E Clampus Vitus

The Ancient and Honorable Order of E Clampus Vitus is a fraternal organization and “secret society” based in the American West. It supposedly grew out of the Gold Rush of the 1840s to take care of widows and orphans, and was revived in the 1930s as a historical society with a side of drinking (or a drinking society with a side of history, as their members — called “Clampers” — might say) dedicated to commemorating the weird, lost frontier. E Clampus Vitus has dedicated plaques and markers throughout California commemorating the bars, brothels, jails, mining camps, and other locations that “official,” “polite” historians and historical societies ignore.

Their No. 1 Lodge, the Yerba Buena Lodge, is based in San Francisco, and their Noble Grand Humbug is John Ritchie.