FRISCO—The Secret History

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 music. I asked him for a playlist our listeners. He provided this list of songs and youtube links with extensive commentary. Thank you, Hal!Enjoy!

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 musicians, the clubs, and how an girlfriend's irate father with a pistol put Lu and his band on the front page, launching their career. All in all, fascinating story!Links:Hal's website: http://halsmithjazz.com.Books:Clancy Hayes, The Swinging Minstrel.Dustbowl To Disney—The Lost Memoir of Danny Alguire.

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 the course of his eighty-eight years. He rarely, if ever, bothered to get divorced. He did a stint in San Quentin for bigamy.He started making nationwide news in 1915 at the age of twenty-seven and would continue to do so until he passed on from this mortal coil. Francis covered so much territory over the course of his life, had so many jobs, told so many stories, and married so many women, as many as twelve concurrently at one point, it’s been a bit of a challenge to map his odyssey. I believe I have gotten it right. 

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 gossip, with a lucrative bribe offer, $500 a month, for laying off Chin Lim Mow, aka The Chinaman, gambling boss of San Mateo County.Freddie played along and invited Auberguy to come visit him at his luxury apartment atop Nob Hill, replete with butler, the following week.Immediately, Examiner Editor Bill Wren, Freddie, reporters Ernie Lenn and Ed Montgomery decided to capture the whole thing on tape, and laid out the plan. A few hours before the appointed time, they wired Freddie's plush digs for sound.Auberguy showed up right on time and tossed some carefully folded bills on the table. Freddie maneuvered him over to the stereo where the microphone was hidden and drilled him for details about the who what when and the how much he was going to make each month. We have a transciption of that conversation in the episode..When Freddie spoke the agreed upon phrase, the two reporters, the sound man and the photographer, burst out of the back room, flash bulbs popping.Auberguy didn't protest. He smiled sheepishly, picked up his cash, and walked out into the night.There was a fair amount of fallout. A sledgehammer raid at The Chinaman's 101 Club south of the city. Police blockades at Bone's Club on Turk and Ed Sahati's joint at the Hotel Somerton on Geary.A lot of sound and fury, but nothing really changed in Frisco. That would take a few more years.Come to think of it, that might have been the first payoff Freddie Francisco ever turned down.

In this episode, I’m diving into one of my favorite San Francisco stories—the kind that lives right at the intersection of journalism, mischief, and outright audacity. It centers on two unforgettable characters from the San Francisco Examiner: the hard-driving, razor-sharp editor Bill Wren, and the wildly charismatic columnist Bob Patterson—better known to readers as Freddie Francisco. Bob was one of the most charming and fascinating men I’ve ever met.This was the clash of two monumental titans over the use of the word "poontang" in the newspaper.I walk you through Wren’s amazing rise, a tale of grit and termination—from a runaway kid riding the rails west to becoming one of the most feared and respected newsroom bosses in the country—and how he hired Patterson, a brilliant writer with a criminal past, a trickster at heart. Their relationship was equal parts respect and chaos, which made what happened almost inevitable.At the heart of the story is a ridiculous, very San Francisco kind of bet they made about whether the word “poontang”would ever appear in the paper again, after Bob used it in one of his columns.  What followed is pure Freddie Francisco: clever, subversive, and brazen. It’s a small story on the surface, but it captures something bigger about Frisco, the era, and the kinds of characters who used to run the show.Who won the bet?You’ll have to listen to the episode!

In Part Four of the Dolly Fine story, I bring the Dolly Fine story to a close. Where we last left off, Dolly had been arrested and charged on eight felony counts of contributing to the delinquency of a minor. The DA had her dead to rights and such was the political climate of the moment, he was going to make hay by pressing her to the full extent of the law. Instead of arriving for her arraignment, she took flight and forfeited her $1000 bail. Every sighting of her, from San Diego to Paris, made headlines around the country. Dolly sold papers.On the eighty-ninth day of her exile, she got word to her attorney, Jake "The Master" Ehrlich, to arrange for her to turn herself in. Jake met Dolly in Oakland, covered her face with a large scarf and sunglasses and they took the ferry back to Oakland.On the morning of her trial, Jake pulled one of his most Ehrlichian moves and brought Frisco's elites face to face with their own hypocricy.Did Dolly walk? Of course she did, but at what cost? Because Jake had demanded quite an unforeseen fee for his services. 

