisances and nurseries of crime.
When looting San Francisco's neighborhoods, the Sydney Ducks even set fire to San Francisco six times between 1849 and 1851 in order to distract citizens from their pillaging and murdering.
Whenever they planned to start a fire, they waited for south westerly winds so that Sydney Town would not also catch fire. The citizens of San Francisco became enraged, and in 1851, they formed a first Vigilance Committee. Two of the Sydney Ducks, Samuel Whittaker and Robert McKenzie, were then arrested for arson, robbery, and burglary. The vigilantes then held a quick trial, and later hanged them. Vigilantes, unauthorized individuals who use trials and lynchings to punish criminals, were not uncommon in the
Old West, but San Francisco's Vigilance Committees were the largest and most organized of America's history. The hangings scared the remaining Sydney Ducks into fleeing the city. Within two weeks after the hangings, Sydney Town had but only a few dance halls, saloons, and brothels remaining. That relative peace only lasted for two years; then criminals returned to the Barbary Coast.
[Lukas 2010, p. 241]
More vigilante justice
In the latter half of the 19th century, San Francisco saw administrative graft,
boss politics, and a persistent lawlessness.
[Boyd 1997, p. 77] For a while after the hangings of Whittaker and McKenzie, San Francisco functioned as a law-abiding city. The hangings frightened corrupt judges and government officials, who then began to do their duties with a rare diligence, not seen so far in San Francisco. This new competency in government did not last long, and by 1852, corrupt government officials developed a system of high salaries and expensive projects with political kickbacks that drained the city's treasury to near bankruptcy.
[Asbury 1933, p. 76] This financial crisis at city hall created a great strain on commerce and affected individual businesses.
The looting of the city's treasury could not have happened without the help of
David Broderick, the most powerful man in San Francisco, who was a state senator and held tight control over San Francisco from 1851 until his death in 1859.
Broderick's corruption was such that no man could be elected to public office unless he made a deal with Broderick to share half the profits from his office.
[Asbury 1933, p. 77] As a result of these backroom deals, Broderick accumulated a large amount of wealth that strengthened his position as a powerful city boss. As news of the treasury's financial crisis became known, another even larger uprising of enraged citizenry occurred.
James King, a popular journalist and publisher, vehemently protested the administrative graft of Broderick, which angered one of Broderick's main supporters, a supervisor named James Casey. While King was standing in front of his newspaper's building, Casey shot King in the chest, causing a mortal wound that ultimately launched the formation of a second Vigilance Committee in May 1856.
Within two hours after Casey's shooting of King, a mob of 10,000 people surrounded the jail where Casey was being held. The vigilantes then demanded that the jail release James Casey into their custody, and the badly outnumbered jail guards acquiesced to their demands. King died six days after being shot, and subsequently Casey was put on trial by the Vigilance Committee. King's funeral attracted over 15,000 people, but by the time the funeral had ended, Casey had been convicted and hanged by the vigilantes.
[Asbury 1933, pp. 92-93] Now energized by wide public support, the Vigilance Committee set up shop in a large building near the wharf that included jail cells, court rooms, a surrounding wall to resist any military intervention; it was nicknamed Fort Gunnybags.
During the two months that followed the hanging of Casey, there was not a single murder in San Francisco and less than a half dozen robberies. In August 1856, the Vigilance Committee decided to disband and give control back to the elected officials.
District defined
It was not until the 1860s when sailors gave the district its name, and began to refer to it as the Barbary Coast. The term Barbary Coast is borrowed from the
Barbary Coast of North Africa where
local pirates and
slave traders launched raids on nearby coastal towns and vessels. That African region was notorious for the same kind of predatory
dive bars
A dive bar is typically a small, unglamorous, eclectic, old-style drinking establishment with inexpensive drinks; it may feature dim lighting, shabby or dated decor, neon beer signs, packaged beer sales, cash-only service, and a local clientele. ...
that targeted sailors, as had been done on San Francisco's Barbary Coast. Miners, sailors, and sojourners hungry for female companionship and bawdy entertainment continued to stream into San Francisco in the 1850s and 1860s, becoming the Barbary Coast's primary clientele. During its early days, San Francisco had become a "wide" open city where police had little to no control in stopping the activities of gambling, drinking, drugs, drag, and prostitution.
The fact that San Francisco functioned as a port city meant that it was able to sustain large transient populations that were less likely to conform to social rules and regulations.
Before the 1906 earthquake
During this time, San Francisco went through much commercial growth and became an important shipping port, but matured to a level that forbade any more uprisings by vigilantes.
