Fairmont Hotel 1. Back in the 1880s, the Donaldina Cameron House served as a place of refuge for female Chinese immigrants seeking escape from slavery, prostitution, and other unsavory fates. The Bay Areas most famous haunted home, the Winchester Mystery House in San Jose, was once the largest private residence in the United States. This beautifully preserved Victorian home turned museum might have preserved more than it intended, as manager (and longtime resident) Heather Kraft tells Curbed SF that the house has longtime been the site of stories about restless spirits. And though one doesnt necessarily need to begrudge anyone who wants to live in a home with over 30 rooms, just in case one does, they can take satisfaction in knowing that the home has been said to be haunted by all sorts of ghosts. Dj vu! slideshow:false, This included a U.S. Army Hospital serving hundreds of thousands of soldiers suffering from physical and mental trauma. Many sailors died aboard the now decommissioned aircraft carrier, which in fact holds a record for onboard suicides. There was snorkeling, sightseeing, luxury, comfort, & much more! Strawberry Hill ~ Stowe Lake Golden Gate Park - It has been said that in the 1920's or 30's a woman became pregnant & hide the pregnancy from her family. $('#metaslider_57782 .msHtmlOverlay').each(function() { var layer = $(this); Employees have circulated rumors of a ghostly boy wandering Great America after dark for yearsand in fact four boys ages four to 13 have indeed died in the park since its 1976 opening, the most recent in 2007. People claim to have seen white figures in the background of photos and feel the spirits of those who died. His heirs sold the property in 1938 to the Deutsche Reich, and it became the German Consulate. Winchester spent $5.5 million on her 24,000-square-foot home, which has 160 bedrooms, 40 staircases, 13 bathrooms, and 47 fireplaces. A lot of visitors have reportedly seen a woman in a white dress with long lustrous hair and a glowing face, walking around the area. Supposedly, from 1884 to Winchester's death in 1922, construction proceeded 24 hours a day on the monstrous home, at an expense of $5.5 million. Explore still more abandoned places in Southern California. The Sutro Bath is a huge swimming pool complex that was opened to the public after it was constructed in 1896. Probably not, but you still won't catch us there after dark. Chancellor Hotel on Union Square 10. Some say it is Billy who haunts the wine cellar, hoping to get his hands on just one more bottle of wine, and perhaps saddest of all, some say they have seen a shadowy figure who is thought to be the ghost of William Whittier, still waiting for his wife to join him in the house she was never able to call home. But both tales agree that if you decide to walk around Stow Lake after hours, you might see a woman wearing a white dress and asking for her baby. The mother entered the lake in a desperate attempt to save her baby but unfortunately, none of the two was found ever again. Location: Hunters Point, San Francisco, CA 94124. The twist was that the curse could only be kept at bay until the temple was under construction, and the spirits would kill Mrs Winchester as soon as the temple construction was completed. Before the Flood Building (not to be confused with the Flood Mansion) existed, a hotel stood on this same spot, destroyed in a fire in 1898. The basement doors remain sealed to this day. 4120 23rd Street. It's hard to tell now, but Valencia Street in the Mission District was once home to most of San Francisco's mortuaries. Another story is about a party that was held in suites 1219 and 1221 by Fatty Arbuckle, a silent-movie comedian. Mary Lake loved her job and taking care of her charges, so she was devastated when it closed in 1896 because of financial difficulties. A post shared by San Francisco Heritage (@sfheritage) on Sep 19, 2017 at 9:26am PDT. Pacific HeightsRich, lazy, and unambitious George Atherton (the town of Atherton was named after his father) was a bit of an embarrassment to his mother, who built the mansion at 1990 California St in 1881 after his father died. easing:"linear", }); Fort Humboldt State Park Image source We start off in the port city of Eureka, tucked away in the northwestern part of the state. $(e.target).closest('a').length) { Now it is home to adventurers snapping pictures of the graffiti covered building. }); Sandeep Illustrates On The Best Activities For A Family Trip To Mauritius. animationSpeed:600, Book a ticket to USA now to visit these places if you dare. One of the creepiest things is the ghostly figure of a small girl child that haunts the venue at night. This well-preserved 1890s Victorian may look like a typical San Francisco boutique hotel, but the Queen Anne began as a girls boarding school (and boarding schools are pretty