Jeffery W. McKelroy

by Jeffery W. McKelroy

The southern route to San Francisco will take the traveler through the Mojave Desert, west on Interstate 40 where it links up with I-5 or “The 5” as Californians say. Once there you realize the complete change in weather from the hot arid deserts of Arizona and New Mexico to the cool misty, wet air of the Northern, California coast. If you are coming into town as the sun is setting, you will see the “marine layer”, the fog which pours over the mountains and drops the temperature and the visibility. It is another world, so far removed from the one you just left.

In 1906 while many towns in the Old West were just starting to blossom, San Francisco was no longer a frontier boom town. It had become a truly metropolitan city with several opera houses many well respected financial institutions and a modern infrastructure that rivaled that of any on the east coast. With a population of well over 400,000 San Francisco had become the trading, financial and cultural center of the West but in the early morning hours of April 18^th 1906 the city was changed forever. At 5:12 am a massive earthquake that was felt from Oregon to Los Angeles ripped through the city toppling buildings and splitting streets wide open. In Monterey County the great shaking permanently shifted the course of the Salinas River. The river was diverted 6 miles from where it had previously flowed into Monterey Bay to a new outlet north of Marina. Although the city only reported 376 deaths, we now know that the original figure was fabricated in order to prevent scaring off investors necessary for the rebuilding of the city or upsetting real estate prices. The true death toll is in excess of 3,000 lives lost. Around 3,000 people were left homeless, forced to live in tent cities in Golden Gate Park and across the bay in Berkley and Oakland. Although devastating, the earthquake was only the beginning of the tragedy for the people of San Francisco. Soon after the shaking had stopped fires began to spring up all over the city. Some were caused by broken gas lines or broken kerosene lanterns; one was caused by a woman who lit her stove to cook breakfast not realizing that her chimney had fallen during the quake. As the fires grew, so too did the panic. The Fire Chief had been killed in the earthquake and many of the water lines had been severed and the pumps did not work. At that time there were no fire boats. The Firemen did their best to put out the flames with dynamite but many of them were inexperienced with its use and only created more fires and needlessly leveled more homes. Soldiers from the Presidio also attempted using dynamite and gun powder to create fire breaks. They even attempted to use field artillery but to no avail. For the most part the fire simply ran its course sending the population fleeing across the bay in any available watercraft. The 1906 earthquake forever changed the physical and cultural landscape of San Francisco. Eventually, much of the rubble was pushed into the bay expanding the real estate on which new buildings were constructed. With over 80% of the city destroyed, trade, industry and people moved south to Los Angeles and many of the artists and writers found a new home in Carmel by the Sea.

            San Francisco eventually rose from the ashes to once again become a shining jewel on the Pacific. It would again regain its power, influence, and importance. During World War II it was one of our nation’s most important ports, supplying men and equipment for the war effort. It was an important immigration station for hundreds of thousands of Chinese immigrants and by the 1960’s was the center of the counterculture and liberal politics. By the 1970’s most of the hippies had left the city for smaller Northern California towns like Sebastopol or Petaluma. Various gangs and hardcore drug addicts struggled for control of the streets and the city once again seemed like the wild west. Then in 1989 the Loma Prieta quake reminded San Francisco of its fragile existence. During this quake the upper deck of the Bay Bridge collapsed killing one person. The Cypress Street viaduct also collapsed. In all there were 57 fatalities and over 3,700 injuries although the shaking only lasted about 15 seconds. There was damage and destruction of 12,000 homes and 2,600 businesses. Some of the worst damage was due to liquefaction of the soil in the Marina District. This was because the Marina District had been built on top of the rubble of the 1906 earthquake which was pushed into the bay.

            A city with a story as exciting, varied and sometimes tragic as San Francisco leaves an indelible mark on the history of our nation and some say that all of that struggle and tragedy has left its mark in that space between the living and the dead. That place where life and death meet and where ghosts take shape. Even as far back as the 1860’s Mark Twain was writing local ghost stories as a journalist for a local paper.

            Some ghost stories are born through tragedy created by nature, some by man and sometimes it’s a combined effort. In 1900, San Francisco had around 30 cemeteries within the city limits. During this time the powers that be decided that most of those cemeteries were sitting on some very valuable real estate and developers were eager to get a hold of this property. So, the city placed a moratorium on burials within the city limits. The big four cemeteries were located in Laurel Heights. The cemeteries were built in the Victorian style, set in large, lush gardens. With the enactment of the 1900 law and the fact that all the lots were full anyway, the cemeteries no longer had a source of revenue and became abandoned and blighted. The process of removing the cemeteries began in the late 1920’s and lasted until WWII. It involved dismantling the Neoclassical mausoleums and removing the bodies. Some pieces of the gravestones are still visible in the gutters of Buena Vista Park. The process of relocating graveyards was common at the time as cities began to grow and engineering methods and technology improved; allowing developers the ability to employ new land for urban usage. Also common at that time was that the undertakers and contractors, although contractually bound to do so, would rarely remove all the bodies. There was a considerable amount of money to be made in saving labor cost by just removing the markers. The University of California San Francisco, Laurel Heights campus building was built on top of some of those graves for instance.

