Mick's Bootique Tours

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)

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.

--

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!

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!

-
-
-

05/11/2022

True Crime and Dive Bars Tour upcoming!

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!

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.

04/10/2022

Probably a bit off brand but wanted to share the general route of a new tour, which also doubles as the *perfect* date.

Start at the pedestrian bridge overlooking Portsmouth Sq (access through the Hilton). Then why not enjoy Chinatown by balcony at Beijing 49er? Coffee and a short story vending machine at Cafe Zoetrope. Through the quaint Jackson Square District and Sydney Walton Park. Ending with sweeping bay views at romantic Pier 7. 💕👭💕

04/09/2022

Very excited to be featured on Monkey Block! I met Girlina fangirling this fabulous podcast, which has been instrumental to my research of pre Gold Rush San Francisco. If you're interested in early SF/California history, give it a listen! And follow Monkey Block wherever you listen to podcasts for exceedingly well researched, engaging stories of this city's past.

https://monkeyblocksf.buzzsprout.com/1646416/10364056-s2-e6-walking-with-spirits-interview-with-mick-s-bootique-sf-ghost-tours

While my intro states I extract legends and tell the real stories, today’s episode is a mix of legends and real stories. Today, I am interviewing a connection made via this podcast.Today’s guest does San Francisco history ghost tours, focused on, ...

04/06/2022

Richard Ramirez, the infamous Night Stalker, spent August of 1985 here in the Bristol Hotel in SF's Tenderloin district. According to hotel staff, Ramirez painted satanic symbols on the bathroom door, and the smell of skunk permeated the walls of Room 315 for months afterward. As a state-wide manhunt raged, Ramirez took the time to commit at least four attacks here in the City. In 2009 DNA evidence linked him to the slaying of a young girl who lived just blocks away from the Bristol. However, the poor child had been killed months before Ramirez's supposed first victim down in LA, meaning the Night Stalker's career was longer and broader than anyone thought.

03/27/2022

I've already posted about St Louis Alley, the beginning and the end for thousands of Asian women trafficked during the late 19th/early 20th Century. BUT on our weekly Haunted Pub Crawl, a guest caught this orb. I just so happened to be looking in her direction and saw, with my own two eyes, that it appeared only as the photo was taken....

03/25/2022

The Excelsior gets no love in the tourist maps or guide books, but there’s a lot of history out here. This is the SLA safehouse where heiress Patty Hearst was finally found on Sept 18, 1975, twenty months after her kidnapping. In that time she assisted the radical group with bank robberies, kidnappings, and attempted bombings. After her arrest on Morse St, she was sentenced to 35 years in prison but served only 2. Was she truly a victim, indoctrinated through torture and threat of death? Why did she continue to run even months after most of the SLA members had been killed in an LA shootout? Could she have been a more willing participant? How could a ragtag group of white college kids led by a former FBI informant brain wash someone so completely? Perhaps there is some truth to the rumors that the entire fiasco was a CIA operation gone awry...

03/17/2022

Have you seen this man?? These are sketches of The Doodler, a serial killer who terrorized the gay community in the 70s. If you can believe it, he is alive and well living on the East Bay, never having paid for his crimes. AND my new friend, Manuel, believes he has in fact met him. Check out his story👇

03/17/2022

One of the coolest buildings in the City. The architect, Timothy Pfleugar, used drawings sent straight from an archeological dig in the Yucatan, to create this Art Deco Mayan temple. Pfleugar had always been interested in spirituality and mysticism and paid special attention to every detail, ensuring each sacred image and symbol was accurate. Perhaps that's why so many people have experienced eerie feelings in the building. Many report seeing a moving figure in the corner of their eye, but when they turn to look nothing's there...

03/10/2022

Neon lights and spooky sights on Thursday nights. Tickets to our Haunted Pub Crawl in bio.

02/17/2022