Inside SF
The San Francisco Scoop
SF History
Current affairs inspired articles, with new and different perspectives, on San Francisco’s fascinating history.
San Francisco In Film Noir
Film Noir as a genre was really born in San Francisco, in 1922, when a series of short stories by a writer called Dashiell Hammett appeared in literary magazine The Smart Set. That’s right, it started as a literary genre, but it wasn’t called ‘Noir’ at first, the stories were looked down on as being,…
Founding of San Francisco
If you look at a map of the West Coast of the U.S. it seems logical that there would be a port in the Bay Area. It’s far and away the best natural harbor between San Diego and Seattle, so it seems entirely natural – almost ordained really – that San Francisco exists. However, like…
The Great Fire & How It Changed SF
The 1906 Great Fire is one of the most cataclysmic moments in the history of San Francisco. In many respects it’s the big “before and after” event for the city. Some buildings survived – Union Square’s St Francis Hotel, the Flood Mansion and the Fairmont Hotel, both on Nob Hill, and the Ferry Building were…
Crime Seen: Prohibition in San Francisco
On January 17, 1920, the United States officially went dry as the 18th Amendment came into effect, followed by the Volstead Act. Across the country breweries shuttered, saloons closed their doors and federal agents prepared to enforce what was supposed to be a new moral order. In many American cities, Prohibition arrived with raids, arrests…
Crime Seen: Old Chinatown
San Francisco has the oldest Chinatown in the U.S. and one of the oldest in the West. Chinese emigrants first began moving to the city in 1849, as news of “Gam Saan” (Gold Mountain) spread around the world and reached China, firing the imaginations of thousands of young men who were struggling after years of…
How The Gold Rush Created San Francisco
On May 12, 1848, Mormon pioneer and businessman Samuel Brannan walked onto Portsmouth Square, shouting “Gold! Gold from the American River!”, while holding aloft a phial full of gold flakes. He hadn’t discovered the gold and he never attempted mining it, but it fired the starting gun for the great California Gold Rush. He owned…
How SF & LA Became Queer Capitals of U.S.
When most people think of the birth of the LGBTQ+ rights movement in America, they think of Stonewall, 1969 in New York City. But long before that famous uprising, the earliest sparks of organized queer resistance were already burning in California. By the time of the Stonewall Riots San Francisco and Los Angeles were already…
Fatty Arbuckle Affair: Celebrity Sex Scandal
Location: St Francis Hotel Long before anyone had ever heard of the Fatty Arbuckle Affair (or there was any such thing as a “celebrity sex scandal”) the St Francis Hotel opened in 1904 on Union Square. At that time the film industry was only just blowing up, from being seen as little more than a…
Strength & Skill: The Cable Car Women
San Francisco’s cable cars are more than just a charming relic of the past, they are an enduring symbol of the city’s history and ingenuity. But as these beloved vehicles traverse their well-worn tracks, a vital and often understated chapter of their story unfolds: the remarkable contributions of the cable car women who have mastered…
Maiden Lane: From Brothels To Boutiques
Today Maiden Lane is an upscale, boutique-lined, pedestrian street running east off Union Square, notable chiefly for its gates and for being the home of San Francisco’s only Frank Lloyd Wright designed building. However, the narrow, quiet, street has a scandalous past as one of old San Francisco’s main red-light districts, in the late nineteenth…