The bodies of those that had traveled west or perhaps from far across the ocean who helped build San Francisco, to include one state senator, were moved to the tiny town of Coloma, just outside of San Francisco. Today there are only around 1,500 living residents surrounded by their 1.5 million neighbors who reside below ground. The entire city was incorporated for the sole purpose of being a city of the dead as laid out in the city charter.

Many of the dead were moved to mass graves for expedience. Fifty-five thousand catholic remains remained without a marker until 1993. Some were left behind as in the case of the UCSF campus. There are bodies under the library and under the dorms, even a nearby golf course. Every time there is construction which requires excavation, more bodies turn up.

Of course, the removal or in some cases hiding of the bodies wasn’t the only concern. Something had to be done about all of those grave markers and mausoleums. The bodies were relocated at no charge but in order to move the markers the families would need to pay. Many could not afford to move them, and others could not even be located although it doesn’t appear that much effort was made to contact anyone in a meaningful way.

The city sold some of the dismantled mausoleums and gravestones for pennies on the dollar for various uses or public works projects. Some of the priceless crypts were tossed carelessly into the bay to create breakwaters. The inscriptions are clearly visible upon walking out on to them. They were even used to build the seawall along the Great Highway and are clearly visible from time to time.

One who might tend to believe in such things might not be surprised that there are many stories of paranormal experiences, speculatively related to the desecration of so many graves. Some of these stories come from the area that was once home to the big four cemeteries and is now the campus of UCSF. The medical canter seems to be a hot bed of other worldly activity. Many say that something or someone is trying to communicate with the living. Almost every hospital seems to have some sort of paranormal activity take place on its campus. Hospitals are places where people are born into this world and where they depart from it. Families share joy and pain here. There is hope and there is despair. Although this hospital is unique in that the dead occupied this land first. Walking the halls of the hospital is said to be the spirit of a young mother who died during childbirth her spirit is said to visit the newborn babies, gazing at them longingly, sadly. She has even been heard singing to them.

Along with the reports of multiple ghostly apparitions who roam the halls, one entire floor of the hospital is said to be so haunted that an exorcism had to be performed. The 8^th floor was once the home to the Pediatrics Unit but now houses the Neurology Unit. Since the performance of the exorcism, it is said that the activity has settled down some, but staff and visitors still say there is the very heavy feeling of a supernatural presence and occasionally some unexplained activity. One young Intern who I will call Jim described his experience, “It was pretty un-nerving. I have never really had any solid beliefs in the afterlife or even religion, but I can’t explain this stuff. When you see a chair move across a room on its own and I mean all the way across, its creepy. Medical equipment turns on and off on its own with no explanation. The worst was one night when I was in the restroom. The entire time I was using the toilet, someone was in the stall next to me whistling. I didn’t think anything of it until I went to the sink to wash my hands and while looking in the mirror, I see the stall door swing open and there is nobody in there. Scared the hell out of me!”

Along with the “typical” hospital ghosts, visitors have seen people in Victorian clothing wandering the halls as if they are lost or confused. Some of these Victorian visitors appear to be searching for something. One former nurse relates a story of attempting to address a very well-dressed man in a bowler hat in a darkened hallway. She was curious as to whether he might need help finding a room. He turned, looked at her and slowly faded away into the darkness.

The Gleeson Library and the student dorms are also reported to be haunted. These sit directly atop graves that were never relocated. During renovations, contractors have accidentally excavated bodies and found that the original plumbers, not wanting to stop work, had run the plumbing right through the graves. This may be part of the reason for so much activity in the library. Psychics have claimed to have communicated with some of the spirits of the dead. All of them seem to be from San Francisco’s early days and all of the many spirits seem to be confused and lost.

There are many ghost stories in San Francisco and the spirits are of those from so many different periods in the city’s history. Some of the earthbound spirits are those who died during the days when this was still the wild west, during the gold rush, the Victorian Era, and even more modern spirits. The reasons that tether these spirits to the earthly realm, specifically San Francisco, may never be fully realized but a walk along the bay on a cool evening, with the sounds of buoy bells in the distance while the light of the city dances on the water, is enough to make anyone want to linger just a little longer.