In this episode of Frisco: The Secret History, Knox Bronson welcomes back film writer Rachel Walther to explore two classic film noir movies set in San Francisco: Sudden Fear (1952) starring Joan Crawford and Jack Palance, and House on Telegraph Hill (1951) starring Valentina Cortese and Richard Basehart.Rachel dives into the production history, fascinating behind-the-scenes drama, and the real San Francisco locations that shaped these atmospheric thrillers. From Joan Crawford’s tense love triangle with co-stars to wartime backstories and dramatic Telegraph Hill chases, the conversation reveals how the city itself became a character in post-war noir filmmaking.They also explore why San Francisco’s dramatic hills, foggy streets, and working-class past made it such a natural setting for crime dramas in the 1940s and 50s—and how these films captured a version of the city that has largely disappeared.If you love classic cinema, film noir, or San Francisco history, this episode uncovers the strange and shadowy stories behind two remarkable movies.

On April 27, 1938, San Francisco woke up to a banner headline: “Jury Indicts Dolly Fine as Boys Tell of Vice Den.” In this bonus episode of Frisco: The Secret History Podcast, I zoom out from Dolly Fine’s indictment to take you inside one extraordinary spring day in the city.I explore the political optics behind Dolly’s charges, the lingering fallout from the Atherton corruption investigation, and the broader culture of tolerated vice that defined Frisco in the 1930s. From a shocking “white slavery” trial to a police sergeant’s scandalous midnight “auto ride” with an arrested streetwalker, the day’s stories reveal a city caught between reform and routine corruption—while the rest of the world edged closer to war.This is a Patreon-only bonus episode available to members at the $5 tier and above.

In this episode, I let Jake Ehrlich do a lot of the talking, because frankly, no one skewered San Francisco’s hypocrisy quite like he did. Dolly wasn’t just fighting a criminal charge—she was being fed to the wolves in a city that had tolerated, taxed, and quietly protected vice for decades. Suddenly, after one raid involving a handful of well-connected teenage boys, everyone found religion.What fascinates me most here is Dolly’s code. She could have blown the lid off police graft. She could have named names. Instead, she chose silence—and then she chose to disappear. Whether you see that as loyalty, pride, or strategy, it says everything about how the underworld operated. And in the middle of it all? A mother terrified that her child might see her face in the papers.

In this episode, I continue the story of Dolly Fine as San Francisco’s long-standing system of tolerated vice begins to unravel in the wake of the Atherton Report of 1937. Police shakeups, grand jury investigations, and rising public pressure tightened the noose the long-tolerated and city-wide machinery of grart, even as those very same players who profited for decades scrambled to protect themselves. When a police raid on Dolly's house triggered  by a high-society matron's call to the Chief of Police, caught her son and his friends in her parlor, the response was swift and ferocious: felony indictments, screaming headlines, and officials suddenly eager to prove they could clean house. The men walked free, the broader system went largely untouched, and Dolly—branded the “Lady in Red”—was singled out as the fall guy. Faced with the choice of prison, suicide, or breaking her lifelong code of the underworld and becoming a snitch, she vanished, setting off a nationwide manhunt, or madam-hunt. Her tell-all interview with the San Francisco Chronicle, published after she had absconded, did not help her case, nor Attorney, Jake "The Master" Ehrlichs' future defense of her crimes.

