Offbeat Oregon History podcast: Recent Episodes
www.offbeatoregon.com (finn @ offbeatoregon.com)
A daily (5-day-a-week) podcast feed of true Oregon stories -- of heroes and rascals, of shipwrecks and lost gold. Stories of shanghaied sailors and Skid Road bordellos and pirates and robbers and unsolved mysteries. An exploding whale, a couple shockingly scary cults, a 19th-century serial killer, several very naughty ladies, a handful of solid-brass con artists and some of the dumbest bad guys in the history of the universe. From the archives of the Offbeat Oregon History syndicated newspaper column. Source citations are included with the text version on the Web site at http://offbeatoregon.com.
Mayor Frank Ivancie, Pioneer Courthouse Square’s most intransigent opponent, gleefully declared the project “dead” in a 1982 speech. In doing so, he accidentally galvanized the citizen group that would prove him wrong. (Portland, Multnomah County; 1960s, 1970s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1405c.pioneer-courthouse-square.html)
Though home to some productive mines, the Blue Mountain boomtown made much of its money working the suckers back east; then its head honcho disappeared into the night with the money, hours ahead of the law. (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1011a-gold-mining-swindle-left-bourne-a-ghost-town.html)
This is a new Saturday morning feature on the Offbeat Oregon podcast! A quick run-down of the fun things that are happening at local historical museums around the state. We're starting out with "the big one" — the Oregon Historical Society in Portland. There's a fantastic archaeology panel talk, a free-admission "block party" in September, and a Pulitzer Prize-winning Presidential historian on the menu! (Links to all of them are on https://ohs.org/events. By the way, cover art for this episode shows OPB Producer Christie Goshe and archaeologist Chelsea Rose.)
SOMETIME AROUND 1908, a resident of south Clatsop County — probably from the hamlet of Arch Cape — got sick and tired of dealing with Hug Point, and decided to do something about it. — It was a decision that had some unintended consequences — because it led directly to the law that made Oregon’s beaches public property.... (Arch Cape, Clatsop County; 1900s, 1910s) -- #ofor #oregonHistory #ORhistory -- 05 Jan 2025 -- By Finn J.D. John" /> (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/2501a1011e.hug-point-road-osWest-beaches-683.099.html)
Settlers in John Day in the late 1800s learned the healer of Kam Wah Chung could cure diseases others couldn't; all his patients survived the fatal Spanish Flu epidemic in 1919. (John Day, Grant County; 1880s, 1890s, 1900s. 1910s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1406d.doc-hay-lung-on.html)
The Grand Ronde Valley was a little pocket of temperate, well-watered land, tucked into some of the most inhospitable territory on the trail, was a real lifesaver for many an emigrant. But, that didn't stop them from griping about the prices they were charged .... (Near LaGrande, Union County; 1840s, 1850s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1709b.grande-ronde-valley-used-oxen-dealership-460.html)
Tiny coastal town was once known for the oldest privately owned aquarium in U.S.; it’s a popular place for stormwatchers. (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1012c_depoe-bay-worlds-smallest-harbor.html)
The rising waters of lakes and reservoirs have submerged many budding Oregon metropolises over the years, from tiny one-horse towns to an entire Native American homeland. (Klamath, Baker, Lane, Wasco County) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1406e.lost-cities-oregon-atlantis.html)
AS PORTLAND DISTRICT Attorney Walter Evans and his team ramped up their case against Louise Agee, the tone of the newspaper coverage got darker and darker. At one point The Oregonian quotes prosecutors and investigators (anonymously, of course) as saying she was not acting like an innocent person, and even comparing her with Lady Macbeth — she of the Shakespeare play.“She is regarded as a woman without imagination and to whom the finer feelings are undiscovered,” the Oregonian writes... (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/21-08.harry-agee-murder-mystery-600.html)
IT WAS A little after 10 p.m. on a Friday evening in the summer of 1921. In their little house on Druid Street in the St. Johns neighborhood of Portland, Robert Green and his family were getting ready for bed when they heard the screams.Rushing to the front porch, they found their neighbor, Ann Louise Agee, in her nightclothes, wild-eyed and disheveled.“Help! Come quick! They’re killing Harry!” she screamed. (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/21-08.harry-agee-murder-mystery-600.html)
When astronaut Jim Irwin came to Bend for lunar landing training in the lava rock of Oregon's 'moon country,' he made friends with a local resident — who gave him a sliver of Oregon lava to leave on the moon's surface. And so he did. (Bend, Deschutes County; 1960s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1208c-astronaut-left-oregon-lava-on-moon.html)
Calling himself “J. Hawker,” David Heesh dynamited several high-voltage powerline towers, then threatened to keep it up unless ransom was delivered; the FBI busted him using a CB radio trick. (Beavercreek, Clackamas County; 1970s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1404b.beavercreek-bomber-targeted-BPA.html)
Pilot boat sailed back and forth on the Columbia River Bar all day and all night before finally crashing onto the beach; when onlookers ran to rescue the sailors, they found the boat empty and deserted. (Columbia River Bar, Clatsop County; 1880s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1405a.pilot-boat-jc-cousins-crew-disappears.html)
“The ‘zoo,’ it turned out, was little more than a maze of chicken wire, random sheets of metal, and haphazard boards nailed together in ways that didn’t make structural sense,” writes Idaho Falls Post Register reporter Sally Krutzig in a 2020 article about the events of that night. “Animal feces were piled five feet high in some places, and bones covered nearly every square foot.”Also, three of the lions that had escaped from their pens had climbed up onto the roof, and were now watching the rescue operators as they moved through the compound. (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/23-10.oregons-tiger-king-626.html)
By 1984, Robert Fieber had more than 75 animals, including several dozen lions, tigers, jaguars, and wolves. He also had changed the name of his operation to Siletz Game Ranch — most likely “Oregon Coast Safari” was too similar to the name of West Coast Game Park Safari, the walk-through petting zoo near Bandon.But then, in September of that year, law enforcement agencies and members of the Humane Society raided the compound. Police seized several of Fieber’s animals and charged him with several counts of animal neglect (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/23-10.oregons-tiger-king-626.html)
As a filming location, Oregon really started to come into its own in the 1980s, and many locals can point to key cultural touchstones that played out right in their home towns. (Deschutes, Clackamas, Lane, Clatsop, and Multnomah County) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1403e.part3.iconic-movies-shot-in-oregon.html)
By the early 1960s, word started getting out in Hollywood about Oregon's virtues as a place to shoot on location. Productions made here during these eventful years follow changes in popular culture in an almost spooky way. (Lane, Baker, Lincoln, Marion, Deschutes, and Jackson County) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1403d.part2.iconic-movies-shot-in-oregon.html)
As a place to go shoot pictures on location, Oregon has become pretty popular in the last few dozen years. But the Beaver State's contribution to early cinema, though more sparse, was surprisingly influential. (Clatsop, Lane, Deschutes, Hood River County) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1403c.iconic-movies-shot-in-oregon-part1.html)
IF MULTNOMAH FALLS has any competition for the title of “crown jewel of the highway,” it would have to be Crown Point Vista House, which you could think of as America’s first rest area. It perches on the brow of a bluff just outside Corbett, overlooking the most spectacular part of the gorge’s big-picture scenery. It was designed by a German architect, built with cut sandstone, and features bathrooms with marble and polished mahogany walls. (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/2407c-1012b.sam-lancaster-columbia-river-highway-101.659.html)
