33 – The Trial That Fell Apart: The Strange End of the Nick DeJohn Murder Case
The jury's out, sequestered up at the Fairmont like kings in exile, and Frisco holds its breath after four weeks of front page testimony. Part Three opens with the strange coda nobody asked for — a state Attorney General's daughter kidnapped for an hour and a half,...
32 – Nick De John, Part 2: She Heard Too Much — The Grand Jury, the Garrot, the Girl in the Bay Window, and a Barefoot Kidnapping in Golden Gate Park.
Fog rolls into the North Beach basements, and Nick DeJohn is still not talking — a garrot saw to that back in May of '47. Part Two picks up the case cold with Freddie Francisco’s break down of rumors in the Tenderloin whisper stream, jumps forward to a judge's...
31 – Lithe Ah Toy With The Laughing Eyes
In this episode, I tell the story of Ah Toy, San Francisco's first Chinese prostitute and madam. She arrived in 1849 at the age of 20, just as Gold Rush fever was turning the tiny harbor settlement into the wildest and most chaotic city on earth. In no time at all,...
30—A Frisco Murder On a Foggy Spring Night, the Nick DeJohn Killing of 1947, Part 1
Nick DeJohn never knew when he had enough. He’d slipped out of Chicago in the nick of time, so to speak, with a stolen $250K skim in his pocket and a lot of enemies at his back. Safe in Santa Rosa, California, with his wife and children, he could have stayed quiet and...
29—Belle Cora, Notorious Gold Rush Madam Tries To Save Her Man
The city was young then, all bad whiskey, muddy boots, and men chasing gold like it was salvation itself. Meet Belle Cora, the most notorious madam west of the Mississippi. She came in hard from New Orleans with gambler Charles Cora and enough nerve to tame a town...
28—A Playlist From Hal Smith To Accompany His Interview On Lu Watters’ Yerba Buena Jazz Band
Yesterday, I published wherein I interviewed drummer and jazz historian Hal Smith. We discussed the music scene in San Francisco in the 30s and 40s and how one man, Lu Watters and his band The Yerba Buena Jazz Band, saved traditional jazz after the emergence of swing...
27—Lu Watters and his Yerba Buena Jazz Band Save Trad Jazz, An Interview With Hal Smith
In this episode, I interview drummer and jazz historian Hal Smith. We discuss the music scene in San Francisco in the 30s and 40s and how one man, Lu Watters and his band The Yerba Buena Jazz Band, saved traditional jazz after the emergence of swing music. The...
26: The Ding Dong Daddy of the D-Car Line
We are going to look at the life and times of little Francis Van Wie, the Diminutive Dutchman known also as the Ding Dong Daddy of the D-Car Line, the Car Barn Casanova, and the Trolley Toreador, and other nicknames. Francis managed to get hitched eighteen times over...
25: Bones Remmer Bribe Attempt Refused! Freddie Says No To Gambler’s Cash
In this episode, I talk about the time well-known grifter, Charles Auberguy, he of the Frisco netherworld and serial inheritance scams, contacted San Francisco Examiner columnist Freddie Francisco, ex-con and brilliant chronicler of high society foibles and underworld...