Dolly Fine was one of San Francisco’s last great madams and a defining figure of the city’s wide-open 1930s nightlife. Tall, blonde, impeccably dressed, and deeply embedded in the city’s underworld, Dolly ran one of the most profitable and professionally managed houses in town—right as Frisco’s long tradition of tolerated vice was beginning to crack under public scrutiny.Before diving into Dolly’s reign, Knox takes us on a whirlwind tour of the city’s legendary madams, from Gold Rush pioneers like Irene McCready and Ah Toy to fan favorites Tessie Wall and Jessie Hayman. These women helped define San Francisco’s peculiar relationship with sex, money, and moral flexibility—a relationship that lasted for decades, until reformers, headlines, and political embarrassment forced the city to look too closely at its own reflection.Dolly Fine’s story sits squarely at that breaking point. With ties to Prohibition-era smuggling, early gangster life, and a past that police later dredged up with relish, Dolly faced the full force of the Atherton investigation and a changing civic mood. Though she survived the Grand Jury and continued operating, the ground was shifting beneath her feet. Part One sets the stage for her dramatic fall—her arrest, flight, and nationwide manhunt—stories that will unfold in Part Two.Key Topics CoveredSan Francisco’s long tradition of tolerated viceLegendary Frisco madams from the Gold Rush onwardDolly Fine’s rise in the 1930s underworldProhibition smuggling and early gangster connectionsThe Atherton Report and systemic police graftThe McDonough Brothers and institutional corruptionPublic revulsion at graft versus tolerance of viceJake Ehrlich’s defense of Dolly FineThe cultural turning point that ended old Frisco

We pick up alongside Episode Nine on Bones Remmer, zooming out to look at what was happening in San Francisco in 1928 as the La Cosa Nostra gang war intensified in North Beach. Along the way, we pause on the culture of the moment: the movies people packed theaters to see, the arrival of Mickey Mouse in Steamboat Willie, and the everyday stories that shared front-page space with organized crime.

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.

In this episode of The Secret History of Frisco, Knox Bronson returns—hopefully for the last time—to San Francisco’s most emotionally charged semantic battlefield: the word “Frisco.”Building on the earlier episodes Call It Frisco and Call It Frisco #2 — Sally Stanford Weighs In On The Eternal Conflict, Knox dismantles two of the most commonly cited weapons in the anti-Frisco arsenal: Emperor Norton’s supposed 1872 proclamation banning the word, and Herb Caen’s famously stern admonition, Don’t Call It Frisco.New historical research from the Emperor Norton Trust reveals that Norton’s decree almost certainly never existed at all—an invention of a 1939 biography that somehow hardened into accepted truth. Meanwhile, Herb Caen himself ultimately reversed course, publicly inviting the city to reclaim “Frisco” as the sailors’, adventurers’, and Gold Rush city it once was.Along the way, we explore sailor slang, Gold Rush linguistics, cultural snobbery, postwar migration, and the shifting moral geography of San Francisco itself. The episode closes by giving the final word to legendary madam and restaurateur Sally Stanford, who reminds us that the city’s original characters never called it anything but Frisco.This is less a debate than a historical reckoning—and perhaps a small act of linguistic liberation.Shownotes courtesy of ChatGPT. I find perverse enjoyment these weird summations.

In this episode, we step back into San Francisco at the end of the roaring twenties, when bootleggers, blackhanders, and quiet Mafia bosses carved out invisible empires in North Beach. It was a time when the city’s underworld tried to keep its violence out of sight — but the headlines told another story. It’s also the backdrop for the rise of Elmer “Bones” Remmer, the city’s gambling king who would come to rule its after-hours joints, brothels, and backroom poker games from the Tenderloin to Lake Tahoe. His story intertwines with that of Jack Ruby, who once dealt cards for him, and the quiet influence of the Lanza family, who kept the Mafia’s presence subdued but steady. The bridges were about to open, the old order was crumbling.