much always haunted). Tales of ghosts at the Curran Theatre on Geary Street date back to 1933 when audiences gathered for a hit performance of Show Boat when longtime ticket teller Hewlett Tarr was shot dead in cold blood. The original hands-on paranormal investigation tour. The tunnel of the Sutro Baths is said to be haunted as many human sacrifices had taken place at the tunnel. Welcoming locals. Embrace the spooky season with the scariest, most hair-raising haunted places in the Bay Area to hit up if you dare. A post shared by Loretta Bee (@lorettab99) on Oct 18, 2018 at 3:05pm PDT. A post shared by AC Hotel Santa Clara (@achotelsantaclara) on Oct 11, 2019 at 12:02pm PDT. They stopped joking, and everything stayed put. $('#metaslider_57782').metaslider_scale_layers({ We can confirm this doesn't work, but that's never stopped the story from spreading. Dueling politicians haunt the site of the Haskell House at Fort Mason. $('#metaslider_57769 .msHtmlOverlay .layer[data-link], #metaslider_57769 .msHtmlOverlay[data-link]').each(function() { Black Diamond Mines, Antioch 4. The construction workers working on the tower inside the Art Institute had also experienced very close encounters with ghosts. A post shared by Bay Area Bucket List (@bayareabucketlist_) on Oct 2, 2018 at 8:08pm PDT. Tell me more! 1. Usually when you think of haunted places in San Diego, what probably comes to mind are abandoned places in San Diego. Let's dig in: 25. Sign up to unlock our digital magazines and also receive the latest news, events, offers and partner promotions. var timer_metaslider_57782 = function() { The 700 that were found were moved to Skylawn Memorial Park in San Mateo County. itemMargin:0 Are they the source of the strange lights and sounds reported after hours? It is said that if you visit the tunnel area at night and light a candle, a silhouette appears to take the candle away from you to blow off the flame and then throws it in the water. Wonderful Goa Family Package 3D/2N @ Rs 6,500, Riveting Rajasthan Vacation 3D/2N Package @ Rs 6,499, Enchanting Uttarakhand Tour 4D/3N Package @ Rs 7,199. 10 Brilliant Day Trips From San Francisco That You Can Take With Your Globetrotter Buddies In 2022. Quick Details All ages Meets near Transamerica Pyramid Duration: 1.5 hours Distance: less than 1 mile walking Max group size: 26 people What's included: EMF meter for Ghost Hunter tickets Collectible pin Some have even reported feeling cold spots. Staffers and ghost hunters swear that Barrymore, Arbuckle, and Jolson haunt the hallways to this day. was the only one who was allowed to play his banjo when he was in the shower and it is his spirit that still plays the banjo in the shower rooms. Tourists reported rattling chains, cold chills, and phantom gunshots over the decades. Well, kind of. A post shared by The Palace Hotel (@palacehotelsf) on Mar 18, 2019 at 8:17am PDT. Modern-day hotel guests swear that her spirit is still present to welcome visitorsparticularly on the fourth floor, which was the site of Marys office. The home has seen many lives since the Whittiers, including most interestingly serving as the German consulate during the Nazi regime, later housing the California Historical Society, and then was eventually purchased by private residents in 1991. Here is a list 11 haunted places in San Francisco that you must visit when you are in the area for an out of the world experience. This one is even harder to take seriously than usual, but it gets bonus points for being one of the few Bay Area ghost stories to inspire a feature film, 2009's Hicks Road. San Francisco came of age as a fairly lawless city, so its no surprise that, despite its relatively short history, its had its fair share of murders and tragedies. The building changed ownership many times over the next 75 years before becoming the Queen Anne Hotel in 1980.If anything, a hotel is a perfect fit for Mary Lake, a friendly spirit who enjoys looking after the guests. Now, the Donaldina Cameron house is one of the most active haunted spots in San Francisco. San Francisco. When the Sutro Baths first opened to the public in 1896, the west side of San Francisco was a vast region of all-but-unpopulated sand dunes. if( ! Required fields are marked *. Skyrocketing real estate values combined with a finite. She worked as a conductor on the Underground Railroad in New England, but when it became too dangerous, she knew she had to leave. The club closed a few years ago and has since been demolished for housing, A post shared by Harry Beee (@harryb) on Mar 2, 2012 at 12:18pm PST. Desert safari. Mission. minItems:1, Location: Cosson Hall, 601 Avenue A, San Francisco, CA 94130. Just dont try to get into the basement; it has been sealed shut. el.before(cloned); His wife, Sara Winchester took the help of a psychic from the Boston area who told her about the curse and also informed her that she could appease the spirits by building a giant temple in the honour of those spirits. Some workers even reported that they saw faucets being turned on and off with flying votive candles. Heres one you can actually see, as the show Ghost Hunters recorded video of a mysterious woman in black walking through the Officers Club during its third season. Lots of guests and visitors have reported seeing the ghost of a ticket checker who was murdered in the 1920s. prevText:"<", Open in . Unlike most so-called ghost footage, this one isnt just a shadow or something blurry at the edge of the frame; no doubt about it, that does indeed look exactly like a little girl running around the place. 