Tag: California
Los Angeles Bootlegger Found Beaten and Shot During 1928 “Rum War”
By the summer of 1928, Prohibition had created a vast illegal market for alcohol, and in Los Angeles, competition over the liquor trade could turn…
15-Year-Old Boy Confessed to Putting Rat Poison in His Family’s Coffee
A series of mysterious illnesses in a California family took a horrifying turn in August 1912 when authorities questioned a 15-year-old boy and, according to…
Lightning Struck Two Hunters’ Shotguns and Blew the Barrels Apart
Two California hunters were caught in a storm in 1901 when a flash of lightning turned their shotguns into explosives. R. Cutlar and E. McClarnon…
California Miner Rescued After 57 Hours Trapped Underground
For 57 hours, Robert Hill remained trapped inside the darkness of a collapsed California mine tunnel while rescuers worked to reach him back in 1925….
California’s Schools on Wheels Helped 1,000 Children Without Permanent Homes
In 1922, California was experimenting with a new idea: if children could not reliably get to school, then school would have to go to them….
Los Angeles Woman Found Murdered in Fifth-Floor Office
In September 1913, a quiet Los Angeles office became the scene of a brutal and puzzling murder. Mrs. Rebecca P. Gay, a religious practitioner and…
Man Crushed By a Giant Redwood in Laytonville
In the redwood camps of northern California, logging was a dangerous trade even for the most experienced men. The trees were enormous, the terrain was…
San Rafael Powder Factory Explosion Kills Four
A thunderous blast rolled across Point San Pedro on June 17, 1899, so loud that some who heard it first mistook the sound for a…
Los Angeles Policeman Robbed a Wells Fargo Wagon
A Los Angeles robbery that seemed daring enough on its own became even stranger when the culprit turned out to be one of the city’s…
When a Surgical Sponge Was Left Inside a Patient
In 1910, a Los Angeles man brought forward the kind of medical malpractice claim that still makes patients uneasy more than a century later: he…
