Loren Rhoads, the author of "222 Cemeteries to See Before You Die," "Wish You Were Here: Adventures in Cemetery Travel," and many more morbid books of nonfiction and fiction, joins Courtney and Beth to discuss their mutual love of cemeteries, why it's not so weird to visit burial grounds when you travel, and the intricacies of translating a cemetery-tourism book into Russian.

Sources:

Loren Rhoads' website: https://lorenrhoads.com/

Loren's books: https://lorenrhoads.com/shop/

Loren on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/morbidloren/

Loren on Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/morbidloren.bsky.social

Did you know that there's an entire armada's worth of abandoned ships under the Financial District in San Francisco? Or that ships have been wrecking on something called THE DEVIL'S TEETH near our coastline for centuries? Well since we are a MARITIME HISTORY PODCAST now, you can hear all about it!

Courtney takes us through the history of ships being abandoned and wrecked in the Bay, how we rescued shipwrecked people, and why the hell lighthouses took so long to get out there. Along the way we visit a disturbing grave from the 1870's.

AHOY, Y'ALL!

Sources:

Underwater topographical map of the Bay: https://www.reddit.com/r/MapPorn/comments/hqfyiw/sf_golden_gate_bathymetry/

Original Bay Coastline https://www.davidrumsey.com/luna/servlet/detail/RUMSEY~8~1~320831~90089998:Map-of-The-City-Of-San-Francisco,-C

A "Forest of Masts" https://www.nps.gov/safr/learn/historyculture/buried-ships-of-san-francisco.htm

Old Ship Saloon https://www.sfheritage.org/heritage-in-the-neighborhoods/old-ship-saloon/

Foghorns https://www.goldengate.org/bridge/history-research/bridge-features/foghorns-beacons/

Bar Pilots on the Bay https://www.youtube.com/@sfbarpilots

Map of Shipwrecks https://nmssanctuaries.blob.core.windows.net/sanctuaries-prod/media/archive/shipwrecks/city-of-rio-de-janeiro/poster_shipwrecks.jpg

Mysterious Burial at Franklin Point (Alta) https://www.altaonline.com/dispatches/a36562585/shipwreck-franklin-point-lydia-lee/

The indigenous people of San Francisco were just minding their business (for at least 10,000 years) when Spanish missionaries showed up, dropped a church on them and opened the city's first settler cemetery. In this episode, we look at the history of Mission San Francisco de Asís (that's Mission Dolores to you) and its churchyard, which now holds about 11,000 graves — more than half of them indigenous — and just a couple hundred headstones. Tune in to find out how this burial ground became one of the only remaining marked cemeteries in the city.

Sources:

"San Francisco's Forgotten Cemeteries: A Buried History" by Beth Winegarner: https://www.bethwinegarner.com/san-franciscos-forgotten-cemeteries

Mission District watershed map: https://explore.museumca.org/creeks/images/OMMission900.jpg

St. Francis of Assisi: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francis_of_Assisi

"MIssion Dolores," FoundSF: https://www.foundsf.org/Mission_Dolores

"Mission Plank Road," FoundSF: https://www.foundsf.org/Mission_Plank_Road

"Mission Dolores Curator Aims to Humanize Site's Indigenous Dead," Mission Local: https://missionlocal.org/2024/03/mission-dolores-curator-aims-to-humanize-sites-indigenous-dead/

Belle and Charles Cora https://www.instagram.com/p/C2xlslevN-9/?igsh=NTc4MTIwNjQ2YQ==

COURTNEY AND BETH at Mission Dolores for Mission Local! https://missionlocal.org/2026/01/sf-dead-reckoning-podcast-beth-winegarner-courtney-minick/