A Very Frisco Christmas Special

by kbronson | Dec 23, 2025 | Episodes

This special holiday episode of Frisco — The Secret History explores how Christmas was celebrated in San Francisco from the Gold Rush through the 1940s. The episode opens with a reflection on Emperor Norton, the city’s most beloved eccentric and an early, outspoken champion of civil rights, whose proclamations stood in stark contrast to the exclusionary realities of his era.From there, the story traces the evolution of Christmas in San Francisco: from the rough-and-tumble mining camps of the foothills, where celebrations could stretch on for days, to the rise of elaborate urban traditions centered around downtown department stores. Listeners are taken inside the origins of iconic holiday spectacles at City of Paris, the transformation of Union Square into a month-long winter festival, and the Emporium’s famously extravagant rooftop attractions.

Blending archival newspaper accounts, civic history, and wry observations, the episode captures a distinctly San Francisco version of Christmas—equal parts spectacle, improvisation, excess, and absurdity—set against moments of hardship, war, and rapid change. The result is a vivid portrait of how the city celebrated the holidays while remaining unmistakably, and sometimes unruly, itself.

The Secret History of Frisco

Elmer “Bones” Remmer

After running the Cal-Neva Lodge in the 30s, Bones came to San Francisco and took his mantle as the Bay Area’s the king of vice.

Jimmie Tarantino

Editor of the Hollywood Nite Life scandal sheet, extortionist, blackmailer, Jimmie was the prince of smears and innuendo.

Bill Wren

Managing Editor of the SF Examiner, Bill Wren ran the city, played the horses, and didn’t like to pay up when he lost a bet.

Bob Patterson

As Freddie Francisco, Bob was the biggest gossip columnist of all, also a convicted embezzler and thief. A great writer, too.

Shell Cooper

Bones Remmer’s lieutenant. Cooper and Varni’s bar was a feeder saloon to nearby brothels and filled with b-girls.

Sally Stanford

Sally ran the city’s high-end brothels, catering to the city’s power elite. She eventually became the mayor of Sausalito.

Frank Sinatra

Frank was an early investor in Hollywood Life magazine. After Jimmie shook him down for $8K, Jimmie had to leave LA.

Mickey Cohen

Mickey Cohen was Hollywood’s flamboyant gangster, the southern California equivalent to Bones Remmer

Thomas Lynch

San Francisco’s District Attorney. An ally of Bill Wren, he went after the purveyors sin in the city’s Tenderloin district.

Herb Caen

Gossip columnist at the SF Chronicle and creator of the modern myth of San Francisco, cool grey city of love.

Louella Parsons

Syndicated Queen of Gossip and screenwriter for William Randolph Hearst’s newspaper and radio empire.

Estes Kefhauver

The Senator’s committee revealde the extent and scope of organized crime’s influence over the United States.

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“Will Freddie Francisco, former inmate of Sing Sing, be permitted to sit arrogantly upon a throne of pen and ink and splash spiked words that cause tears and unhappiness to S.F. business men and their families?

“Freddie Francisco, alias Bob Patterson, once posed as a member of royalty. He assumed the title of a Count, under the name of Maximilian B.H.M. Carlton as the son of Marquis of Gahnst and a subaltern in the Black Watch regiment, and as such was arrested in Tucson, Arizona and on Jan. 27, 1928, was arrested for grand larceny by the Chicago Police. (Can you picture columnist Francisco as a count?)”—Jimmie Tarantino, Hollywood Life Magazine.

“It doesn’t take much to produce a good merchant of cash-and-carry love: just courage, an infinite capacity for perpetual suspicion, stamina on a 24-hour basis, the deathless conviction that the customer is always wrong, a fair knowledge of first aid, do-it-yourself gynecology, judo, and a tremendous sense of humor. Aside from these basic talents, a good madam must possess an understanding of female psychology (in the broadest sense), a knowledge of quick therapies for restoring drunks to a state of locomotion (out the door), and a grasp of techniques for the eradication of pimps. With these qualities, and a few others, you may develop into a self-respecting madam. —Madam Sally Stanford (allegedly ghost-written by Freddie Francisco himself)