San Francisco Ghost Tours: Gold and Ghouls Tour is a 90 minute evening walk from Union Square up to the crest of Nob Hill, sold by San Francisco Ghosts By Us Ghost Adventures, a US Ghost Adventures brand, booking from $26 per person at our August 3, 2026 check. It meets at 333 Post Street on the corner of Powell and Post. Three things decide it. It is the cheapest of the four San Francisco ghost products we carry pages for and carries the largest posted group at 35. Its eight itinerary entries are the only stop list in that set naming Union Square or Nob Hill. And confirmation is not instant: it arrives within 48 hours of booking, subject to availability.
| Detail | What the listing shows |
|---|---|
| From price | $26 per person (checked August 3, 2026), the cheapest of the four San Francisco ghost products we carry pages for |
| Duration | 1 hour 30 minutes (checked August 3, 2026) |
| When | Evening. No clock time is stated on the listing at our July 29 or August 1, 2026 checks, so we print none. |
| Rating | 4.6 from 313 Viator reviews (checked August 3, 2026), unchanged from July 29. The lowest rating and the second largest review base of the four. |
| Age | A single booking band running 1 to 99 (checked August 1, 2026). That is an absence of an age policy rather than a policy, so we print no threshold. |
| Meeting point | Union Square, 333 Post St, on the corner of Powell and Post. Our July 29, 2026 facts pass adds that the guide waits across from the Saks Fifth Avenue sign in a US Ghost Adventures shirt. |
| End point | Not captured at our July 29 or August 1, 2026 checks, so we print none |
| Stops named | Eight entries, seven of them stops: the 450 Sutter Building, California Street, the Fairmont San Francisco, the Pacific Union Club, Huntington Park, 870 Bush St and the Beacon Grand A Union Square Hotel. Nob Hill itself carries the pass-by flag. Nothing on the listing says the walk goes inside any of them. |
| Group size | Posted maximum of 35 travelers (checked August 1, 2026), the largest of the four |
| Accessibility | Not wheelchair accessible; stroller accessible (checked August 1, 2026). Nob Hill is a steep climb from Union Square. |
| Fitness and health | Back problems and heart problems were flagged on the listing at our July 29, 2026 facts pass |
| Confirmation | Within 48 hours of booking and subject to availability. This is not an instant-confirmation listing. |
| Cancellation | Free cancellation flagged at our August 3, 2026 check; free to 24 hours in advance at our July 29, 2026 facts pass |
What you will see
Union Square is California Historical Landmark No. 623, registered October 22, 1957. The state record says it was deeded for public use on January 3, 1850 during the administration of John White Geary, and that the name originated in 1860 when public meetings were held there in support of the Union. That is the whole state text, and the thinness is the finding. A block north, 450 Sutter opened on October 15, 1929, Timothy L. Pflueger's 26 floors of steel and terra cotta raised in under 18 months on the site of Temple Emanu-El, which its National Register nomination dates to 1864 and says stood until its collapse in the 1906 earthquake. The Chronicle called it the world's most modern building devoted to the sole occupancy of dentists and physicians; its reference number is 09001118.
The Mesoamerican ornament there is what the ghost story attaches to, and the nomination documents it in its own words: stylized Mayan hieroglyphics carved into the terra cotta and featured in cast metal window frames, and inside, a lobby crafted with Mayan designs and hieroglyphics. A 1929 American architect's Mesoamerican-revival motif in terra cotta is not Maya ritual, and reading it as spirits angered by ancient deeds attributes malice to a living Indigenous culture on the strength of a facade. We describe the architecture instead. It remains a private office building.
870 Bush Street is the Dennis T. Sullivan Memorial Fire Chief's Home, by City Architect John Reid Jr., built in the early 1920s with firemen's donations plus a city appropriation, and San Francisco Designated Landmark No. 42. Get the chief's story straight, because the operator's copy does not. Sullivan was fatally injured at 5:13 a.m. on April 18, 1906 when the tower of the California Hotel came down onto his quarters at 410 Bush Street. Every source located has him carried down inside the wreck, driven straight to hospital and dying four days later at the Presidio's U.S. Army General Hospital without returning to duty. He did not fight the fire. 870 Bush is a memorial and not the scene, fire chiefs live in it, and it is a sidewalk stop at a residence.
