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Mick's Bootique Tours Dark history, true crime, and ghost tours of San Francisco.

Tonight, the autumn equinox, marks the official start of Halloween Season 🎃 If you’re looking for a unique way to celebr...
09/22/2022

Tonight, the autumn equinox, marks the official start of Halloween Season 🎃 If you’re looking for a unique way to celebrate, why not join us for a mystical pub crawl through Gold Rush San Francisco?

‘Spirits of the Barbary Coast’ is a small-group, 2.5 hour guided bar crawl through the oldest parts of the City. Over the evening we’ll visit four *confirmed* haunted bars, while sharing the history, lore, and paranormal mysteries of that golden era. 👻🍻👻

Availability throughout October but this BOOtique experience has extremely limited space so act fast!

☝️Visit our page for ticket!☝️

08/16/2022

Any aficionado of SF’s spooky spots would surely know of the William Westerfield House across from the more vanilla attraction, the Painted Ladies. In fact, the mansion was featured on an episode of Ghost Adventures. But the lore surrounding the 1889 stick-style Victorian long predates kitschy tv shows.

In 1928 it was bought by exiled Russian czarists and so, in popular imagination, became associated with the glamorous but bloody history of the Romanovs. The Russians used the ground floor ballroom as a nightclub called Dark Eyes.

But it was experimental filmmaker, Kenneth Anger, who really raised the profile of Westerfield House when he moved in, in 1967. Anger’s work heavily featured Satanism and the occult. Indeed, he chose the Westerfield as his home after finding a circle of occult symbols drawn onto the floor at the top of the turret, theorized to be from the heyday of Spiritualism in San Francisco.

Frequent guests of Anger were Church of Satan founder and High Priest, Anton Lavey, and his pet lion. And living in the house was Bobby Beausoleil, a Manson Family member who murdered Gary Hinman at the behest of the cult leader, two years before the more famous Tate-LaBianca murders. Both men starred in Anger’s film, Invocation of My Demon Brother, which featured music by Mick Jagger and was shot entirely in the Westerfield House. (Short clip here but the full film can me found on YouTube)

The Phelan Building played a key role in the country’s first murder by mail, a case that took the city by storm in 1898....
06/16/2022

The Phelan Building played a key role in the country’s first murder by mail, a case that took the city by storm in 1898. On a bright summer day of that year, murderess Cordelia Botkin walked into a smally candy shop on the ground level to purchase a box of chocolates.

“But won’t you please fill it only halfway and leave the box open?” she asks sweetly. “I’m preparing a special gift for a dear friend, and I want to add something personally.”

Her personal addition was arsenic. And the “gift” was bound for her lover’s wife, Mrs. Mary Elizabeth Dunning, living in Delaware. Despite the bitter taste, and the familiar handwriting from a series of strange letters that preceded the package, Mrs. Dunning and her sister had several pieces. They never could say no to chocolate. It didn’t take long for Cordelia to be caught and the former actress basked in the attention - the star of two sensational trials covered by SF newspapers virtually every day for two years. Several years later, Cordelia again made headlines when the judge who had convicted her to life imprisonment ran into her on a country train. Apparently, even in her 50s, Cordelia’s wiles were no match for the prison guards who would let her out on weekends.

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05/25/2022

True Crime and Dive Bars Tour is now live! 🔪🔪🔪Alternate Sunday Fundays and Tuesdays. For eight weeks only, hear stories of murder and mystery in some of The City's favorite dives. Link in bio👆 to both this and Walk with Spirits or message me for private groups! Again, very special thanks to for the video!

Only recently has this piece of San Francisco and LGBTQ history been remembered. This building on the corner of Turk and...
05/17/2022

Only recently has this piece of San Francisco and LGBTQ history been remembered. This building on the corner of Turk and Taylor was once Gene Compton's Cafeteria, the site of a 1966 riot for transgender and gay rights. The 24-hour diner popular in the early morning hours among transwomen, drag queens, hustlers and other TL night owls. Police harrassment of those who committed what was then the crime of "female impersonation" was common, but one August night the people inside fought back. A riot erupted forcing the police into a retreat. The next day even more trans people, activists, and neighbors returned to picket, galvanizing the community and leading to some changes in police procedures. Three years before Stonewall, this is now considered the first full scale uprising for LGBTQ rights, but perhaps with more study, we'll find that history goes back even farther.

Very excited to have this as one of the stops on a new upcoming tour, True Crime and Dive Bars. Stay tuned!

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True Crime and Dive Bars Tour upcoming!
05/11/2022

True Crime and Dive Bars Tour upcoming!

A stop on a tour I'm working on: The Old Press Club at 555 Post St. It's said to be haunted by a headless horseman, the ...
05/05/2022

A stop on a tour I'm working on: The Old Press Club at 555 Post St. It's said to be haunted by a headless horseman, the spirit of Joaquín Murrieta, famed California bandit. In the wake of the Mexican-American War, and the start California Gold Rush, Joaquín and his gang rose to mythological proportions. Loved by the Californios and Mexicans but feared by the Anglos, their feats of strength, speed, and cunning had them blamed for every crime in the state - bank robberies, train raids, horse thefts, and worst of all - the wooing of white women. After a statewide manhunt, Murrieta and his right hand man, Three-Fingered Jack, were finally felled. To assuage the fear of the American masses, Joaquín's head and Jack's finger were severed, pickled in whiskey, and displayed all around California, including here at 555 Post. Additionally, in the lobby hung the portrait pictured above, where Murrieta is said to have been spotted multiple times.

This tour is in the works but check out the to book our weekly haunted pub crawl!

Weaving spiders come not here.... For two weeks out of the year, the world's most elite men meet at Bohemian Grove to ba...
04/21/2022

Weaving spiders come not here.... For two weeks out of the year, the world's most elite men meet at Bohemian Grove to banish all earthly cares. The famed festivities, in a private 2,700 acre forest off the Russian River, draw wealthy attendees and protesters alike, though only the initiated truly know what goes on in the grove. The initiated hold among their number actors, musicians, CEOs, and political leaders including Presidents Reagan and Nixon (pictured at the grove with Harvey Hancock) Activities allegedly include heavy drinking, occult rituals, pi***ng on trees, and gay or**es.

But did you know that the mysterious Bohemian Club's headquarters was right her in SF at the corner of Post and Powell? This brick, ivy-covered building is decorated with bronze bas-reliefs depicting the club's artistic origins, their motto, and their sacred owl.

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