For this week's installment of #TBT, we focus on some of the obscure, shady, and downright criminal goings-on of the San Francisco yesteryear.
The Barbary Coast, for instance, was full of vice. Bootlegging and gambling were commonplace in speakeasies during Prohibition, and a slew of shocking crimes—before and since—have made spines tingle all across America.
The Thief and Poet
The story of Black Bart is the stuff of legend. He robbed more than 28 Wells Fargo stagecoaches between 1875 and 1883. But what probably makes him stand out the most in the annals of crime history are the poems he left behind at the scene of two of the heists.
I've labored long and hard for bread,
For honor, and for riches,
But on my corns too long you've tread,
You fine-haired sons of bitches
The outlaw was arrested in San Francisco.