Engineers make stuff that gets a job done. Paying extra money to make it prettier usually just doesn’t make sense. But every now and then you run into an engineer with a vision that marries great aesthetics with top-tier engineering and figures out how to make it all make better financial sense than a plain, cheap job. (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/2407c-1012b.sam-lancaster-columbia-river-highway-101.659.html)
George May was in an impossible situation, trapped in the upside-down hull of his ship, waiting for death. But then the ship washed ashore, the tide receded, and he lived to tell the story of the wreck of the M/V Oshkosh. (Columbia River Bar, Clatsop County; 1910s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1204a-mariner-survives-shipwreck-by-being-trapped-inside.html)
AFTER THE WAR, Claire Phillips was hailed as a hero. Even before she was back in North America, her hometown newspaper was singing her praises. Soon afterward, Reader’s Digest picked up the story and spread it nationwide.She wrote a memoir of her war activities, Manila Espionage, and it was published in 1947. The following year, at Fort Lewis, Gen. Mark Clark presented her with the Medal of Freedom, America’s highest award for a civilian.The accolades kept coming... until suddenly, one day, they didn't. (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/23-09.high-pockets-the-spymaster-625.html)
'High Pockets' was the nom de guerre of Claire Phillips, a gorgeous brunette Vaudeville girl from the faraway American town of Portland, Oregon ... a dancer of sultry dances, a singer of torchy cabaret songs, and a stage actress of unusual ability.In the Philippines, in the early years of the Second World War, she was playing the role of a lifetime: Madame Tsubaki, Italian nightclub owner. (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/23-09.high-pockets-the-spymaster-625.html)
THE 1925 PRISON break had a big effect on the state prison. Warden Dalrymple, as mentioned before, had been given the job for political reasons, and he was paired up with J.V. Starrett as the state parole officer. Starrett was actually on the Ku Klux Klan’s payroll (he was a Kleagle or something like that) and had done a yeoman’s job getting out the “Klown vote” to elect Pierce as governor; the position of parole officer had been his reward.But like a lot of people to whom membership in a gang of secret vigilante terrorists was appealing, Starrett was always hungry for more power and contemptuous of rules.... (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/23-05.bloody-1925-prison-break-621.html)
IT WAS A TYPICAL balmy August evening at the Oregon State Penitentiary. The bell had rung for supper, so inmates were streaming out of their cells and heading toward the dining hall for the evening meal, as they always did.But on this particular evening, four prisoners hung back from the throng, and when the last prisoner had rounded the corner out of sight, they doubled back, hurrying into the cell that had been assigned to one of their number. Working feverishly with an auger stolen somehow from the prison’s shops, they cut a hole in the roof ... (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/23-05.bloody-1925-prison-break-621.html)
Named after the warden who invented it, the “Gardner Shackle” eventually caused serious musculoskeletal damage; many former inmates limped for the rest of their lives as a result of habitually wearing one. (Salem, Marion County; 1860s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1403b.oregon-boot-cruel-unusual-punishment.html)
The Willamette Meteorite is the most famous heavenly body to end up in Oregon, but it’s far from the only one. Here are some of the others.... (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/23-07.stealing-the-willamette-meteorite-623.html)
IT WAS GETTING toward the end of the summer of 1902, and West Linn resident Ellis Hughes was getting worried.His neighbor, William Dale, had traveled back to Eastern Oregon to sell some land he owned there. With the proceeds, Dale and Hughes planned to buy a piece of property next to the Hughes farm.The property belonged to the Oregon Iron and Steel Co., which wasn’t really doing anything with it and which Hughes was pretty sure would be happy to sell … unless, of course, they found out why he wanted to buy it.... (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/23-07.stealing-the-willamette-meteorite-623.html)
“The plane started to swerve away from the boardwalk, flipped perpendicular to the ground, and crashed into a small hill near the river, wing first,” wrote Ian Chen. “Later my family figured that the pilot swerved away so he would not endanger the lives of the people on the ground, which also included my mom.”“I realize Mr. Wright really spared the lives of the people on the ground,” wrote Mei-Ling Chen. “It must (have been) really hard for him to make that decision that final moment. I’m writing this letter to let you know (what) an honorable man he was. Our family is very grateful for his actions.” (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1207sp-heroic-final-flight-of-jim-wright-howard-hughes-racer-plane.html)
BY THE SPRING of 2002, the plane was finally nearly ready, and Wright was starting to think about getting it into the air.Finally, in mid-June, surrounded by a small group of admiring aviators and the entire newsroom staff of the Cottage Grove Sentinel, the plane was rolled out onto the airfield and, with that smoky belch characteristic of all radial engines, the monstrous power plant started up. Cottage Grove’s airport echoed for the first time with the rough, belligerent roar of the Hughes H-1’s massive engine.... (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1207sp-heroic-final-flight-of-jim-wright-howard-hughes-racer-plane.html)
He’d spent thousands of hours re-creating history’s most mysterious aircraft. Something had gone wrong, and he was about to crash it. When he did, somebody would die. Who that would be was up to him. (Cottage Grove, Lane County; 2000s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1207sp-heroic-final-flight-of-jim-wright-howard-hughes-racer-plane.html)
THE PORTLAND TRAIL Blazers, in the summer of 1970, were nothing more than a gleam in the eye of the promoter who’d been banging the “NBA in Portland” drum for the previous 16 years.And it probably would have stayed that way, too, if not for a really long bathroom break taken in Beverly Hills that year.Here’s how that came about: (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/2402c-1011b.blazers-potty-break-096.636.html)
Before 1970, Oregon was home to exactly zero major-league teams from any of these sports. But after 1970, it was home to one: The Portland Trail Blazers, a basketball team that took just over five years to build a team that would win the NBA World Championship and become an absolute legend.Both of those things — the team’s inception, and its rise to the top — had a lot to do with a gregarious Portland promoter and sports fan named Harry Glickman. (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/2402c-1011b.blazers-potty-break-096.636.html)
“We notice,” Lola Green Baldwin said to the Portland City Council, “that there was $5,030 used this year for the dog pound, and an additional thousand is asked for 1908.” Would the Council consider, she asked, allocating half that amount “for practical, positive protection for the growing girlhood of the city of Portland?”, she wondered?Well, when one put it that way, how could they have said no? (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/23-06.lola-baldwin-municipal-mother-622.html)
BY THE TIME Walt Disney Productions released “The Rescuers” in 1977, the idea of a “Rescue Aid Society” dedicated to the eradication of kidnapping felt quaint, old-fashioned, and fun. But not many years earlier, when memories of the Progressive Era were fresher, it would not have scanned that way.... (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/23-06.lola-baldwin-municipal-mother-622.html)
On that tense late-August weekend, tens of thousands of young people enjoyed themselves at McIver Park, while the much-dreaded riots failed to materialize. Was there a connection? Many voters thought so. (McIver Park, Clackamas County; 1970s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1406c.291.vortex-the-event.html)
When McCall green-lighted the plan to distract potential street rioters with a week-long music festival, he fully expected to lose his job for it — whether it worked or not. (Salem, Marion County; 1970s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1406b.290.vortex-part2-the-family.html)
