In our century, William Walker was the subject of a surreal motion picture about U.S. intervention in Central America. In his own time, he affected a deliberately Puritan air, wearing a long black cape, black pants, and a large, floppy-rimmed, black hat. He used San Francisco as a base of operations for his Central American adventures which were financed, at first, by Cornelius Vanderbilt. Walker took over Nicaraugua, but soon fell afoul of Vanderbilt and of native Nicarauguans with the dastardly idea of self-determination in their heads.
A frequent visitor to the Cobweb Palace was William Walker, the famous Central American filibuster who, with his long, black cloak and big floppy hat, was a familiar figure in San Francisco for several years. Once when Walker poked with his cane at a cobweb, [Abe] Warner remarked: "That cobweb will be growing long after you've been cut down from the gibbet." It was only about three years later that Walker was shot by a firing squad in Honduras. -- from The Barbary Coast by Herbert Asbury