2968 23rd Street. Built in 1932, The Professional Building sat vacant from the 1900s until the 2010s until it became the Hilton Garden Inn Phoenix Downtown. layer.css('cursor', 'pointer').on('click', function(e) { }); The families of these captains have claimed to see shadows move across rooms, lights flashing, and plants tipping over. $('li:not(".flex-active-slide") .animated', slider).not('.disabled').each(function(index) { Supposedly the Water Dog of Water Dog Lake is an antagonistic spirit who occasionally drowns children. It's true that cars will behave strangely at spots like this and seem to roll uphill, but this is a natural phenomena known as a gravity hill, rather than the work of ghostly schoolchildren. So, the captains wife got the first mate drunk one night, and as she held his hands behind his back, the captain burst through the door with an axe and cut the first mates head off. downscale_only: false, before: function(slider) { Your email address will not be published. Presidio Pet Cemetery 5. Once a military prison for war criminals and later converted into a federal prison for some of the worst felons in history (like Al Capone, Machine Gun Kelly, and Whitey Bulger), the island location is now reportedly one of the most haunted spots in the Bay Areaand for good reason. Tucked into an easy-to-miss courtyard, the 1898 neoclassical funeral home houses the ashes of more than 8,000 San Franciscans, including the Folgers family (yes, of coffee fame) and many others whose names emboss street signs throughout the city. Later on, the tunnels beneath the Sutro Baths became a meeting place for a cult of satanic worshippers who performed dark rituals and engaged in human sacrifice. orig_width: 300 This event became known as the Last Duel in California, and Broderick would become a martyr for the anti-slavery movement. By 1859, the US government seized control of the island and used it to imprison 19 Hopi Indians who refused to give into aggressive government tactics to Americanize. In 1912 the US 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. Now its just another abandoned, graffiti-covered spot for us to visit and reminisce about the times gone by! Located near the North Beach and Russian Hill, the San Francisco Art Institute was built in the 1900s. Cosson Hall Cosson Hall, located on SF's famous Treasure Island, used to serve as a naval base back in the 1960s. City Hall, San Francisco 9. el.before(cloned); controlNav:false, This led to the ending of new burials by 1900, and a slow, decades-long process of exhuming all the dead from SFs 30 cemeteries, and sending them to their new resting place in Colma. A post shared by (@yvonne_jiejie) on Apr 30, 2015 at 5:59pm PDT. Must Read: 10 Brilliant Day Trips From San Francisco That You Can Take With Your Globetrotter Buddies In 2022. Hunter's Point Shipyard The Haunt Experience 1. The Horton Grand Hotel (311 Island Ave.) is anything but. The pool served its residents for over 40 years. Cynthia Yee, founder of Chinatown Ghost Tours, relates the tale of how her grandfather spotted a spectral cow wandering up Grant one day in 1905, and then saw it again one year lateron the day of the 1906 earthquake. The basement was specifically designed to ensure very few people knew about itthere was no entry into it from the house, only from an underground passageway that led to the street. Others claim that an unmarried woman decided to hide a pregnancy from her family; once the baby was born, she disposed of it in the lake before also killing herself. One of the most spoken about haunted places in San Francisco is the Strawberry Hill and Stow Lake. A post shared by Sunnyvale-toysrus (@sunnyvaletoysrus) on May 1, 2018 at 8:05am PDT. Naturally former employees circulate stories of unseen visitors in remote areas of the building; how could they not? ChinatownLike many stories of haunted places, this one is full of tragedy from start to end, though not without some hope and heart. Golden Gate ParkThis man-made lake has been a tranquil refuge for park-goers since it was constructed in 1893well, most park-goers, anyway. Come along for the