To Governor Tom McCall, it looked like Portland was about to explode, and there was nothing he could do to prevent it ... until two long-haired young people came to his chief of staff with a very unusual plan. (Portland, Multnomah County; 1970s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1406a.vortex-part1-psu-riot.html)
DAWN WAS JUST breaking, and Tom McAdams had just barely crawled into bed, when he got the alarm. A 50-foot sailboat was washing ashore near Waldport. McAdams had been up all night escorting a leaking fishing boat into port after it got caught in a bad storm 20 miles offshore. Now it was the morning of Dec. 13, 1973, and it was his wife Joanne’s birthday. He’d planned on snatching four or five hours of sleep and then maybe doing something with Joanne. Instead, he was sprinting across the street to Newport’s U.S. Coast Guard station, jumping a fence, and bounding into his 44-foot rescue lifeboat.McAdams was a master chief petty officer in the U.S. Coast Guard (and still is, albeit retired; he’s now in his 80s). In 1973 he was the commander of the Newport station, and was already probably the most famous enlisted man in Coast Guard history, a title he certainly holds today. By the time he retired in 1977 he had personally rescued hundreds of people, and taught hundreds of other rescuers how it was done. On this particular morning, though, there wouldn’t be much for McAdams to do. He raced out across the Yaquina Bay bar — which was rough, but it takes a lot to stop a 44 from crossing any river bar — and turned south. But by the time he’d gone a mile or so, the station radioed that the yacht had gone up on the beach, out of reach for a rescue boat. Other Coasties, rescue swimmers Greg Albrecht, Lewis Cavina and Bill Masten, were on their way down Highway 101 to the beach; saving the people on the boat would be up to them.When the rescue swimmers arrived, they found a middle-aged couple struggling feebly in the icy surf in their life jackets, trying to swim to shore. The rescuers quickly got them out of the water and onto dry land.Job done? Well, no. Because it turned out the boat's owner had his life savings, in gold, stuffed up under the cabin vent ... (Newport and Waldport, Lincoln County; 1970s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/21-06.mysterious-yacht-gold-rescue-McAdams-598.html)
Adorably boisterous and hearty, Mayor George Baker was the life of every party. But if you were a supporter of organized labor or an anti-war activist, he and his “Mayor's Secret Police” goons were not your friends. (Portland, Multnomah County; 1910s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1401b.george-baker-portlands-vaudeville-mayor.html)
Will Daly had earned the sworn enmity of the newspaper's publisher, Henry Pittock, by exposing his plan to steal city water for his lush West Hills estate. But Pittock evened the score with a midnight visit to Daly's residence. (Portland, Multnomah County; 1910s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1401a.will-daly-black-bag-job.html)
'Hols' Holbrook picked Portland for his new home because it had the best library, in his opinion, on the West Coast. Plus, it was smack in the middle of logging country.Upon arrival, he got a job as an associate editor of 4-L Lumber News. This was the official publication of the Loyal Legion of Loggers and Lumbermen union.This job more or less completed the apprenticeship of Stewart Holbrook as the premier voice of the American Mid-Century Timberman. (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/21-07.stewart-holbrook-599.html)
NINETY-EIGHT YEARS ago, in a logging camp deep in the forests of British Columbia, a logger in a funny hat walked up to a big stump, an ax in his hand.Taking off the hat — it was a battered bowler, an old-fashioned dandy’s hat even in 1923 — he laid it on the stump, set a nail in it, and drove it in.Then he turned and walked away. Probably he walked straight to the logging locomotive for his last ride into town. Nailing the hat to the stump was a symbolic act — Stewart H. Holbrook was quitting the logging business forever. ... (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/21-07.stewart-holbrook-599.html)
After the missionaries at Waiilatpu were wiped out by a military expedition of the Cayuse tribe, a crafty missionary named Spalding fabricated a wild, patriotic whopper of a phony story about them, and sold it to the nation. It was believed for more than a century afterward. (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/2403b-1010a.marcus-whitman-2of2-091.639.html)
JUST ABOUT EVERYONE remembers, from third-grade civics class, the story of Paul Revere’s midnight ride. And most people have since learned that his ride was a bit less dramatic than was portrayed in the famous poem about it.Christopher Columbus is an even more egregious example of how modern mythmakers have shaped even truly unsavory historical characters for propaganda purposes. The Oregon Territory’s late, lamented missionaries Marcus and Narcissa Whitman were certainly not unsavory characters like Columbus. But they had something more powerful going for them: Martyrdom. Or at least, something that looked a lot like it. (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/2403a-1010a.marcus-whitman-saves.091.638.html)
Twenty years ago, PT-658 was a weatherbeaten hulk, rotting away at a pier in San Francisco Bay. Today, it's a priceless piece of American history that you'll occasionally see on the waters of Portland Harbor. (Portland, Multnomah County; 1990s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1401c.pt-658-worlds-only-working-pt-boat.html)
Shortly after Charles Lyons' body was found, the owner of the 'bawdy house' in which he'd been partying skipped town and was never heard from again. Could she have been his murderer? Or was she an unknown killer's second victim? (Linkville, Klamath County; 1910s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1403a.charles-lyons-murder-myster-of-klamath-falls.html)
Legendary “Cayuse pony” breed gave Indians far more endurance and speed than settlers' mounts, a fact that cost gambler and horseman Joe Crabb most of his ready cash on “The Day Pendleton Went Bankrupt” (Pendleton, Umatilla County; 1870s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1404a.cayuse-tribes-legendary-ponies.html)
Elvis himself is rumored to have played at The Cottonwoods, a jumpin' joint near Lebanon, where thousands danced to the music of many of the 20th Century's greatest musicians. Today, it's a vacant lot — piled high with memories. (Lebanon, Linn County; 1930s, 1940s, 1950s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1208a-cottonwoods-dance-hall-hosted-music-legends-maybe-even-elvis.html)
Largest elephant in captivity went from “Tusko the Magnificent,” star of Lotus Isle, to “Tusko the Unwanted,” abandoned at the Oregon State Fair, with several destructive rampages along the way. But who could blame him? (Portland, Multnomah County; 1930s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1209c-tusko-the-terrible-led-a-colorful-tragic-life.html)
The short-lived attraction on Tomahawk Island was launched in an attempt to shake down the owners of nearby Jantzen Beach; their bluff called, the backers were forced to go forward with it. (Hayden Island/Tomahawk Island, Multnomah County; 1930s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1209b-lotus-isle-amusement-park-a-swindle-gone-awry.html)
The oysters belonged to the Siletz Indians and their employees, but Richard Hillyer was determined to take them anyway. We don't know much about the final battle, but we do know the outcome, and it must have been a doozie. (Newport, Lincoln County; 1860s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1405d.yaquina-oyster-pirate-wars.html)
Astronaut Stuart Roosa had a special relationship with the U.S. Forest Service, and when it was his turn to go to the moon, he proposed a science experiment. You can see the results towering over Peavy Hall at Oregon State University today. (Cape Canaveral, Florida; 1970s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1405b.moon-trees-of-oregon.html)
AFTER THE ELECTION, the new formerly homeless residents of Rajneeshpuram were the most pressing problem for Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh and his followers. They cost a lot of money to feed and house, and they started fights and made trouble. Rajneeshee leaders started out giving them bus tickets home, but that got very expensive very fast. After all, it had cost $1 million to bring them in by busloads; sending them home one or two at a time would be many times more than that. So finally, the Rajneeshees gave up and, herding them all aboard buses, simply hauled them to downtown Madras and dropped them off.Social-services agencies were forced to take on the task of getting them all home. The Salvation Army alone spent more than $100,000 taking care of them. (Near The Dalles, Wasco County; 1980s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/23-08d.rajneeshpuramPart4of5.html)