This installment is all about the wild 1947 film noir The Lady From Shanghai, and guest Rachel Walther, a film historian with a book coming out soon called Born To Lose, The Misfits Who Made Dog Day Afternoon, breaks down the chaotic story behind it. The Lady From Shanghai film was a last-ditch effort by Orson Welles to get back in Hollywood’s good graces after his studio battles over The Magnificent Ambersons. He literally phoned up Columbia head Harry Cohn and pitched a thriller based on a random book title he saw, just to get the cash for a play he was staging. The drama ratcheted up when Cohn insisted Welles cast his then-estranged wife, superstar Rita Hayworth, which Hayworth was actually into! She saw it as a chance to ditch her "sex goddess" image, even cutting and dyeing her famous red hair platinum blonde as a big middle finger to Cohn. However, Welles—being Welles—turned a simple plot into a "noir dreamscape fantasia" with a confusing story, kicking off the shoot with a crazy production on Errol Flynn’s yacht in Mexico where a cameraman tragically dropped dead on the first day. Errol's suggestion to simply put the corpse in a duffel bag and throw it overboard was ignored.Rachel explains that while the plot is "nuts" and full of holes, the film's stunning visuals, especially once the action moves to San Francisco, are what make it a classic. Welles shot in distinct city spots like Chinatown, the Steinhardt Aquarium, and the iconic Hall of Mirrors at Playland at the Beach, which was a huge, custom-built set back in L.A. This visual feast, full of off-kilter energy, is why the film sits so high in the pantheon of SF noir. Interestingly, the film was a flop at the time because audiences and critics just weren’t ready for how strange and abstract it was. The discussion wraps up by exploring the tragic arc of Welles' career after Citizen Kane, where his inability to compromise and his obsessive creative nature led him to be constantly shut out of his own projects, proving that the film's theme of duplicity was really Welles’ commentary on his hostile relationship with Hollywood, not just his messy divorce from Hayworth.

Welcome back, Frisco fans! You're tuning into Part Two and the conclusion of our deep dive into the San Francisco Examiner's 1944 sensation: "WOMEN IN SALOONS—The Shame of My Sex," by the legendary, if controversial, author Gertrude Atherton. If you missed the start, you definitely want to go back and listen to Part One! This episode picks up where we left off, following Atherton's increasingly frantic, first-hand reports as she descends from the glittering "Top of the Mark"—where she finds "all...attending strictly to business" in the gloom—down to the "second rate" clubs. She’s on a mission to document the moral "menacing breakdown of Feminine Morals in Our Brawling Barrooms." Things get louder, darker, and in her estimation, much uglier, with reports of "lewd" remarks and women "leaning heavily on the men" in crowded, raucous nightclubs.Atherton, an 86-year-old self-proclaimed lifelong teetotaler, continues her survey of San Francisco's wartime nightlife, moving from the crowded dance halls to the more respectable cocktail bars frequented by women after a hard day's work. She actually offers a rare moment of nuance, distinguishing between the girls who are "out for the best that life has to offer" and the "frustrateds on the loose," seeking only an expensive fling. However, her true disdain is reserved for the affluent, blowsy women drinking from 11 AM to midnight in Marina bars, whose children wander in begging for dinner. This segment culminates in Atherton’s final, scathing assessment where she concludes that the majority of these "degraded women are fools—possibly morons" who lack the mental discipline to handle their newfound wartime "freedom" and turn into "human tanks."The conclusion of Atherton's crusade isn't about mere disapproval—it's about a proposed societal cure. After rejecting prohibition as a remedy, she argues that these "fools are superfluous" and suggests they should be allowed to "drink themselves to death and the sooner the better," or else be "shut them up in institutions." Yikes. She then pivots to what she sees as the real problem: the children. Atherton makes a final, passionate appeal for saving this "new generation" by establishing large, comfortable country colonies with schools, proper care, and "personal affection" from "intelligent, motherly women." It’s a wild, shocking ride from a woman whose history includes links to eugenicist ideas and a clear sense of white supremacy. Join us for this final, unsettling look at a major San Francisco media event of 1944. 

