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How a Heroine Became a ‘Demon’ in Victorian San Francisco
As Halloween approaches, some of us like to get a taste of the supernatural. It’s folks like this who gather at dusk in San Francisco, in the shadow of looming Victorians, for the city’s popular Ghost Hunt. Actor Christian Cagigal leads people around these steep streets in full 19th century dress, top hat and clacking cane. Every corner brings another ghoulish story from San Francisco history -- from ghostly apparitions to the aristocrat who disappeared under grisly circumstances. But there’s one stop on this tour that tells a real-life story stranger than any Halloween legend. KQED’s Carly Severn brings us the tale of a crusading heroine who somehow became a demon in her own lifetime.
A Lighthouse So Beautiful, Ghosts Come Back to Haunt It
Perched on the rocky coastline between Carmel and Big Sur, Point Sur Lighthouse has been guiding ships into the Pacific Coast since 1889. But the treacherous landscape and rough weather have meant the lighthouse has also seen many shipwrecks -- up to 11 ships have been lost near its coast. People claim the lighthouse is haunted by the ghosts of people who died in those shipwrecks, as well as the ghosts of the former lighthouse keepers who lived and worked on the isolated station. The lighthouse is called "one of the most haunted lighthouses in the United States." Sasha Khokha talks to Julie Nunes, a longtime Point Sur docent and ghost hunter.
Golden State Plate: The Fishy Origins of Cioppino
If you’ve ever sat down to a steaming bowl of cioppino, you might feel like the savory seafood stew transports you to Italy. But, you’d be wrong. As part of our Golden State Plate series, Bianca Taylor takes us to the real birthplace of this California classic.
Letter to My California Dreamer: Aiming Higher Than the Redwoods
We continue our series of listener letters, written to a family member who came here with a California dream. This week, we hear Sarah Monroy’s letter to her father, who arrived as an orphan from Guatemala. Although he died while she was very young, she writes, “I still hear your American dream in the lingering bellow of the foghorn when I stand beneath the Golden Gate Bridge."