The Rajneeshee takeover of Antelope was not an anodyne bureaucratic exercise. To those who lived through it, it really did feel like a foreign military power had rolled into their town and occupied it. It started out very stealthily. Several properties in the town were up for sale, and suddenly there were offers on all of them. Very ordinary-looking people signed the documents and took possession. Then some more very ordinary-looking people moved into the properties.... (Rajneeshpuram, Wasco County; 1980s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/23-08c.rajneeshpuramPart3of5.html)
ON JUNE 1, 1981, Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh boarded a Boeing 747 for a flight from Mumbai to New York City.Officially the trip was for medical treatment, and authorities were told he’d be heading back home to India afterward. But Rajneesh was not planning on returning. His movement, which had already become an international octopus with meditation centers in dozens of different countries around the world, had outgrown the Pune campus. He needed a new World Headquarters. And his new personal secretary, Ma Anand Sheela (formerly known as Sheela Patel Silverman), had found one for him.Sheela closed the deal for the property then known as the Big Muddy Ranch the following month, paying $5.75 million for it. It was 64,229 acres of Central Oregon rangeland with only the amenities one would expect a family ranch to have. And in late August, she chartered a Learjet to fly the guru in to see, for the first time, the dry landscape that was to be his new home. (Big Muddy Ranch, Wasco and Jefferson County; 1980s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/23-08b.rajneeshpuramPart2of5.html)
ONCE UPON A time in India, a man lived. He would go on to become one of the most influential thinkers in new-age thought, but at this time — the early 1960s — he was merely a philosophy teacher, and one of thousands of gurus living and discoursing in that land of gurus. His name was Chandra Mohan Jain.But even then, just a few years out of graduate school, Jain was different. To call him charismatic would be a colossal understatement. By all accounts, this man could look into your eyes and speak to you for a half hour, and you would hurry home to sell all your earthly possessions to stay near him. He was charismatic enough that, by 1966, he was drawing big enough crowds and making fat enough cash on the speaking circuit to quit his teaching job at the University of Jabalpur, seven years after taking it, to focus on his “side hustle” as an independent guru. (Near Antelope, Wasco County; 1980s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/23-08.rajneeshpuramPart1of5.html)
A century ago, the drug had a dark, smoky allure for the 'fast' young men and women of Oregon cities, and smuggling routes through Portland were supplying the entire West Coast with the exotic, deadly stuff. (Portland, Multnomah County; 1890s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1402a.opium-culture-portland-urban-underworld.html)
Ever wonder why Hitler declared war on the U.S. after Pearl Harbor, despite some really obvious reasons why it wasn't a good idea? Here's the real reason: In April of 1941, while visiting Hitler in Berlin, Japanese Foreign Minister Yosuke Matsuoka, who grew up on the old Portland waterfront, induced Hitler to do a little bragging and to get carried away while talking about what Germany might do in a war with the U.S.“Germany would wage a vigorous war against America with U-boats and the Luftwaffe, and with her greater experience,” he assured Matsuoka. “This would be more than a match for America.”That’s when he said it: “If Japan gets into a conflict with the United States, Germany on her part will take the necessary steps at once.”With that, Japan had the personal pledge of the head of the German state that if war came, they’d back them up. And, of course, eight months later, they did. (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/22-11.matsuoka-imperial-japan-615.html)
IT MAY BE true that the movement of a butterfly’s wings on one side of the world can seed a tornado on the other.But whether it’s literally true or not, it certainly is figuratively true, and nowhere is it better demonstrated than in the case of 1890s businessman and opium smuggler William Dunbar of Portland, Oregon.If we could take Dunbar out of the stream of history before about 1890, we would derail events that led directly to Imperial Japan’s alliance with Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy in 1940; to Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor the following year; to the nuclear bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945; and (maybe) to the fact that the world did not end in a multi-gigaton nuclear fireball in late October of 1962.All this, because a politically well-connected drug smuggler in tiny, faraway Portland was unusually incompetent, and had taken a young Japanese boy into his household as a companion for his 14-year-old son.That little boy’s name was Yosuke “Frank” Matsuoka, the future Foreign Minister of Imperial Japan and the chief architect of the Tripartite Pact with Germany and Italy, just before the Second World War.... (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/22-11.matsuoka-imperial-japan-615.html)
AS YOU WILL have gathered, it didn’t exactly take brilliant detective work to figure out what was going on over at Dunbar Produce and Grocery. By November of 1893, word of what they were up to had been filtering up from the waterfront for at least a year and a half.So, in late November 1893, a grand jury returned indictments against 15 people — including Blum, Dunbar, and Lotan. The charges involved smuggling more than two tons of opium and running a human-trafficking operation smuggling thousands of undocumented Chinese laborers into Portland.The trial held the city spellbound. (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/22-12.blum-dunbar-opium-smugglers-616.html)
By the end of the 1880s, Dunbar was one of the most respected and influential members of Portland’s business community, and a member of the Arlington Club. But all was not well with him.It’s not clear what happened to push Dunbar over the edge into industrial-scale criminal enterprise. It may have been the death of his wife. It may also have been the influence of Nat Blum, a flamboyant cigar-store owner who was a junior partner in Merchants Steamship Co. Or maybe he was criminally inclined all along, believing on a philosophical level that the U.S. government had no right to tell him what he could and could not do with his steamships.Or, maybe he just hated waste. After all, nobody in Portland was buying shiploads of Chinese goods; each time one of his steamships left Portland, loaded with grain bound for buyers in China, it had to sail back home in ballast. Not only was the return trip wasted, but Dunbar had to pay draymen to load and unload the ballast rocks that would keep the ship stable and safe. We can imagine him thinking about this: What cargo could I bring from China to Portland, on the return voyages, after bringing wheat from Portland to China?And we can imagine him realizing that there were two cargoes that would be extremely lucrative for him: People, and opium. (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/22-12.blum-dunbar-opium-smugglers-616.html)
The problem with smuggling opium back in the 1890s was, although the stuff was still legal, it was taxed very heavily. That meant smuggling the stuff in without paying the tax was tantamount to stealing money from the government. And the government, as always, took money very seriously ... so if you were going to smuggle it, you needed a real cracker-jack team. And the Blum-Dunbar gang was a lot of things, but 'cracker-jack' — or even just 'competent' — wasn't one of them. (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/2408a-1202d.james-lotan-opium-king-661.161.html)
A special weekend episode to announce a live history show on Friday, May 29, from 7 to 9 p.m. at the Polk County Fairgrounds in Rickreall! It's a fundraiser so it costs $10; we're trying to help save the Fairgrounds, which is threatened with closure due to electrical issues that they can't afford to fix. We scheduled it for the weekend AFTER Memorial Day so it won't clash with anyone's vacation plans! Also, a short reading of the story of a blind man who developed what may actually have been a real, live 'sixth sense.'