In this episode of The Secret History of Frisco, we're diving into the San Francisco Examiner's sensational 1944 moral crusade against Barfly Women and the threat they posed to the social fabric of San Francisco. The paper hired the renowned 86-year-old author and novelist, Gertrude Atherton, a San Francisco native, to mount an investigation into the phenomenon of unaccompanied women drinking in saloons and nightclubs.We trace the history of William Randolph Hearst's and Joseph Pulitzer's battle for domination in New York City at the end of the nineteenth century and the sensational, fact-free style style of reportage that gave rise to the term "yellow journalism," and created the outrage that led to the Spanish-American War in 1898, the one where Hearst famously said, "You furnish the pictures, and I'll furnish the war!" Finally, we circle back to to 1944 and Gertrude Atherton's first installment of "Women In Saloons, The Shame of My Sex."  The city bursting with wartime workers. Women daring to have a drink in public. Atherton's piece is a classic piece of moralizing, painting these women as mothers neglecting their kids and succumbing to "riotous indecencies." She herself was born to great wealth and privilege and it shows.In her first installment, she hilariously brings along an escort to down her drinks while she performs her first-hand research, since she is a teetotaler. This installment ends as she and her escort make it to the legendary Top o' the Mark Restaurant and Bar atop Nob Hill.To be continued.

California State Attorney General Thomas C. Lynch was the Assistant D.A. in San Francisco in the late 1940s, the years Jimmie Tarantino, blackmailer and extortionist magazine publisher, was plying his trade in San Francisco at the behest of Frisco gambling czar Bones Remmer. This episode comes from the Oral History Department of the Bancroft Library at UC Berkeley, an interview conducted with Lynch in 1978. It's a fascinating overview of the era and the behind-the-scenes battles I inadvertently stumbled up so many years ago that led to the creation of "The Secret History of Frisco" podcast. Frank Sinatra is in there, once again, as is Barney Ross, the drug-addicted war hero and prize-fighter. Lynch mentions many prominent San Franciscans of the era, those he suspected of being blackmailed by Tarantino: Joe Vanessi, Melvin Belli, S.F. Judge Michelson, Lawrence Welk, and others. Lynch tells the story of Sally Stanford standing up to Tarantino. He also mentions that they had Tarantino's office and phone bugged for years.

This episode of "The Secret History of Frisco" podcast introduces listeners to Jimmie Tarantino, a man described as a "louse, a blowhard, a barely literate, anti-Communist shake-down artist." The episode delves into Tarantino's early life in East Orange, New Jersey, and his eventual move to Hollywood where he became a peripheral member of Frank Sinatra's inner circle, "The Varsity."  I discuss Sinatra's deep and complicated ties to organized crime and he used those connections to get out of his contract with bandleader Tommy Dorsey. It involved a pistol jammed in Dorsey's mouth.The podcast then details how Tarantino, with financial backing from Sinatra and mobster Mickey Cohen, started a tabloid called Hollywood Nite Life to extort celebrities. This venture eventually led to Tarantino double-crossing Sinatra, fleeing to San Francisco, and joining forces with crime boss Bones Remmer. The podcast also shares a moving story about Sinatra's courage as a champion of civil rights and the remarkable life of boxing champion and war hero Barney Ross, who was also involved with Tarantino's magazine.

In "Call It FRISCO, Part 2," host Knox Bronson defends his podcast's name, "The Secret History of Frisco," against objections from hither and thither, including the Reddit San Francisco group.  Historical figures like Emperor Norton and madam Sally Stanford each make an appearance, showcasing their differing views on the term "Frisco."  "Colorful characters like Foghorn Murphy and Charles Cora, embraced the name, contrasting them with later transplants who, according to Stanford's autobiography, brought "provincial" sensibilities and disapproved of the city's previously open and permissive culture. The Secret History of Frisco is a deliberate nod to this older, more authentic San Francisco spirit, despite suprisingly vehement opposition.

