San Francisco History Podcast – Sparkletack

THIS WEEK'S PODCAST TRANSCRIPT: 1922: Flappers in the newspapers May 19, 1922 Flappers Right off the bat I have to admit the fact that -- to paraphrase Olympia Dukakis in Moonstruck -- what I don't know about San Francisco in the 1920s is a lot. I did know that all sorts of great Prohibition and gangster stuff must have gone on, though, so I started leafing through a couple of

THIS WEEK'S PODCAST TRANSCRIPT:1879: Stoddard, Stevenson, and Rincon Hill Sometime in 1879: The house on Rincon Hill Last week I read to you from In the Footprints of the Padres, Charles Warren Stoddard's 1902 reminiscences about the early days of San Francisco. That piece recounted a boyhood adventure, but this book is full of California stories from the latter years of the 19t

THIS WEEK'S PODCAST TRANSCRIPT:1854: A future poet's boyhood outing Spring 1854 Charles Warren Stoddard In 1854, the down-on-their-luck Stoddard family set off from New York City to try their luck in that brand new metropolis of the West: San Francisco. Charles Warren Stoddard was just 11 years old, and San Francisco -- still in the throes of the Gold Rush, a vital, chaotic, co

THIS WEEK'S PODCAST TRANSCRIPT:1906: Hotaling's Whiskey is spared by the Great Fire and Earthquake April 20th, 1906 The deliverance of Hotaling's Whiskey As of Friday the 20th, San Francisco was still on fire. The Great Earthquake had happened two days earlier, but the Fire (or fires) that devastated the city were still well underway. The eastern quarter of the city -- nearly fi

THIS WEEK'S PODCAST TRANSCRIPT:1958: The Giants play the Dodgers in the first major league baseball game on the West Coast April 15, 1958 Major League Baseball in San Francisco! Exactly fifty-one years ago today, two New York City transplants faced each other for the first time on the fertile soil of the West Coast. Decades of storied rivalry already under their respective belt

A weekly glance back at the weird and wonderful happenings that have made San Francisco, San Francisco. April 9, 1871: A hoodlum king's power is broken, 138 years ago this week -- and all because he hated the sound of music.

THIS WEEK’S PODCAST TRANSCRIPT:The San Francisco “Cocktail Route” 1890-something The Cocktail Route — “Champagne Days of San Francisco” Spring is most definitely in the air right now, which has brought my thoughts back to one of the great phenomena of San Francisco’s pre-earthquake era, the “Cocktail Route”. I know I’ve mentioned the “Cocktail Route” in p

THIS WEEK'S PODCAST TRANSCRIPT:Slumming the Barbary Coast 1871 "A Barbary Cruise" I've been thinking about the fact that -- just like our out-of-town guests inevitably insist that we take 'em to Chinatown or Fisherman's Wharf -- in the 1870s, visitors from back in "the States" just had to go slumming in the infamous Barbary Coast. The piece I'm about to read to you was written

THIS WEEK'S PODCAST TRANSCRIPT:America's "Master Birdman" makes his final flight March 15, 1915: "The Man Who Owns the Sky" It was the year of the legendary Panama-Pacific International Exposition. San Francisco had once again earned that phoenix on her flag by rising from the ashes of the 1906 earthquake and fire -- and just nine years later, the city celebrated its rebirth by w

THIS WEEK’S PODCAST TRANSCRIPT: 1956: Gold medals or Gold records? An athletic crooner makes a life-changing choice 1956: “Send blank contracts” Of course you know Johnny Mathis. The velvet-voiced crooner is a fixture of the softer side of American pop culture, providing reliably romantic background music for cuddling couples for over sixty years. He’s sold 350 million