ride! When social columnist Pat Montandon held a zodiac themed party at her house in the 1960s, the tarot card reader she hired got angry and cursed the house with freezing spells, bloodstains on the ceilings, and disembodied screamor that was the gossip at least. It has quite a reputation for scaring the living daylight out of its visitors. Not every San Francisco hotel claims to be haunted, but it does seem to be a hoteliers trademark. $('#metaslider_57782 .msHtmlOverlay').each(function() { animation:'slide', A post shared by Miguel Rodriguez (@migz49) on Sep 14, 2016 at 10:40am PDT. Now and then, guests still report running into Harding in the halls. When they finally opened the door, Mary Louise was found face down dead on the bed. However, the history of the Sutro Baths seems to be anything but wholesome. U.S. The supposed ghost of the historic Haskell Housea man in a top hat seen pacing the rooms from time to timemay be Major Leonidas Haskell himself, or it may be Senator David Brock, who died here after being fatally shot in a duel by former California Supreme Court Justice David Terry near Lake Merced in 1859. However she came to be part of the house, overnight guests over the years sometimes attested to suddenly waking in the night to find her still there. They blame the Whistling Sailor, a (mostly) benevolent entity that still roams the wings of Cosson Hall in a white sailors uniform. A post shared by Erick Rodriguez (@erod.director) on Feb 23, 2019 at 6:51pm PST. She is said to have unpacked suitcases, tidied up, and even tucked the covers around people as they slept. People driving through the Golden Gate Park are stopped over by a Police Officer, in spite of no violations. Some others have also reported that the theatre is haunted by a cashier who was killed during a burglary in the year 1933 and also by a young girl who was apparently killed in a car accident in the 1950s. ), and psychics have since claimed Claudia's ghost roams around the place, while pedestrians report strange flashing lights from an upstairs window. Though visible only to divers, the wreckage of the City of Rio de Janeiro marks the site of the worst marine disaster in the bay, and a great difficult to get to abandoned places in San Francisco option. orig_width: 300 Some locals say that the woman was from the 1930s who became pregnant out of wedlock, and to hide her pregnancy, she disposed off her baby near the Stow Lake and killed herself. slideshow:false, Lights would flash from corners where no machines . The door soon after opened and they were invited in to see the cause. One of the most notable was the 1906 Earthquake and Fire that wiped out a majority of the city. nextText:">", A post shared by Sbastien B (@sebastienbarre) on Aug 6, 2015 at 6:04pm PDT. After the Union army took over the surrounding area in 1863, many captains lived in the Haskell House. When finally released, McCain stabbed another inmate to death. Union SquareThe year was 1933. }; easing:"linear", That is the night she was spotted for the first time, walking down the middle of California Street in tears wearing the same dress from her engagement party. A fire broke out, and when the fire department arrived, the front door and the door to the primary bedroom were locked. A post shared by Sutro (@sutrobaths) on Aug 8, 2015 at 12:29pm PDT. Sanzhi UFO Houses, San Zhi, Taiwan. Theres safety in numbers. The Winchester Mystery House was the personal residence of Sarah Winchester, widow of gun magnate William Winchester. If you are not sure about visiting these places all by yourself, we suggest you look up the ghost tours that are organized by tour companies of San Francisco. Do Not Sell or Share My Personal Information. Floras parents and husband-to-be expended all of their resources searching for her but to no avail. Unfortunately, when a fire broke out years later, an unknown number of Chinese girls and women hiding in that basement were unable to escape and died. On moonless nights, when the fog hovers really low over the bay, you might see an old three-masted ship in the water sailing from point to point to pointalmost as if its lost its heading. Years ago, a young boy was walking along the lake and found himself separated from his family. With its historic charm intact, the hotel is a shining example of how once-abandoned buildings can come back to life and add depth and character to their cities. Allegedly one tarot card reader did not get the drink he was promised in a timely manner, at which point he laid a curse upon Montadon and her home, swearing she would never have any happy moments in that house again. @ yvonne_jiejie ) on Oct 18, 2019 at 6:51pm PST saw faucets being turned on and off with votive..., what probably comes to mind are abandoned places in San Francisco claims. 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