The Summer of Love will go down in American history as a culture-shifting, transformative time.
The 1967 social phenomenon brought nearly 100,000 young people into the city of San Francisco's Haight-Ashbury neighborhood. The hippie counter-culture flooded the area with new ideas, fashion, art and groovy music vibes.
This year marks the 50th anniversary of the Summer of Love. The California Historical Society and San Francisco Travel are hosting special events all year long to honor the time period.
Legendary music influencers such as Janis Joplin, Jimi Hendrix and the Grateful Dead were known to have roamed the hippie epicenter and weren't the only ones making history.
Despite the flower power, peace and love, one of the country's most notorious killers emerged from the Summer of Love.
Charles Manson reinvented himself during the historical summer after a prison stint and moved to San Francisco, according to Helter Skeltor, a true crime book by Vincent Bugliosi and Curt Gentry. Bugliosi served as the prosecutor in the 1970 Manson trial after he and his followers murdered actress Sharon Tate and four others at her Hollywood Hills home.
Manson used the counter-culture to present himself as a spiritual guru and took to San Francisco to find impressionable and naive followers.
Manson and his followers lived in the Haight-Ashbury neighborhood at 636 Cole Street from about April to July 1967, according to Bugliosi. The home was just two blocks from the headquarters for The Process, a satanic cult Manson allegedly borrowed ideas from for his "teachings".
A 1967 San Francisco city directory listed a person named D.S. Soroka as the resident at 636 Cole St. during the year Manson and his followers lived in the home. Manson rented the home and his relationship to Soroka, if any, is unknown.
The home is currently off the market, according to several real estate sources including Trulia and Zillow, meaning it's likely a private home and unavailable to tour.
After spending a short time in the Haight, Manson and his family moved to Southern California where they would go on to commit one of the most infamous crimes in American history.
Manson and the participating followers in the 1969 Tate-LaBianca murders were sentenced to death in 1971 but their sentences were reduced to life without possibility of parole after the California Supreme Court ruled the death penalty as unconstitutional.
The Manson family has connections to Sacramento.
Manson follower, Lynette 'Squeaky' Fromme, was convicted in 1975 of pointing a pistol in Sacramento at President Gerald Ford in an attempted assassination. President Ford was making a short walk from his hotel on L St. to the Capitol, and was scheduled to meet with Gov. Jerry Brown. The gun never went off, but the red-haired would-be assassin was wrestled to the ground and arrested by Secret Service, according to the Los Angeles Times.
Before the assassination attempt, Fromme lived at 1725 P Street in Midtown with Sandra Good, another longtime member of the Manson family. The pair settled into the attic of the Victorian home in 1973 to be closer to Manson who was incarcerated at Folsom Prison at the time, according to The Family, a book by Ed Sanders about the Manson family.
The women started an organization called The People's Court of Retribution, which aimed to kill leaders and executives the women believed contributed to environmental pollution. Officials concluded the group didn't reach past the efforts of a few Manson followers, according to Sanders.
Shortly after the incident at the Capitol, the P St. apartment was searched for evidence by law enforcement, a highly-publicized ordeal.
Fromme was sentenced to life in prison and continued to have a relationship with Manson while she was behind bars, the L.A. Times said. She was released on parole from federal prison in August 2009 at the age of 60, after serving 34 years.
Manson remains incarcerated at California's Corcoran State Prison.
