San Francisco Hotel Confidential! The St. Francis Hotel

San Francisco hotels have been part of the fabric of the city since the Gold Rush of 1849.   In the early days, flop houses for sailors and miners seeking their fortune sprouted up as the ships docked in the harbor.  Many of the ships carrying gold miners around Cape Hope, would often take several weeks to travel from the ports of the east coast, around the tip of South America, to San Francisco.  In that time all the crew heard was the rumor gold was easy to find, so by the time the ships docked, it was not unusual for the passengers to disembark, followed by the crew, and sometimes even the captain.  

Having fallen to the spell of easy riches, many abandoned ships just lay fallow in the harbor.  So many ships abandoned by passengers, crew and captain seeking their fortune, they kind of just sat there.

Naturally, enterprising entrepreneurs exploited them and converted them for lodging.  Ironically some of the first hotels in San Francisco were not in the city, but ships floating in the harbor, abandoned by both captain and crew.  As the city morphed from a gold rush port to a cosmopolitan metropolis, the city's hotels grew in stature as they city did. 

As grand and famous as some of those hotels became, there is also a dark side to their past.  With every glowing piece in the society column, there were also scandals, disasters, and controversies they prefer you don't know.

Every cable car running past Union Square, also passes the St. Francis Hotel, and many have a sign displayed in the front saying, "Meet Me at the St. Francis."  Millions of soldiers funneled through San Francisco during WWII, on their way to the Pacific to fight the Japanese.  During the chaotic return from their deployment, many millions of wives often didn’t know to meet them.  The soldiers didn't often know, and as a default would simply say,  "Meet Me at the St. Francis." 

The entrance to the St. Francis Hotel

Opened in 1904 the St. Francis Hotel (now the Westin St. Francis) has been one of those Grand Dame hotels I've referenced which were (and are) destinations for royalty, movie stars and heads-of-state.  Yet its history is not completely unblemished.

On September 22nd, 1975, President Gerald Ford was exiting the hotel when former Manson Family member Sara Jane Moore shot at him from a pistol she was carrying.  Luckily, she missed, but the bullet hit the wall.  To this day the hole is still there.  

The original St. Francis hotel building, and tower

That's a good story, but it's not the whole story.  The attempted assassination was foiled by a still-in-the-closet former marine named Oliver Sipple.  He had come out to himself and a few select acquaintances, but not his family and friends from his home state of Michigan.  When he stumbled upon his notoriety for saving the president's life, he could not have predicted what followed.  The San Francisco Chronicle published his orientation before he told family and many others close to him, adversely affecting his life until he passed away in 1989.

The more notable black mark in the hotel's history was also one that even rocked Hollywood in the 1920s.  Before scandal-plagued celebrities like Charlie Sheen were above-the-fold headlines in the tabloids like TMZ and the National Enquirer, Hollywood mostly kept controversies under the table as best they could.  Some historians claim the first real celebrity scandal that kept the public's attention rapt, happened one night in the St. Francis Hotel in September 1921.  

Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle was a top box office draw.  He was as popular as Charlie Chaplin or May Pickford in the silent era of Hollywood, and on that fateful night Roscoe hosted a party.  There were many people at that party, one of whom being Virginia Rappe, an up-and-coming actress.  She got sick at the party and died four days later. 

What followed was a trial of the century that made the Jonny Depp/Amber Heard trial look like a high school debate.  To be precise, three trials where Roscoe stood accused of sexual abuse ended in hung juries and an acquittal.  But not so for the court of public opinion.  The press lapped it up like spilled milk, and the Hollywood community ostracized him as if he were the Robert Blake of the 1920s.

By then the damage was done, he became such a pariah that he eventually was forced behind the camera and transitioned to directing.  He even changed his name to William Goodrich, but sadly,  Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle died broke and too soon at the age of 46.  Friend and fellow silent filmmaker Buster Keaton wryly commented that William Goodrich was a nom de plume for Will B. Good.