ONE OF THE most significant events in the history of the world took place in 1892, when a corrupt political hack named James Lotan managed to land a cushy government job as the head of the customs inspection service for the Port of Portland.Believe it or not, Lotan’s landing that job led directly to Pearl Harbor and eventually Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and indirectly to the defeat of Nazi Germany in Europe. Not bad for a small-time white-collar criminal in a tiny backwater seaport town on the far side of the world, eh?I realize you may be a bit skeptical of this claim. Bear with me while I unpack it and prove it to you, along with the strong possibility that most of us owe our lives and the continued existence of human civilization to James Lotan and the sleazy little band of well-heeled drug smugglers and human traffickers who worked with and for him, on the Portland waterfront in the early 1890s.... (Portland, Multnomah County; 1890s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/2408a-1202d.james-lotan-opium-king-661.161.html)
Oregon’s last geothermal water-blaster, Old Perpetual, erupted for the last time sometime in the spring of 2009; a few dozen years ago, the state had two. (But now it's fixed again — see editor's note at end!) (Lakeview, Lake County; 1920s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1011c-last-geyser-in-oregon-goes-still-in-lakeview.html)
Discovered (sort of) by Oregon's first governor, the dry lakebed in south-central Oregon's Lake County is a gold mine of Ice Age fossils, from tiny rodents to wooly mammoths, saber-tooth cats and dire wolves. (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1010c-fossil-lake-oregons-answer-to-labrea-tar-pits.html)
Gorse reminded Irishman Lord George Bennett of home, so he planted it when he founded the Oregon seaside town of Bandon; years later, the gorse destroyed the city in a fiery cataclysm. (Bandon, Coos County; 1930s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1011d-bandon-founder-favorite-plant-destroyed-his-town.html)
Until the 1980s, you could ride the "Blue Goose" up the Row River past where "Stand By Me" was shot, near Cottage Grove.. Today, it's a 15.6-mile bike trail. (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1003d_BlueGoose.html)
A special weekend episode to announce a live history show on Friday, May 29, from 7 to 9 p.m. at the Polk County Fairgrounds in Rickreall! It's a fundraiser so it costs $10; we're trying to help save the Fairgrounds, which is threatened with closure due to electrical issues that they can't afford to fix. We scheduled it for the weekend AFTER Memorial Day so it won't clash with anyone's vacation plans! Also, a short reading from the Lockley Files, two of 'em: How the pioneers got rid of fleas and lice; and Umatilla County Sheriff John Bentley's creative plan to arrest legendary outlaw Hank Vaughan!
All through the summer of 1973, there was one song on the radio everywhere that you just couldn’t get away from: Jim Croce’s smash hit, “Bad, Bad Leroy Brown.”Come to think of it, it’s been very difficult to get away from that song ever since Croce wrote it. You probably are humming it to yourself right now: “Bad, bad Leroy Brown, baddest man in the whole damn town. Badder than old King Kong, meaner than a junkyard dog.”The little Cascade-foothills town of Boring once had its own Bad, Bad Leroy Brown — although when the song came out, very few people then alive were old enough to remember him. His name was Free Coldwell — or at least, that was what he called himself. Like Leroy Brown, he a proud, strutting tough guy who got a humiliating comeuppance. But his downfall didn’t come from making a pass at “the wife of a jealous man” in a Boring nightclub or bar. No; Free Coldwell was taken down by the citizens of Boring, who basically played an elaborate practical joke on him — with the help of a professional prizefighter. (Boring, Clackamas County; 1900s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/21-05.bad-bad-free-coldwell-baddest-boxer-in-boring.html)
In his short 11-month stay on the island nation, he taught 14 Imperial diplomats to speak English, and impressed them with his gentility and respectfulness. And after a long, adventurous life in Canada, his last word was, “Sayonara.” (Nagasaki, Japan; 1840s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1409d306.ranald-macdonald-part2.html)
Young Ranald MacDonald didn't know he was the grandson of Concomly, Chief of the Chinook Tribe. But before anyone could tell him, he'd run away to sea — and in so doing, dramatically changed the destiny of three great nations.(Astoria, Clatsop County; 1820s, 1830s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1409c305.ranald-macdonald-part1.html)
“World's Greatest Trick Rider” sold more than 50,000 bicycles in an age when bikes were the cutting edge of transportation technology; Oregon women loved them — until they started getting mistaken for hookers on the prowl ... could this be the true orgin of 'bicycle face'? (Portland, Multnomah County; 1890s, 1900s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1409a.303.fred-merrill-bicycle-king.html)
Clackamas County man claimed his father had bought the salvage rights in 1908, setting off a huge dust-up among residents, beachgoers and politicians, who scrambled to protect the landmark wreck. He almost got away with it, too. (Warrenton, Clatsop County; 1960s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1208d-schemer-sought-to-sell-peter-iredale-shipwreck-for-scrap.html)
A special weekend episode to announce a live history show on Friday, May 29, from 7 to 9 p.m. at the Polk County Fairgrounds in Rickreall! It's a fundraiser so it costs $10; we're trying to help save the Fairgrounds, which is threatened with closure due to electrical issues that they can't afford to fix. We scheduled it for the weekend AFTER Memorial Day so it won't clash with anyone's vacation plans! Also, a short reading from the Lockley Files, the recollections and a tall tale from an old stagecoach driver, as told to legendary Oregon Journal columnist Fred Lockley: 'Honey, I shrunk the horse team!'
