9 lesser-known haunted places in and around SF

• Fun fact: California was home to thousands of hauntings over the last three decades — with the most reports taking place in schools.

Here are nine lesser-known spots to explore this Halloween:

The Curran Theater

A phantom that once worked at the Curran as a ticket taker is said to haunt the lobby, where he died days before he was set to marry.

• Hewlett G. Tarr was working the ticket office in 1933 when a man shoved his revolver through the window and shot him in the chest.
• His ghost is described as wearing "1930s clothes," with many theatergoers seeing his spectral image in the oversized mirror near the Curran's entrance.

Donaldina Cameron House

In the 1870s, the Presbyterian Church founded the Occidental Mission Home for Girls as a safe haven for Chinese women in the era of the Chinese Exclusion Act.

• Donaldina Cameron, a white woman, took over as superintendent in 1897 and focused her efforts on saving Chinese girls from indentured servitude and human trafficking.
• The mission was regularly harassed by brothel owners and police officers, but after it burned down in the 1906 earthquake, Cameron ensured the new structure for the home was designed with hidden passages.
• These tunnels ultimately trapped several young girls when another fire broke out a few years later and burned them to death. These are the souls said to still haunt the Cameron House today.

Sutro Baths

The Sutro Baths served as a public swimming complex after opening in 1896. Now, the ruins are a world-famous spot, one that many say is touched by a sense of eeriness.

• The lore goes that multiple apparitions haunt the area, including 16-year-old Frank Denvin, who fell head-first from a water slide into an empty cement tank in 1896, and two brothers who remain drawn to the dangerous currents.
• It's also rumored that if you venture into the tunnel at Sutro Baths with a lit candle, a ghostly woman will appear and throw it into the sea.

Angel Island

The Ellis Island of the West, this immigration processing station became an operation for "screening" and deporting Chinese immigrants in the early 1900s.

• These immigrants were forced into detention for weeks, months and sometimes years — much longer than European immigrants, who were also less likely to be deported from the processing center.
• Some Chinese immigrants died by suicide after languishing in the station, which also mandated segregation of Asians and non-Asians. Their ghosts are believed to haunt the island, now a museum, in mourning for the life they could've had.

Neptune Society Columbarium

This Victorian-style building, with its iconic dome, holds the ashes of thousands of San Franciscans dating back to 1898.

• Visitors have reported seeing shadowy figures, including the ghost of a young girl, and hearing whispers among the urns. Some also said they felt a small hand brush up against theirs.

Haskell House at Fort Mason

Walk around this historic house at night and you might run into a ghostly figure in a top hat pacing around the grounds and other paranormal activity.

• The ghost is said to be U.S. Sen. David C. Broderick (D-California), who died in a duel with pro-slavery activist David S. Terry in the 1850s.
• It's believed that Broderick and his friend Col. Leonides K. Haskell, both outspoken anti-slavery officials, had hidden runaway slaves from the Underground Railroad in the cellar of Haskell's house.
• Broderick's death made him a martyr and helped push California into the Union camp.

San Francisco Art Institute

Considered the oldest art school west of the Mississippi River, the art institute is rumored to have been built on top of a graveyard, desecrating bodies in a manner that provoked the spirits.

• Since it opened in 1927, the school has gained a reputation for ghostly activity, with students reporting disembodied footsteps, screaming sounds and incidents where art tools and electric lights turned on and off on their own.

Blue Heron Lake (formerly Stow)

This man-made lake, located within the Golden Gate Park, is the haunting grounds of a mother who in the early 1900s accidentally drowned her baby after losing sight of her baby's pram.

• She is said to appear near the exit of the park at night and beg park visitors to help her find her baby.

Queen Anne Hotel

This building, once an elite girls' boarding school in the 1800s, is said to be haunted by headmistress Miss Mary Lake.

Guests who stay in Room 410, which some speculate is her previous office, have reportedfeeling a paranormal presence that tucked them into bed and neatly unpacking their suitcases when they're out.