In this episode, the first of a series,  Knox Bronson, host of "The Secret History of Frisco" podcast, welcomes Rachel Walther, a film noir expert and author, to discuss the genre's connection to San Francisco. Walther, who writes for the Film Noir Foundation's "Noir City" magazine and has a forthcoming book on "Dog Day Afternoon," highlights San Francisco's significant role in film, particularly after World War II, due to its cinematic landscape and the rise of on-location shooting. The conversation then delves into two adaptations of "The Maltese Falcon," the 1931 and 1941 versions. While the 1941 film, directed by John Huston and starring Humphrey Bogart, is widely considered a foundational noir, the 1931 version, starring Ricardo Cortez, is noted for its different interpretation of Sam Spade and its more studio-bound production.The discussion also explores the historical context of San Francisco in the 1930s and 40s, touching upon the city's organized crime elements and how those were rarely directly depicted in films of the era. Walther explains that '30s films set in San Francisco often harked back to the Barbary Coast lore rather than contemporary issues. She attributes the surge of on-location shooting in San Francisco in the post-war period to lighter camera equipment and filmmakers' desire to move beyond studio sets, inspired by Italian neorealism. The interview concludes with a focus on the Film Noir Foundation, a non-profit dedicated to film restoration, highlighting their magazine and restored films like "Woman on the Run" and "The Man Who Cheated Himself," both shot extensively in San Francisco in the late 1940s and early 1950s—considered the golden era of noir in the city.

The episode chronicles the romantic life of Johnny Ochsner, a young Oakland oil heir whose escapades in the 1940s became international news.Marguerite Faye Human and Teresa Briston, separately stowawayed across the Pacific in pursuit of Johnny, driven by dreams of marriage.The story involves underage sex, a high-seas burglary, and the intervention of the FBI, naval officers, juvenile court, as well as Johnny's wealthy mother, who actively interfered to protect her son from what she perceived as "gold-diggers."Johnny's romantic life continued to be tumultuous, marked by a number marriages, divorces and annulments, throughout his life.Wealth, privilege, and very likely alcohol all play a part in these chapters from the life of the rich kid Romeo from Oakland.

This bonus episode of "The Secret History of Frisco" podcast delves into the scandalous lives intertwined with San Francisco's notorious madam, Sally Stanford. Born Mabel Busby in 1903, Stanford's early life of poverty and a wrongful imprisonment for cashing stolen checks fueled her determination to achieve financial independence. By 21, she opened her first brothel in San Francisco's Tenderloin, adopting the name Sally Stanford and quickly expanding her empire to multiple locations across the city. Her autobiography, "The Lady of the House," paints a vivid picture of a "live-and-let-live" San Francisco, where her establishments thrived.The podcast highlights her flagship brothel at 1144 Pine Street, a "fortress" she acquired in 1941, designed by Stanford White. This lavish establishment, frequented by the city's elite and wartime contractors, became a hub of clandestine activity, with rumors suggesting even the early details of the United Nations were hammered out in her living room.The episode then introduces two legendary Hollywood figures and their connections to Stanford. Humphrey Bogart, despite his public image as a "tough and rugged good guy," is revealed by Stanford as a "foul-mouthed, pugnacious drunk" who was eventually "eighty-sixed" from her establishment due to his boorish behavior towards her girls. This account significantly diminishes his heroic luster in the host's eyes.In contrast, Errol Flynn—a "swashbuckling scalawag"—was a beloved figure at Sally's. After decking a Marine at Finnochio's, a famous North Beach nightclub known for its female impersonators, Flynn sought refuge at Stanford's Pine Street house for two weeks in late 1945. Stanford recounts his charm and the fact that he "tested all of the talent, including both shifts, twice," going through the place "like a dose of salts." Despite his personal struggles and "screwy beliefs," Flynn's uninhibited nature and courage captivated Stanford and her girls.The episode concludes by bidding adieu to Bogart and Flynn, promising more tales of the formidable Sally Stanford in future installments of "The Secret History of Frisco."