LEGENDARY RACONTEUR REUB Long, the “Sage of Fort Rock,” packed a whole lot into his 76 years living in central Oregon. Most of it — though by no means all — had to do with horses. But, as you may remember from last week’s column, by the time he was settling down on his ranch in the mid-1960s to take it easy and write his memoirs, Reub Long had worked at least a dozen different side hustles, from dairy farming to running a pool hall. But none of those physical skills are what he’s most remembered for today; none of those things are keeping the memory of Reub Long alive. They’re not what’s bringing tourists to tiny Fort Rock to this day to ask about him at the Fort Rock General Store downtown, or in the nearby Fort Rock Homestead Village Museum gift shop.Today, Reub is mostly remembered as a gifted teller of impromptu tall tales — as he wrote in his book, not exactly lying to people, but “baffling them a bit.” (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/2405d-1209a.reub-long-tall-tale-teller-2of2-187.651.html)
Oregon was once known as a place full of “great liars” — tellers of tales so tall they'd cause every pair of pants in the room to spontaneously burst into flame. Central Oregon storyteller Reub Long could hold his own with the best of them. (Fort Rock, Lake County; 1930s, 1940s, 1950s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/2405c-1209a.reub-long-sage-of-fort-rock-1of2-187.650.html)
Tens of thousands of U.S. soldiers, shipped to the Beaver State for training (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1408d.oregon-maneuver-ww2.html)
Built in six months, the bustling metropolis of 40,000 lasted just six years before being turned, by order of the U.S. Government, into a ghost town and cut up for salvage. (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/2505b1004d.camp-adair-699.071.html)
BY EARLY 1941, the U.S. Army knew it was about to get sucked into at least one of the wars that were already raging around the world.The Selective Service and Training Act had passed the previous fall, and already young American men were being drafted into the Army, swelling its ranks with green recruits. Sooner or not much later they’d be in combat, fighting for their lives. There was no time to be lost — those combat noobs had to be trained and hardened and prepared so that they would have as good a chance as possible when thrown into the fight.With that in mind, the Army started looking for suitable locations for a combat-training campus between Portland and San Francisco on the West Coast.It would need to be about 65,000 acres and, in addition to the usual building sites and gunnery ranges, it would have to include geography similar to the sites where the fighting was expected to happen: rolling hills, steep slopes, swampy terrain, thick forests, and something approximating jungle foliage.Moving very fast — after all, new conscripts were coming in all the time — the Army settled on two prospective sites: one near Eugene, and one just north of Corvallis.The Corvallis site won the toss — there were fewer residents to be displaced, and the railroad and highway infrastructure was more developed. That was in June 1941.By the end of that year, the funds were allocated and the plans drawn up, and nine months later Oregon’s second largest city had spring into being out of the swampy ground. (Camp Adair, Benton County; 1940s, 1950s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/2505b1004d.camp-adair-699.071.html)
State regulators didn't care, so neither did some dairy farmers, who left dead cows to rot among their dairy herds and brought milk to market in the same cans they used to slop the hogs; Portland led the nation in baby deaths as a result. (Portland, Multnomah and Columbia county; 1900s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1208b-bad-milk-was-killing-babies-in-portland.html)
Searching for a fabulous source of gold formerly belonging to a friend who'd mysteriously disappeared, miners stumbled across Crater Lake. They never found the gold, though; could it be that it's still out there somewhere? (Yreka, Siskiyou County (Calif.); 1850s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1207b-crater-lake-discovered-by-legendary-gold-mine-seekers.html)
Pulp writer and religious figure L. Ron Hubbard figures prominently in the most spectacular story of action against “Japanese submarines” in Oregon waters. It's called, with tongue firmly in cheek, the “Battle of Cape Lookout.” (Off Cannon Beach, Clatsop County; 1940s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1407a.sunken-submarine-rumors.html)
James Lappeus came to Portland from the gold fields of California, where he was a gambler, saloonkeeper and general mining-town rowdy. His career as a cop was dogged by rumors he'd offered to spring a murderer for a $1,000 bribe. (Portland, Multnomah County; 1850s, 1860s, 1870s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1207a-james-lappeus-crooked-gambler-police-chief-in-portland.html)
Of all the prisoners who tried to escape from Oregon's state prison, the “yeggs” were most successful — if “successful” is the right word. Their schemes for leaving the jailhouse behind included a tunneling scheme right out of “The Shawshank Redemption.” (Salem, Marion County; 1890s, 1910s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1207d-safecrackers-were-good-at-jailbreaks.html)
What looked like a rotting-away hunk of scrap steel was a rare artifact of Portland's World War II shipbuilding industry — but the discovery was made just a few days too late. (Zigzag, Columbia County; 1940s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1207e-rusty-lifeboat-turned-out-to-be-relic-of-second-world-war.html)
After a beachfront landowner discovered a loophole in the law and fenced off “his” beach, other oceanfront property owners were eager to follow suit. Governor Tom McCall was determined to stop them, and this is how he did it. (Cannon Beach, Clatsop County; 1960s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1206a-how-tom-mccall-saved-public-beaches.html)
For decades after the Tillamook Burn, classes of schoolchildren were bused out to help replant. Today, thousands of Oregonians, on trips to the beach, can point to a thriving patch of forest and say, “We planted those trees.” (Tillamook, Yamhill, Washington county; 1950s, 1960s, 1970s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1408b.schoolkids-replant-tillamook.html)
Quick action by state forester Lynn Cronemiller prevented the devastating forest fire from claiming hundreds of lives when a furnace-stoking wind blew in from Eastern Oregon, flogging the fire toward the sea. (Washington, Yamhill, Tillamook County; 1930s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1408a.tillamook-burn-pt2-the-legacy.html)
A hard-pressed crew tried to snake just a few more logs out before quitting for the day, hoping nothing would go wrong in the tinder-dry forest. Unfortunately, something did. (Forest Grove, Washington County; 1930s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1407d.tillamook-burn-1933-outbreak.html)
Is there any truth to the stories of shanghaiings of the cigar-store Indian and of the dozens of dead guys found in the basement of the funeral parlor next door to the “Snug Harbor Saloon”? Well ... maybe. But then again ... yeah, no. (Portland, Multnomah County; 1890s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1407c.bunco-kelley-part2-the-myths.html)
He was Portland's most notorious bad guy, with his fingers in everything from shanghaiing sailors to smuggling opium. But ironically, when he was finally sent to prison, it was for a murder he clearly didn't commit. (Portland, Multnomah County; 1890s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1407b.bunco-kelley-part1-the-facts.html)