[Asbury 1933, p. 98] Without the threat of vigilante justice, corruption and crime begin to return along with predatory
dives similar to those of Sydney Town.
The Barbary Coast continued to build on its notorious reputation as a lawless city. With only 100 policemen as of 1871, San Francisco had a severe shortage of law enforcement. At that time. Police Chief Crowley said in his annual report that there was only one officer for every 1,445 inhabitants while New York City had one in 464 and London had one for every 303 residents.
Entertaining the miners, entrepreneurs, and sailors was a huge business and resulted in varied, inventive, and occasionally bizarre forms of entertainment.
Except for a couple of restaurants, that three block stretch of Pacific Street was almost wall to wall with drinking establishments. They included dance halls, concert saloons that had entertainment and dancing, melodeons, cheap groggeries, and deadfalls that were beer and wine dens. Initially the melodeons had mechanical
reed organs
The pump organ is a type of free-reed organ that generates sound as air flows past a vibrating piece of thin metal in a frame. The piece of metal is called a reed. Specific types of pump organ include the reed organ, harmonium, and melodeon. Th ...
that played music; however they quickly transformed into a kind of
cabaret that had theatrical entertainment but no dance floor. The only women allowed in the melodeons were the waitresses and performers. Their shows usually contained songs, bawdy skits, and often featured
can-can dancers. The deadfalls were the lowest of the establishments and had hard benches, damp sawdust on the floors, the bar was rough boards laid atop of barrels, had no entertainment, and their wine was often raw alcohol with an added coloring.
The Coast, as it was called, also invented its own kind of dance hall, called a
Barbary Coast Dance Hall. It was different than most dance halls in that the only women there were the female employees who were paid to dance with the customers, and received commissions on the drinks that they could encourage their male customers to buy. Lawlessness was so bad in the Barbary Coast district that police did not patrol alone, but chose to walk their beats in pairs and sometimes in groups. There was usually a murder every night and scores of robberies. And even while inside drinking establishments, a customer's property and life were never safe.
Prostitution was so common on the Barbary Coast that it was referred to as the Paris of America. Drug addicts of the district could even buy cocaine or morphine at an all-night
Grant Street
Grant Street is the main government and business corridor in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. It is home to the global headquarters of U.S. Steel, Koppers Chemicals, and Oxford Development. It also is home to the seat of Allegheny County, City of Pitts ...
drugstore for only two or three times the price of a beer. During the 1890s, San Francisco hit its peak alcohol consumption in having over 3,000 licensed bars and another 2,000 unlicensed bars.
The waitresses were a major attraction for the saloons and were nicknamed the "pretty waiter girls", but they were not always attractive or young. They were scantily clothed in gaudy outfits while they sold drinks and danced with customers for money. The saloons hired women to exploit the men, instructed to pick customers' pockets, and then give half that money back to the management.
[Boyd 1997, p. 78] The pretty waiter girls earned about $20 per week plus a commission on any drinks and dances that they sold. Small grog houses and deadfalls hired only handful of pretty waiter girls, but the larger dance halls and concert saloons employed up to 50 women.
However, some of the concert saloons, like the Eureka and Bella Union, made an effort to have notable Barbary Coast performers appear in their shows and had attractive women for their pretty waiter girls.
It was not unusual for the pretty waiter girls to put drugs into the customers' drinks, so they could later be more easily robbed and sometimes clubbed unconscious.
Sailors, who were frequently the targets of the pretty waiter girls, had cause to dread the area because the art of
shanghaiing was perfected here. Many a sailor woke up after a night's leave to find himself unexpectedly on another ship bound for some faraway port. The verb to "
shanghai" was first coined on the Barbary Coast.
After the 1906 earthquake
Most of the buildings on that stretch of Pacific Street were destroyed by the
earthquake and fire of 1906. However the city's financial boosters then saw an opportunity to clean the tone of the Barbary Coast, and transform it into an entertainment area that would be acceptable for every-day San Franciscans. Possessing a new sense of civic pride, the boosters invested heavily in reconstruction, and within three months, over a dozen dance halls and a dozen bars were rebuilt and operating.
[Boyd 1997, p. 79] This new incarnation of Pacific Street was gentrified and tame compared to the lawless pre-earthquake version of the Barbary Coast. However, prostitution persisted in the district, and it was not until 1917 that Mayor James Rolph made a declaration that he would close every brothel in San Francisco. Same-sex prostitution and entertainment that featured
female impersonators briefly existed in a bar on the Barbary Coast as early as the spring of 1908 when The Dash opened on Pacific Street. The Dash employed some female impersonators, and patrons could purchase homosexual sex in its booths. The Dash closed near the end of that same year.
