On this day in 1961, author Dashiell Hammett, creator of private detective Sam Spade dies at the age of 67. Born in Maryland in 1894, Hammett moved west and made the seamy side of San Francisco the setting for his most famous novelThe Maltese Falcon. Union Square in San Francisco is full of Dashiell Hammett’s imprint from the alleyway where Miles Archer was gunned down to Post Street where the author once lived to the tiny street named after him.