1860s Bannock leader disappeared as mysteriously as he appeared, leaving behind nothing but frontier folklore and a trail of 17-inch-long moccasin prints; a probably-untrue rumor claims Nampa, Idaho, was named after him. (Malheur County; 1850s, 1860s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1409b.304.chief-bigfoot-legend.html)
Fishermen working in heavy 24-foot boats at the mouth of the Columbia kept getting sucked out onto the bar and drowning in its massive breakers. Their odds of not surviving a season were as high as 1 in 15. (Astoria, Clatsop County; 1880s, 1890s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1206d-most-dangerous-catch-salmon-on-columbia-river-bar.html)
Ashamed to show his face in Astoria after causing the loss of the biggest passenger liner on the West Coast, Thomas Doig slunk away to South America and remade himself as a military man. (Columbia River Bar, Clatsop County; 1870s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1408c.300.great-republic-wreck.html)
Sometime in 1915, a 40-year-old Black woman named Frankie Baker stepped off the train at Portland’s Union Station. She had come to stay; Oregon would be her home for the rest of her life.At that time, Portland had a a reputation as a good place to hide out when you were on the lam. It was far off the beaten path; but the town had all the cultural perquisites of civilization, or most of them anyway. Plus, the people of Oregon had a reputation for minding their own business. So a lot of people who got into trouble back east came to Portland hoping for a fresh start. And yes, Frankie was one of them.But she wasn’t running from the law, or from an abusive spouse. She was running from a popular song. Frankie Baker, you see, was the Frankie — of “Frankie and Johnny” fame. ... (Portland, Multnomah County; 1920s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/21-04.frankie-baker-they-done-her-wrong-596.html)
THE STORY TOLD in “Frankie and Johnny” is very well known — the song has been covered by at least 250 recording artists over the last 120 years. Mae West made it her theme song. Elvis Presley’s recording earned him a gold record. Originally a ragtime piece, it’s been adopted into jazz (Louis Armstrong, Count Basie, Dave Brubeck …), country (Johnny Cash, Doc Watson, Jimmie Rogers …), blues (Leadbelly, Mississippi John Hurt, Mississippi Joe Callicott …), rock-and-roll (Jerry Lee Lewis, Van Morrison, Gene Vincent …) — basically, every musical style that’s come along since the end of the 19th century. Somewhere out there, there is probably even a dubstep version. I couldn't find one, but I did find Lena Horne's. And the list goes on and on.Of course, it should be no big surprise that the story the song tells is not strictly true. But, what is the real story, you might ask?The front cover of one of the first nationally-published sheet-music versions of Frankie and Johnny, published by Tell Taylor in 1912. (Image: Square Dance Resource Net) (link to the PDF of the sheet music: https://offbeatoregon.com/assets-2021/21-04.frankie-baker-he-done-her-wrong/FrankieAndJohnny-LeightonBrosRenShields-1.pdf )Well … (St. Louis, Missouri; 1910s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/21-04.frankie-baker-they-done-her-wrong-596.html)
Charles “Black Bart” Bolton's neighbors in San Francisco thought his money came from ownership in gold mines. It turned out it came from furtive excursions northward to rob stagecoaches in Oregon and northern California. (Siskiyou Pass, Jackson County; 1880s, 1890s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1401d.black-bart-gentleman-stage-robber-poet.html)
Two motor lifeboat crews went out on the bar to save three surviving sailors. Both boats went to the bottom of the sea — but not a man was lost on either crew, and all the survivors were rescued. (Columbia River Bar, Clatsop County; 1910s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1506d.CursedShips-RosecransRescue.html)
The big oil tanker had weathered two major catastrophes in the previous year — a stranding and a colossal fire. But for 33 doomed crew members, the third time would be the charm — or, rather, the hex. (Columbia River Bar, Clatsop County; 1910s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1506c.cursed-ships-rosecrans-344.html)
At the pay the city of Sandy was offering, Otto Austin Loel was the only man willing to take the job. He didn't turn out to be much of a bargain ... but it wouldn't be until years later that the town learned how much worse he could have been. (Sandy, Clackamas County; 1940s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1506a.sandy-police-chief-executed-for-murder-342.html)
“This is an age of do-it-first,” said Silas Christofferson, and proceeded to launch his spindly kite-like “aeroplane” from the roof of a downtown hotel — making aviation history in the heart of Oregon's biggest town. (Portland, Multnomah County; 1910s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1408e.302.silas-christofferson-portland-hero-aviator.html)
Neighbors wondered if the eight-foot-tall corpse found by developer at what today is YWCA Camp Westwind was evidence that an old Native American legend of a pirate ship is true; if so, there might actually be booty buried there, some say. (Cascade Head, Lincoln County; 1930s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1204e-giant-skeleton-evidence-of-pirate-treasure-legend.html)
75 years ago, without realizing who he was, Wallowa County included Bruce “Blue” Evans — leader of the gang that massacred dozens of innocent Chinese miners back in 1887 — on a plaque commemorating its earliest white settlers. (Enterprise, Wallowa County; 1880s, 1930s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1204b-monument-mass-murderer-chinese-miners.html)
The Melanope's maritime career started with a witch's curse. But her most dramatic story was the torrid, doomed love affair its skipper carried on with the heiress who bought the ship so she could be with him as he sailed it. (Columbia River Bar, Clatsop County; 1900s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1506b.cursed-ships-melanope-343.html)
By far the most embarrassing jailbreak in state history happened when a murderer simply walked out the back door of a Motel 6 during an unsupervised “date” with a woman officials thought was his fiancee. (Salem, Marion County; 1970s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1207c-carl-cletus-bowles-jailbreak-during-conjugal-visit.html)
Ancient electrical wiring ignited Portland's legendary Forestry Building, a structure made of massive, flawless old-growth logs that had been built for the Lewis and Clark Exposition in 1905. (Portland, Multnomah County; 1960s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1206c-forestry-building-biggest-log-cabin-burned.html)
Historic steam schooner vanished on a calm night in 1930, leaving lifeboats and debris floating in the water — but no bodies, alive or dead. Was it a violent micro-storm? A “seaquake”? A boiler explosion? We'll never really know. (Gold Beach, Curry County; 1930s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1206b-mysterious-disappearance-of-steamer-south-coast.html.html)
Ruth Judd was in a fierce argument with her friends Annie Leroi and Sammy Samuelson. Furious, she stood up to go. She took her drink cup to drop it off in the kitchen sink. When she got there — well, something happened. Something involving a kitchen knife, a Colt .25 automatic, and possibly another, larger-caliber pistol... (Phoenix, Arizona; 1930s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/21-03.trunk-murders-anne-leroi-595.html)