The Beacon Grand at 450 Powell opened in 1928 as the Sir Francis Drake, by Weeks and Day, 21 stories. ABC7 reported the renaming on February 22, 2022, and the change was specifically about Drake and the slave trade, so the old name belongs in the past tense. Up the hill, the Pacific Union Club at 1000 California was the James C. Flood Mansion, built between 1883 and 1886 in Connecticut brownstone by Augustus Laver. On the fire's second morning, April 19, 1906, flames destroyed the interior and the stone shell survived, because unlike its neighbours it was not wood painted to look like stone. Cora Flood sold it to the club, and Willis Polk, the only architect who wanted to keep what was left, remodelled it around 1909 to 1910. What stands is the surviving brownstone walls of Flood's house, not the house, and the club is private.
The Fairmont at 950 Mason was begun by James Fair's daughters Tessie and Virginia, to designs by the Reid Brothers, and sold to Herbert and Hartland Law twelve days before the earthquake. The 1906 fire left it a shell; it had never opened. Stanford White was commissioned to restore it and was shot and killed weeks later, and the work passed to Julia Morgan, who corrected the record herself in the San Francisco Call of June 16, 1907: "My work has all been structural." The nomination has the hotel officially opening on April 18, 1907, the earthquake's anniversary, and notes that some sources give April 16. On survival, the defensible line is the nomination's own: the Fairmont and the Pacific Union Club are the only remaining pre-earthquake structures on Nob Hill, and this walk stops at both. Huntington Park is the thinnest stop, its City park page carrying no history at all.
What the listing promises, and what that proves
The inclusions promise intensely researched true stories and documented accounts of hauntings. That is the identical boilerplate this brand carries on its San Antonio product, so it is marketing rather than a sourcing standard. Two of the operator's own claims did not survive checking: 450 Sutter as the largest medical building in the world, where the Chronicle said the most modern building for dentists and physicians, and Sullivan continuing to serve through the 1906 earthquake, which every source located contradicts. Its own site previews the Curran Theater, the Nob Hill Inn and the Pacific Union Club and names none of 450 Sutter, 870 Bush, the Beacon Grand, Huntington Park or the Fairmont, so we build this page from the listing.
Who it suits
People who want architecture and 1906 history at the lowest price in this city's set, in ninety minutes, and who can manage a steep climb from Union Square to the crest of Nob Hill.
- Not for anyone who needs wheelchair access, or for whom the back and heart advisories apply.
- Not for anyone who needs instant confirmation. It confirms within 48 hours, subject to availability, which is separate from the cancellation terms.
- Not for anyone expecting interiors. The Pacific Union Club is private and 450 Sutter is a private office building.
- Not a small group. The posted maximum is 35 travelers, the largest of the four.
How it compares
The denominator is four, the San Francisco ghost products we carry pages for, recomputed against our August 3, 2026 check. This is the cheapest at $26, below $28.99, $55 and $115; the largest posted cap at 35, against 30, 26 and 10; and the lowest rated at 4.6, against one 4.8 and two 5.0s. Its 313 reviews are the second largest base of the four, out of 1,479 across the set, and it is the only one whose confirmation is not instant. Nearest on price is the $28.99 San Francisco Ghost Hunt Walking Tour, half an hour longer and publishing no stops at all; the $55 Chinatown ghost hunt is the accessible option and the $115 hotel experience the indoor one. Our San Francisco page has the rest of the city.
Questions people ask
How long is it, and where does it meet?
One hour 30 minutes at our August 3, 2026 check, meeting at Union Square, 333 Post St, on the corner of Powell and Post. Our July 29, 2026 facts pass adds that the guide waits across from the Saks Fifth Avenue sign in a US Ghost Adventures shirt. No end point was captured, so we print none.
Is confirmation instant?
No. Confirmation arrives within 48 hours of booking and is subject to availability, the only listing of the four where that is true. Cancellation is separate: free cancellation was flagged on August 3, 2026, and free to 24 hours in advance at our July 29 facts pass.
Is it accessible, and do we go inside?
Not wheelchair accessible, and stroller accessible, at our August 1, 2026 check; Nob Hill is a steep climb from Union Square and the listing carried back and heart advisories on July 29, 2026. Nothing on the listing says the walk goes indoors, and two stops cannot be entered at all.
Is there a minimum age?
No age policy is stated. The listing carries a single booking band covering ages 1 to 99 at our August 1, 2026 check, which is an absence of a policy rather than a permission, so we print no threshold in either direction.
Did the fire chief die fighting the 1906 fire?
No. Dennis T. Sullivan was fatally injured at 5:13 a.m. on April 18, 1906, when the California Hotel's tower fell onto his quarters at 410 Bush Street, and he died four days later at the Presidio's U.S. Army General Hospital without returning to duty. The house at 870 Bush is the memorial built afterwards, and the walk stops on the sidewalk outside it.