The thriving district also got a new nickname: Terrific Street. The term Terrific Street first was used by musicians in describing the quality of music at the Pacific Street clubs, and the first
jazz clubs of San Francisco did occur on Terrific Street and attract national talents like
Sophie Tucker
Sophie Tucker (born Sofia Kalish; January 13, 1886 – February 9, 1966) was an American singer, comedian, actress, and radio personality. Known for her powerful delivery of comical and risqué songs, she was one of the most popular entertaine ...
,
Sid LeProtti
Sid LeProtti (also spelled Le Protti) was a pianist and bandleader from Oakland, California active in the Barbary Coast. Born to an African American mother and Italian immigrant father, he was raised by his maternal grandparents. He learned clas ...
, and
Jelly Roll Morton.
[Fleming, E.J.: Carole Landis – A Tragic Life in Hollywood, McFarland & Company, 2005, p. 20] It was at this time that the Barbary Coast gained a wider appeal and its large dance halls drew tremendous crowds.
The principal attraction of Terrific Street was dancing and many nationally known dance steps like the
Texas Tommy and the
Turkey Trot
Turkey trot are footraces, usually of the long-distance variety, held on or around Thanksgiving Day in the United States. The name is derived from the use of turkey as a common centerpiece of the Thanksgiving dinner. A few races in the United Ki ...
, were invented on Terrific Street. At night, its brightly lit block could be seen from across the bay in Oakland despite the fact that neon lights had not yet been invented.
Demise
An extreme shift in political policy came about in 1911 when
James "Sunny Jim" Rolph
James "Sunny Jim" Rolph Jr. (August 23, 1869 – June 2, 1934) was an American politician. A member of the Republican Party, he was elected to a single term as the 27th governor of California from January 6, 1931, until his death on June ...
, was elected as mayor to the first of 10 terms. Rolph, along with a new group of city supervisors and the business sector, was committed to reforming the Barbary Coast district. Just before election time in September 1913,
William Randolph Hearst's newspaper the
''Examiner'', started a major crusade against the Barbary Coast and in a full page editorial suggested that it "should be wiped out."
Ten days later, the police commission adopted resolutions that no dancing was allowed in any establishment of the district that served alcohol, that no women – employees or patrons – was permitted in any saloon of the district, and that even electric signs was forbidden. As a result, some drinking establishments fired their female employees and became straight saloons, and others closed their businesses. Some of the larger dance halls moved to other districts and managed to survive for several more years by masquerading as dance academies or
closed dance halls, but they never regained their previous popularity. In 1917, the brothels were closed due to the
Red Light Abatement Act, but by that time, all the excitement of Terrific Street had vanished. Following the Red Light Abatement Act, prostitution zones and prostitutes were forced to outskirt areas such as the
Tenderloin and
Union Square as shopping centers took over.
Later eras of the Pacific Street District
International Settlement
When
Prohibition was adopted in 1920 and stopped the flow of alcohol to the bars, Terrific Street's block lost much excitement and its dance halls and concert saloons were replaced by offices, hotels, and warehouses. However, after Prohibition was repealed in 1933 and liquor was again available, an attempt was made to revive its entertainment scene. The police commission quashed these efforts when, on February 27, 1934, it announced that no dance permits for the area would be issued. This action followed "the withdrawal by the California state board of equalization of state liquor permits for the district." Protests by women's groups and church organizations influenced these decisions. Still later, during World War II, in an attempt to revitalize the district, it was renamed
International Settlement, and a pair of large promotional arched overhead signs, that read "International Settlement" were constructed on either end of that Pacific Street block. In the same way that the post-Barbary Coast establishments of Terrific Street attempted to draw customers and tourists with a reference to the Coast's nefarious past before the earthquake, International Settlement also tried to draw tourists with a reference to that lost era.
The Broadway scene
During the latter half of the 20th century, the entertainment scene and dancing spread one block north to Broadway, which is parallel to Pacific Street.
Jazz clubs were everywhere on Broadway during the 1950s and 1960s.
Some of Broadway's more famous clubs of that era included Basin Street West, Ann's nightclub, Mr. D's, El Matador, Sugar Hill,
Keystone Korner, the
hungry i
The hungry i was a nightclub in San Francisco, California, originally located in the North Beach neighborhood. It played a major role in the history of stand-up comedy in the United States. It was launched by Eric "Big Daddy" Nord, who sold i ...
