April 1, 2006
All sorts of San Francisco legends shared her stage and its Barbary Coast history, among them Oofty Goofty, Big Bertha, Lola Montez, Emperor Norton and little Lotta Crabtree. Today’s podcast tells the story of the 60 years in which the “Bella” was the most popular show in town.
for further edification:
» the barbary coast - herbert asbury, 1933
» san francisco theatrical memories - james madison, 1925
» women in early san francisco
» emperor norton - sparkletack
» marriott’s “avitor”
- Faded time capsule — vintage snapshots of San Francisco
- SFist — “Leg Bones for Baseball Bats”
- book review — Mark Twain’s “Roughing It”
- tour review — chinatown alleyway tours
- book review — “San Francisco Almanac”
musical support:
thanks to tom brown’s player piano for this week’s music, discovered at internetarchive.org, thanks to a creative commons license.
3 responses to “#53: the bella union and the barbary coast”
leave me a note
trackbacks & pingbacks:
-
Pingback from Timecapsule podcast: San Francisco, November 3-9 » Sparkletack - the San Francisco History Podcast
November 3, 2008 at 1:01 am[...] San Francisco was crazy for vaudeville, had been more or less since birth — remember the Bella Union? — and these two clowns hit the local variety circuit right in the [...]
-
Pingback from Gangs of San Francisco » San Francisco History Podcast – Sparkletack
December 13, 2009 at 6:33 pm[...] Devil’s Acre — From the most nefarious district of North Beach’s already infamous Barbary Coast [...]





Sparkletack is the blog and podcast of a guy who's obsessed with diggin' up San Francisco history.
Join me on Twitter!











October 21, 2007 at 11:30 pm
this is a fantastic website! thank you sincerely. it is just the type of thing that brings the past to life and personalizes the city making it a joy to live in.
thanks and please keep the pod casts coming!