The Barbary Coast: San Francisco's 'Sin City'

Those early years might best be evoked by this colorful description, courtesy of Found San Francisco: "Badly drawn paintings of nude women adorn the walls of the best cafes in the city. Prostitutes begin to arrive from the east [...] Gambling houses were everywhere. At the El Dorado it was reported that $80,000 once changed hands on the turn of a single card." Fun place, right? Not so fast.

For all the debauchery, this sinner's paradise was also beset by gang problems. Culture Trip tells of the "Hounds," veterans of the Mexican-American War who roamed the streets harassing Mexican-Americans. Not to be outdone by native troublemakers, Australia sent some of her own, chief among them an outfit known as the Sydney Ducks. Their cute name belies their bad intentions, though; when they weren't running their syndicate of brothels they had a pastime of starting fires. The money had brought the men, the men brought the sex workers, the vice brought the criminals, and now the criminals had brought vigilantes. They helped, for a while.

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