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In 1899 the U.S. Army General Hospital was built in the Presidio to serve injured troops from the Spanish American War. It was extremely advanced for its time sporting early intercoms and x-ray machines. In 1911 it was renamed Letterman General Hospital and over the next few decades it would serve hundreds of thousands of troops, suffering both physical and mental trauma, from all the U.S.’s foreign wars.
In the 1960’s the new Letterman Army Medical Center and Research Institute was built. They worked on the development of new trauma treatments, laser physics, and even artificial blood. By the 1980's the Letterman Center mainly serviced retired vets and their families. In 1995 the Letterman Army Medical Center was decommissioned and handed over to the National Park Service along with the rest of the Presidio. But, throughout the late 1990’s, San Francisco’s youth would tell tales of breaking into the old abandoned army hospital, now covered in dust, broken glass, and graffiti. They claimed to hear the shuffling steps of patients walking down halls and voices calling out from behind closed doors. Lights would flash from corners where no machines stood. And, the dark figures of lost patients could be seen rummaging through the remains as if trying to understand, where everyone else went. Even the police refused to enter the premises. One Muni bus driver, conducting the “owl service" through the Presidio, reported having a fully uniformed passenger board his bus late one night. But, when the bus left the Presidio, the driver looked into his rear view mirror to discover the soldier no longer sitting behind him, as if the soldier vanished "into thin air". In 1992, an army inspection report stated that the staff of the hospital otherwise “sane and sober” swear the hospital was haunted. The Letterman hospital was demolished in 2002 and the land is now the location of LucasFilm and the Letterman Digital Arts Center. But fifty percent of the concrete from the old hospital was used in the making of the new campus and the hauntings seem to have continued... Come learn more about SF's dark past and see its most notorious haunted places with Christian Cagigal and the San Francisco Ghost Hunt Walking Tour! Click Here To Book Now!  555 California - Financial District
Built in 1969, this was the world headquarters of Bank of America and, at the time, the tallest building in San Francisco. Shortly after its opening, reports of poltergeist activity happened through out the building; cold spots moving from room to room and files flying off shelves. An employee working late one night reported seeing his own phone move itself off the hook. The source for the hauntings is unknown, although some have theorized it’s the spirits of victims from the 1906 earthquake still trapped in the ground under the building. Others claim it’s the collective energy of so many men and women, controlling the world’s money and desperate for more. Bank of America moved to North Carolina after its 1998 merger with Nations Bank and things have been relatively quiet ever since. Although, what’s really scary is that it’s currently managed by Vornado Realty Trust with 30% owned by a former millionaire president... Come learn more about SF's dark past and see its most notorious haunted places with Christian Cagigal and the San Francisco Ghost Hunt Walking Tour! Click Here To Book Now!  No list of strange and spooky places of San Francisco would be complete without a visit to Alcatraz. It’s believed that the Miwok Indians may have used the isolated island for thousands of years as a place to gather bird’s eggs for food (alcatraz means pelican in old Spanish) and to banish members of their society. By 1859 the U.S. government seized control of the island and used it to imprison 19 Hopi Indians who refused to give into aggressive government tactics to “Americanize”. By 1912 the U.S. Army built a new prison on the island and by 1934 the Fed took over and turned it into Alcatraz Federal Penitentiary; a prison designed to crush the souls of men. Both prisoners and guards suffered deep physical and psychological trauma, while there. The prison closed in 1963 and shortly after reopened as a U.S. National Park. Ever since, guards of the island, at night, have claimed to hear the sounds of items breaking, people running, and men screaming. Cell 14D, known as the “Hole”, was where Rufe McCain spent three years in a metal box in solitary confinement. When finally released, he stabbed another inmate to death. He was acquitted because of the irreparable psychological damage his imprisonment had done to him. When you visit, if you’re given the opportunity to sit in 14D, in one corner of the cell you may be overcome with emotion as you feel an icy chill wash over your body, even in the summer months. Be careful but be gentle, it may be Rufe begging to be set free...
Come learn more about SF's dark past and see its most notorious haunted places with Christian Cagigal and the San Francisco Ghost Hunt Walking Tour! Click Here To Book Now!  The former Atherton mansion, now apartments, where Gertrude and George still roam... Gertrude Franklin, grand niece of Benjamin Franklin, would eventually marry the rich, lazy, and unambitious George Atherton. (The town of Atherton was named after his father.) One day he headed out to sea with his navel officer cousin to prove that he could make a man out of himself. He barely made it 3 days before he got sick and died. He was returned home a few weeks later stuffed, but preserved, in a barrel of rum. Gertrude Atherton, now a free and single woman, would become one of San Francisco’s seminal feminist novelists. Years later, the Atherton mansion was sold and divided into apartments. But to this day, tenants say they feel the presence of a few spirits creating mischief in their apartments; things moving, wind rushing through closed rooms, and George knocking from inside people’s walls...
Come learn more about SF's dark past and see its most notorious haunted places with Christian Cagigal and the San Francisco Ghost Hunt Walking Tour! Click Here To Book Now!  Senator David C. Broderick (after whom the street was named) was an ambitious political climber who would eventually have a powerful hold on the city of San Francisco. Broderick was also on the anti-slavery side of the Democratic Party and was out spoken about it. His buddy, California Chief Justice David S. Terry (who was known for getting into fights and shanking people) was a staunch supporter of slavery and advocated for its extension into California. This lost him re-election and he angrily blamed Broderick for it.
Their public battle led to private letters which led to a secret duel on the edge of Lake Merced. Broderick’s pistol had a hair trigger and went off too soon. Terry took easy aim at Broderick and fired, hitting his lung. Broderick was taken back to the home of his friend Leonidas Haskell where he languished in pain for three days until he died. This event became known is the “Last Duel in California” and Broderick would become a martyr for the anti-slavery movement. Since the Union army took over the surrounding area in 1863 many captains have lived in the Haskell House. The families of these captains have claimed to see bodiless shadows move across rooms, lights flashing, plants tipping over. And, one Colonel felt the presence of someone watching him whenever he took a shower. And, don’t make jokes about Broderick, otherwise your portrait might be ripped off the wall, nail and all... (This is a private residence tucked behind a gate, please don’t go creepin’ on them.) Come learn more about SF's dark past and see its most notorious haunted places with Christian Cagigal and the San Francisco Ghost Hunt Walking Tour! Click Here To Book Now!  Richard Barnes : Still Rooms & Excavations San Francisco has always had limited, and sought after, real estate. Back in the 1800s when people looked at a cemetery, they didn’t see resting places for loved ones -- they saw land to sell, and the potential for their own property values to go up. This led to the ending of new burials by 1900, and a slow, decades-long process of exhuming all the dead from SF’s 30 cemeteries, and sending them to their new resting place in Colma. (The only cemeteries that remain are the military and pet cemeteries in the Presidio, and the cemetery at Old Mission Dolores.)
However, this transition didn’t always go smoothly. While doing renovations in 1992, workers found 780 bodies buried underneath the Palace of the Legion of Honor, some still holding their rosaries. The whole area was once the Golden Gate Cemetery, a graveyard for poor and working class European and Chinese immigrants. The 780 that were found were moved to Skylawn Memorial Park in San Mateo County. But, experts say, there’s probably thousands more still under the museum. Come learn more about SF's dark past and see its most notorious haunted places with Christian Cagigal and the San Francisco Ghost Hunt Walking Tour! Click Here To Book Now! |
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