, and the
Jazz Workshop.
[Feinstein 2012, p. xxiii]
Mr. D's club, so named because
Sammy Davis Jr. was a partial owner, presented performances by
Tony Bennett and
James Brown
James Joseph Brown (May 3, 1933 – December 25, 2006) was an American singer, dancer, musician, record producer and bandleader. The central progenitor of funk music and a major figure of 20th century music, he is often referred to by the honor ...
. At Ann's nightclub legendary shock comedian
Lenny Bruce
Leonard Alfred Schneider (October 13, 1925 – August 3, 1966), known professionally as Lenny Bruce, was an American stand-up comedian, social critic, and satirist. He was renowned for his open, free-wheeling, and critical style of comedy which ...
received his start in
standup comedy and created a sensation which drew the attention of journalist
Herb Caen and Beat poets like
Lawrence Ferlinghetti. Basin Street West started out as a jazz club but later hosted
Otis Redding,
Ike and Tina Turner, and Lenny Bruce.
The
hungry i
The hungry i was a nightclub in San Francisco, California, originally located in the North Beach neighborhood. It played a major role in the history of stand-up comedy in the United States. It was launched by Eric "Big Daddy" Nord, who sold i ...
club was a premier showcase of new talent and presented early performances of comedians
Phyllis Diller and
Woody Allen as well as vocalist
Barbra Streisand when she was 19 years old. The El Matador club became popular by booking pricey acts like
Oscar Peterson, and its audience occasionally included celebrities such as
Clint Eastwood
Clinton Eastwood Jr. (born May 31, 1930) is an American actor and film director. After achieving success in the Western TV series '' Rawhide'', he rose to international fame with his role as the "Man with No Name" in Sergio Leone's "''Doll ...
,
Frank Sinatra
Francis Albert Sinatra (; December 12, 1915 – May 14, 1998) was an American singer and actor. Nicknamed the "Honorific nicknames in popular music, Chairman of the Board" and later called "Ol' Blue Eyes", Sinatra was one of the most popular ...
, and
Marilyn Monroe.
The
Jazz Workshop became the premier club to hear jazz during the 1950s and 1960s when musicians like
Miles Davis,
Cannonball Adderley
Julian Edwin "Cannonball" Adderley (September 15, 1928August 8, 1975) was an American jazz alto saxophonist of the hard bop era of the 1950s and 1960s.
Adderley is perhaps best remembered for the 1966 soul jazz single "Mercy, Mercy, Mercy", whi ...
, and
John Coltrane performed there.
[Richards 2008, p. 297] Comedian Lenny Bruce made headlines and opened a national discussion on the
First Amendment's freedom of speech rights when he was arrested at the Jazz Workshop for using profanity in his comedy act.
When
strip club
A strip club is a venue where strippers provide adult entertainment, predominantly in the form of striptease or other Erotic dancing, erotic or exotic dances. Strip clubs typically adopt a nightclub or Bar (establishment), bar style, and can also ...
s started to arrive on Broadway, some local jazz musicians working in the strip clubs sat in and performed after hours at the jazz clubs.
[Feinstein 2012, p. xxiv] LGBT entertainments of female impersonators also appeared in North Beach at a nightclub named
Finocchio's, which opened in 1929.
The bar was opened by Joseph Finocchio and was on Stockton Street.
International Settlement's club acts, with their
can-can dancers and old-fashioned chorus girls, were unable to compete with the incredible talent and excitement of the emerging Broadway scene, and by the early 1960s their popularity had fallen below a critical level. But despite the brilliance and innovation of Broadway's entertainment scene of the 1950s and 1960s, its live entertainment clubs also lost their popularity with time. As of the first decade in the 21st century, Broadway had lost its standup comedy clubs and its live music clubs, replaced by cocktail lounges with recorded music. However, some live music clubs still operate in other areas of
North Beach.
In popular culture
* The
lost film ''
The Last Night of the Barbary Coast'' (1913) was peddled by its director to individual theater owners as a lurid
exploitation film depicting vice on the Barbary Coast.
* The 1935 film ''
Barbary Coast'' stars
Edward G. Robinson
Edward G. Robinson (born Emanuel Goldenberg; December 12, 1893January 26, 1973) was a Romanian-American actor of stage and screen, who was popular during the Hollywood's Golden Age. He appeared in 30 Broadway plays and more than 100 films duri ...
and is set in San Francisco during the
Gold Rush era.