The Secret Life of Freddie Francisco: A Rogue's Rise and FallThis episode of "The Secret History of Frisco" delves into the captivating, often scandalous, life of Bob Patterson, a writer of prodigious talent and even more prodigious roguishness. Under the pen name Freddie Francisco, Patterson became Northern California's most powerful newspaper columnist in the 1940s for the San Francisco Examiner. His dazzling prose and irreverent insights into San Francisco's elite captivated readers, but his career came crashing down in 1949 when Hollywood Life exposed his hidden past: a convicted criminal who had served four prison stints.Born Robert Lawson Preston in 1907, Patterson was a man of many aliases and even more arrests—over 40 in his lifetime. At just 18, he was arrested for passing bad checks as "Maximillian Carlton." A year later, he was reporting for the San Francisco Chronicle before moving to New York City to continue his journalistic career. As the host aptly puts it, "criming came as naturally to Bob as breathing: it was simply in his DNA, as was writing." He became a "rococo stylist" who ghost-wrote memoirs for infamous figures like lawyer Jake Ehrlich and San Francisco madam Sally Stanford.Patterson ran the gamut from confidence games and larceny in Chicago to grand larceny, robbery, and assault in New York, leading to stints in Elmira Reformatory and Sing Sing Prison. He even impersonated a prominent San Francisco socialite, Niles Larsen, to pass bad checks—a clear indication of his "Trickster's natural disdain for the upper crust."Out of prison, near the end of WWII, Patterson wrote a letter to the San Francisco Examiner on Time Magazine stationery, got hired and moved to San Francisco.The episode concludes with a reading from Freddie Francisco's September 26, 1946 column, "'Bad' Women, but They Make Good Company," which subtly challenges societal notions of respectability and reputation. Patterson, ever the astute observer, critiques the hypocrisy of the upper crust, highlighting that "bad" women often possess more warmth and humanity than their "reputable" counterparts. The host muses on Patterson's enduring appeal, wondering if such a "rascal" could thrive in today's journalistic landscape.

In this episode, I talk to author and historian Paul Drexler about the crime and vice rooted in the very birth of San Francisco and their evolution and influence in the city for the next hundred years. People and groups discussed in the episode include the Sydney Ducks, the Hounds, the San Francisco Police Department, Donna Fine, Sally Stanford, Bones Remmer and his mafia connections, including one-time employee Jack Ruby, California Governor and Attorney General Edmund G. Brown, and various other criminals and their Frisco escapades.Paul's Book, Notorious San Francisco: True Tales of Crime, Passion, and Murder, can be found here on Amazon.His website for his San Francisco Crime Walking Tours can be found here.

I have a wonderful episode for you today, the story of the Hawaiian princess who came to San Francisco to open a nightclub where she could sing. We will again encounter lawyer Jake Ehrlich, of course. The McDonough Brothers, who controlled all the vice in the city, Chief of Police William Quinn and his corrupt Captain Fred Lemon at Central Station, also make appearances.The Princess came to California in 1930. In 1933, she opened the Club Kilokawa on Bush St., full of pictures of Diamondhead and Waikiki Beach, palm fronds, coconuts, and prostitutes in grass skirts. It was very popular place.However, the Princess refused to make the payments to the McDonough Brothers' graft machine and drama ensued. Ultimately, the Princess made some remarks to the press after a Grand Jury appearance. Her short speech led to the creation of Atherton Report of 1937, which shook Frisco to her core almost as badly as the great quake of 1906.

