San Francisco history

Most recent stories in San Francisco history

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  SFGate

  

  Revival still awaits Calif. man who was first to be frozen after death

  SFGate - Katie Dowd

  James Bedford was taking his last breaths when the doctors arrived at 2060 Eleanore Drive in Glendale, California. Bedford, 73, had terminal cancer. He’d recently been moved from a hospital to his neighbors’ home for hospice care. Alerted by the nurses that Bedford’s time was near, around noon on …

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  SFGate

  

  The very racist 1894 fair that almost ruined Golden Gate Park

  SFGate - Katie Dowd

  Of the many strange episodes and racist exhibits at the 1894 California Midwinter International Exposition, perhaps the most emblematic was the problem of the Japanese Village. Today the Japanese Tea Garden in Golden Gate Park, it started life as Marsh's Japanese Village, an exhibit put on by an …

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  SFGate

  

  A famed Bay Area daredevil died in a plane crash. Was it murder?

  SFGate - Katie Dowd

  The crowd was in good cheer on the Fourth of July 1923 as they watched B.H. DeLay take to the skies. Residents of Venice Beach were used to seeing DeLay’s trim biplanes zipping around the coastline. He was one of the most famous young pilots in America, a stylish daredevil who was in high demand …

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  SFGate

  

  Here's what San Francisco looked like 100 years ago

  SFGate - Katie Dowd

  Although 1922 — exactly 100 years ago — feels as far away as the Andromeda Galaxy, a quick trip out to San Francisco's Lands End will give you a glimpse into the past. On Oct. 7, 1922, the oil tanker SS Lyman Stewart left Martinez loaded down with barrels of oil. Her destination was Washington …

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  SFGate

  

  The strange, sad and influential lives of the Donner Party survivors

  SFGate - Katie Dowd

  One hundred and seventy-four years ago, the first rescue crew arrived at Donner Lake, encountering a scene of carnage that still shocks all this time later. Eighty-seven men, women and children entered the Sierra Nevada Mountains in October 1846. Known as the Donner Party, led by George Donner and …

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  SFGate

  

  The most dangerous woman in San Francisco

  SFGate - Katie Dowd

  A neighbor saw the boys first. Four-year-old Kenneth was crying as he led his younger brother, William, down 97th Avenue in Oakland. William, too, was weeping. They couldn't have looked more lost if they'd tried. When the woman asked them what was wrong, Kenneth sniffled. "Grandma told us not to …