* In the 1935 film ''
Frisco Kid'',
James Cagney
James Francis Cagney Jr. (; July 17, 1899March 30, 1986) was an American actor, dancer and film director. On stage and in film, Cagney was known for his consistently energetic performances, distinctive vocal style, and deadpan comic timing. He ...
plays the fictional leader of a vice syndicate in the Barbary Coast of the 1850s.
* In the 1936 film
''San Francisco'' Clark Gable plays a Barbary Coast saloon-keeper and
Jeanette MacDonald plays a hopeful opera singer who survive the
1906 earthquake. The song "
Theme from San Francisco", sung by MacDonald, is San Francisco's official ballad.
* A storyline in the Lone Ranger radio series in late 1943 sees the main character go undercover in the Barbary Coast to rescue a kidnapped banker's daughter.
* In the 1945 film ''
Flame of the Barbary Coast'',
John Wayne
Marion Robert Morrison (May 26, 1907 – June 11, 1979), known professionally as John Wayne and nicknamed The Duke or Duke Wayne, was an American actor who became a popular icon through his starring roles in films made during Hollywood's Gol ...
is a cowboy who becomes a successful casino owner on the Barbary Coast just before the 1906 earthquake.
* In the 1957 Rodgers and Hart musical ''
Pal Joey'',
Frank Sinatra
Francis Albert Sinatra (; December 12, 1915 – May 14, 1998) was an American singer and actor. Nicknamed the "Honorific nicknames in popular music, Chairman of the Board" and later called "Ol' Blue Eyes", Sinatra was one of the most popular ...
starred as a nightclub entertainer who worked at the Barbary Coast nightclub (533 Pacific Avenue).
* In the 1975 television series,
''Barbary Coast'',
William Shatner plays a government agent who apprehends criminals on the Barbary Coast.
* In season two of the Cinemax television series ''
Warrior'', based on the writings of Bruce Lee, the main character fights in brothels on the Barbary Coast.
See also
*
Belle Cora (Arabella Ryan)
Belle Cora (1827?–February 18/19, 1862), also known as Arabella Ryan, was a madam of the Barbary Coast of San Francisco during the mid-nineteenth century. She rose to public attention in 1855 when her lover, Charles Cora, killed US Marshall W ...
*
Frank Gardiner
*
Gold Rush of 1849
The California Gold Rush (1848–1855) was a gold rush that began on January 24, 1848, when gold was found by James W. Marshall at Sutter's Mill in Coloma, California. The news of gold brought approximately 300,000 people to California fro ...
*
International Settlement
*
Jackson Square
*
Montgomery Block
*
North Beach
*
Port of San Francisco
*
1906 earthquake
*
Robert William Service
Robert William Service (January 16, 1874 – September 11, 1958) was a British-Canadian poet and writer, often called "the Bard of the Yukon". The middle name 'William' was in honour of a rich uncle. When that uncle neglected to provide for hi ...
*
Sailortown (dockland)
*
Sydney Walton Square
Sydney Walton Square is a public park located just west of the Embarcadero in San Francisco, California, United States. The park is named after San Francisco banker Sydney Grant Walton.
The 2-acre park was designed by Peter Walker. It was cr ...
References
Bibliography
* Asbury, Herbert: The Barbary Coast – An Informal History of the San Francisco Underworld, Thunder's Mouth Press, 1933
* Boyd, Nan Alamilla: Creating a Place For Ourselves: Lesbian, Gay, and Bisexual Community Histories, Routledge, 1997
* Cressey, Paul G.: The Taxi-Dance Hall – A Sociological Study in Commercialized Recreation and City Life, University Chicago Press, 1932
* Federal Writers of WPA: San Francisco in the 1930s – The WPA Guide to the City by the Bay, University California Press, 2011
* Feinstein, Sascha: Keystone Korner – Portrait of a Jazz Club, Indiana University Press, 2012
* Lukas, Gary Paul:Seven Years in Sodom, Xulon Press, 2010
* Montanarelli & Harrison: Strange But True San Francisco – Tales of the City by the Bay, PRC Publishing, 2005
* Pryor, Alton: California's Hidden Gold – Nuggets from the State's Rich History, Stagecoach Publishing, 2002
* Richards, Rand: Historic Walks in San Francisco, Heritage House Publishers, 2008
External links
BARBARY COAST by Daniel Steven Crafts - FoundSFBarbary Coast Trail historic walking trail
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