Event Spotlight: 'Crooks Tour' Explores Barbary Coast's Nefarious History

Event Spotlight: 'Crooks Tour' Explores Barbary Coast's Nefarious HistoryPhoto: Geri Koeppel/Hoodline
Geri Koeppel
Published on March 23, 2016

Interested in the ribald tales of San Francisco's seedy past? You can hear history come alive at the Crooks Tour of the Barbary Coast, which spotlights the brothels, saloons, and nefarious underground dealings of San Francisco's onetime center of debauchery. The tour kicks off at noon on Saturday at the Old Ship Saloon (298 Pacific Ave.)

"San Francisco is really one of the very few cities that was founded in part by criminals, so it has a wonderful criminal history," said the tour's founder and guide, Paul Drexler.

Drexler has always had an interest in crime: he writes about the city's colorful criminals for the San Francisco Examiner every other Sunday, and consults on the television show Deadly Women, which airs on the Identification Discovery network. He developed the tour with the late Kevin Mullen, a former SFPD deputy chief who wrote books about crime.

The tour, which costs $15 on Eventbrite, winds through buildings and sites that were once bars, dens of prostitution and dance halls—or sometimes, all three in one.

Along the way, Drexler tells the stories of bygone hangouts like the Andromeda Cafe (now Comstock Saloon), which was popular with rum-running gangs during Prohibition. And he paints pictures of characters like John "Chicken" Devine, who was Shanghai Kelly's chief runner.

"He was like a one-man crime wave," Drexler said of Devine. "He loved to fight." Nicknamed for the Shanghai chicken or rooster, known for its tenacity, "he was arrested 79 times in five years for everything ... He came to San Francisco about 1862, and he was here until he was executed in 1872. His capacity for violence and alcohol was legendary."

But crime does pay in one way, Drexler notes: "There is something about corruption and crime that also leads to creativity.” His tour covers the music that was the soundtrack for this underworld, performed in places like the Belle Union, a famous entertainment hall for many decades. "Some of the most unusual and bizarre acts used to play there, and I talk about some of those," he said. He also gives customers a handout with recipes for three of the most popular cocktails of the day.

If that doesn't get your blood racing, here are a few other ideas of things to do in and around downtown in the next several days. For more events around the city, visit hoodline.com/events. You can also submit an event for inclusion in an upcoming roundup