This episode explores the long and often contentious history of the nickname "Frisco" for San Francisco. Despite the strong disapproval of many, including Chronicle columnist Herb Caen, the term has deep roots stretching back to the Gold Rush era.We delve into the earliest documented uses of "Frisco" in the mid-19th century, finding it in letters from 1849 and newspapers like the Placer Times in 1850, suggesting it was once a common and respectable abbreviation, even appearing in genteel literature by 1868. The episode also touches on the theory of a Middle English origin for "Frisco" as a port term. We examine the contrasting perspective, highlighting how figures like Emperor Norton, the judiciary, and Herb Caen later campaigned against the nickname, viewing it as vulgar and disrespectful, particularly associating it with outsiders and the city's more unruly past.The discussion then shifts to the more nuanced and contemporary understanding of "Frisco." We explore how, despite the traditional disdain, the term has persisted and even been reclaimed by certain communities, notably within Black San Francisco culture, as a sign of solidarity and identity. Even Herb Caen eventually softened his stance, acknowledging it as a "salty nickname." Ultimately, the episode concludes by inviting listeners to reconsider their own use of "Frisco" as a way to connect with the city's rich and complex history, particularly the "wide-open" era that this podcast aims to resurrect.Links:The Secret History of Frisco website: www.thehistoryoffrisco.comPatreon page: www.Patreon.com/Frisco"San Francisco Sea Chanties of the Gold Rush Era" by Dick Holdstock & Co. (Available as a download or as a CD)A call to Action:Share your stories and knowledge of San Francisco in the 1930s and 1940s! If you have expertise or anecdotes to share, please reach out. Tell your friends who love San Francisco history about the podcast, and have a little fun... call it Frisco!

Welcome to The Secret History of Frisco, a podcast peeling back the layers of San Francisco's vibrant and often illicit past during its last wide-open era, 1934 to 1953. Join host Knox Bronson as we journey through the city's smoky backrooms, bustling waterfronts, and glittering nightlife, where fortunes were made and lost, and a unique live-and-let-live ethos reigned supreme, naturally contingent on the right palms being greased. From the early days of Gold Rush outlaws like The Hounds and the Sydney Ducks, who set the stage for a city steeped in vice, to the looming figures of Mafia boss Frank Lanza and the corrupting influence of the McDonough brothers, we'll explore the intricate dance between crime, politics, and the burgeoning cultural landscape that captured the world's imagination, as immortalized in Tony Bennett's iconic ode to the "cool grey city of love."In this inaugural episode, we set the stage for our exploration of Frisco, a term embraced for its outlaw swagger and the swirling mix of cultures, dreams, and darkness that defined San Francisco. We'll encounter the legendary defense attorney Jake Ehrlich, a true embodiment of the city's spirit, and glimpse the powerful forces that shaped its underworld, including the entrenched Mafia and the deeply compromised San Francisco Police Department, whose lucrative take from vice painted a picture of a city operating by its own set of rules. From the Barbary Coast's den of iniquity to the nascent jazz clubs and the shadow of the impending crackdown, prepare to delve into the secret history of a Frisco on the cusp of transformation, a city as seductive and dangerous as the fog that rolls through the Golden Gate.

Ever wondered who really pulled the strings in San Francisco during its post-war golden age? It wasn't the mayor or the board of supervisors.When the war ended in 1946, San Francisco experienced an unprecedented boom. Servicemen who'd fallen in love with the city returned to stay, nightlife flourished, and business thrived in what appeared to be a model American city. But beneath this picturesque facade, two men – neither elected nor appointed – controlled nearly everything.On one side was Bill Wren, a powerful newspaperman working for William Randolph Hearst's Examiner, who effectively ran both the city and the state Democratic Party through his influence and connections. His rival, Bones Remmer, was a professional gambler who had previously managed the Cal-Neva Lodge before establishing himself in San Francisco, where he systematically took over various aspects of city business. Their intense rivalry and behind-the-scenes power struggle shaped the city in ways that have remained largely hidden from historical accounts.My fascination with this era began unexpectedly while working as a copy boy at the Examiner in the 1970s. A chance conversation with an elderly bartender led me to discover phone tap transcripts from 1950 revealing conversations between these power brokers. Most surprisingly, I learned my own grandfather had been "a player" in this shadowy world – creating a personal connection that fueled decades of research into San Francisco's secret history.Join me as we explore the fascinating web of influence, corruption, and colorful characters that defined San Francisco from 1946-1953. From legendary establishments with their famous Pisco Punch to Hollywood connections and Bay Area criminal enterprises, we'll uncover the stories that shaped the city we know today. Have family stories from this era or research leads? I'd love to hear from you as we resurrect this crucial chapter in San Francisco's past.