OREGON DIVORCEE AGNES Anne “Annie” LeRoi arrived in Phoenix in the first few months of 1931 with her best friend and roommate, schoolteacher Hedvig “Sammy” Samuelson. They were climate refugees: Sammy had tuberculosis, and at the time the only cure for “consumption” was a dry climate and rest.Back then, many patients with TB waited until they were so far gone that the climate couldn’t save them; essentially, they moved to Arizona to die. Sammy wasn’t one of them; her case was mild. But, although she didn’t know it, she, too, was moving to Arizona to die. She had less than nine months to live. So did Annie.Neither one of them would die of tuberculosis, though. (Phoenix, Arizona; 1930s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/21-03.trunk-murders-anne-leroi-595.html)
Two of them had movies made about their wartime exploits — “30 Seconds over Tokyo” and “The Great Escape”; a third, captured and imprisoned in the raid, returned to Japan after the war as a Christian missionary. (Pendleton, Umatilla County; 1940s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1505a.part3-doolittles-pendleton-raiders-337.html)
Robert S. Clever, Everett “Brick” Holstrom, Henry “Hank” Potter and Robert G. Emmens were four Oregon aviators who did the Beaver State proud in what seemed like a suicide mission over enemy territory. (Pendleton, Umatilla County; 1940s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1504d.part2-doolittles-pendleton-raiders-336.html)
Oregon played a vital role in America's answer to Pearl Harbor — the daring daylight airstrike on Tokyo and other Japanese cities that provided a much-needed morale boost during the dark days of 1942. (Pendleton, Umatilla County; 1940s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1504c.part1-doolittles-pendleton-raiders.335.html)
Although she's most remembered for being the mistress of a famous man, journalist and rodeo performer Mona Bell Hill was, on her own, one of the most interesting people ever to live in Oregon — and, to the government, one of the most vexing. (Bonneville, Multnomah County; 1910s, 1920s, 1930s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1706d.mona-bell-wild-west-bearcat-449.html)
The Columbia, the Great river of West, was known for spectacular scenery and phenomenal fishing; Oregon has traded that for a placid, lake-like waterway and cheap hydroelectric power. (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1009a_celilo-falls-part-of-once-wild-Columbia.html)
The Mindora and the Merrithew had docked next to each other in San Francisco, arrived within a few days of each other, wrecked within a few hours of each other, and washed up on the beach within a few miles of each other. (Columbia River Bar, Clatsop County; 1850s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1505b.mindora-merrithew-double-shipwreck-338.html)
Caught by a railroad “bull,” the thief shot his way out and ran for it. But an accurate shot by the dying guard and some persistent police work brought the bad guy to justice in a pistol-waving scene in a seedy Albina hotel room. (Albina, Multnomah County; 1920s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1205a-roaring-20s-railroad-murder-mystery-solved.html)
Because of how it's chartered, the ghost town of Greenhorn remained an incorporated city even when its population was zero — but it couldn't defend its city hoosegow from the midnight raiders of Canyon City one summer night. (Grant and Baker County; 1960s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1505d.greenhorn-smallest-city-jail-stolen-340.html)
As they hung in the riggings of the sailing ship Etoile du Matin waiting for death, they felt their ship start to break apart — but the piece that broke off first was the keel, enabling the ship to float upriver to safety. (Columbia River Bar, Clatsop County; 1840s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1504b.etoile-matin-miracle-shipwreck.334.html)
But did Lischen M. Miller create the story of Muriel Trevenard, the mysterious young woman who came to Newport in the 1870s and vanished ... or did she merely write down a story that locals whispered to each other on stormy nights? (Newport, Lincoln County; 1870s, 1890s, 1940s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1709a.muriel-trevenard-evan-macclure-yaquina-bay-lighthouse-ghosts-459.html)
WHEN IT WAS over, the survivors in Heppner had an awful job ahead of them. A quote from the Portland Oregonian, reprinted in DenOuden’s article in the Oregon Historical Quarterly, sums it up: “Scenes at Heppner are indescribable in their gruesomeness, their anguish, their awful desolation. No pen can exaggerate the horrors they present. Every heap of debris may contain a human forming decomposition. Many do reveal such spectacles when uncovered, and meantime Willow Creek, as if to mock the dead, has returned to a purling brooklet.” (Heppner, Umatilla County; 1900s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/2412c1004c.heppner-flood-worst-in-history-680.070.html)
ON JUNE 15, 1903, a strange little article appeared in the Portland Morning Oregonian.“It is reported that a tremendous cloudburst occurred at Heppner late in the afternoon,” the article states. “All communication with that town has been cut off and nothing definite can be learned.”The silence must have struck the editors as ominous. Heppner was a modern 20th-century town, with a telegraph office and a telephone exchange. Also, by press time they would have at least heard rumors that a massive, unsanitary slug of muddy water clotted with farm animals, household goods, and other domestic debris had just gushed downhill through the towns of Lexington and Ione following the banks of the usually-tiny Willow Creek, doing considerable property damage. Lexington and Ione were just downstream from Heppner.It wouldn’t be until late Sunday night, well past the hour the Oregonian was on the presses, that the outside world would start to learn the full story:At 5:20 p.m. on that sultry Sunday afternoon, a wall of muddy, turbulent water 30 to 40 feet high had slammed into the town, scooping up roughly a third of its buildings and killing 247 of Heppner’s 1,290 residents.It was the worst flash-flood disaster in U.S. history with the sole exception of Pennsylvania’s Johnstown Flood, measured by loss of life. (The hurricane-driven flooding that struck North Carolina earlier this year, including the city of Asheville, killed 129, including 26 who are still missing). And it remains the deadliest disaster of any kind in the history of Oregon. (Heppner, Umatilla County; 1900s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/2412c1004c.heppner-flood-worst-in-history-680.070.html)
Jovial and gregarious, Adelhelm Odermatt locked his sights on a vision of a hilltop monastery — and then deployed himself like a jovial, glad-handing, never-sleeping bombshell to make it happen. It was a near thing, but he pulled it off. (Mt. Angel, Marion County; 1880s, 1890s, 1900s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1505c.adelhelm-odermatt-mt-angel-abbey-339.html)
“Amsterdam Jack” Murray claimed it was all a misunderstanding, but the jury obviously suspected he'd intended to murder his wife's brother all along; then the appeals court learned he was a bigamist to boot. (Portland, Multnomah County; 1880s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1709d.john-murray-murders-brother-in-law-462.html)
When first reported, it looked like a simple murder-suicide. But it quickly became clear that it was something far more sinister — and the motives of the killer were uglier and more sordid than anyone had thought possible. (Brownsville, Linn County; 1860s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1708d.sidney-barbara-smith-murders-458.html)
Jerry and Lu Parks envisioned a “fairy-tale history of Oregon” in the form of an amusement park. What they created was a rich cultural artifact, and a treasured childhood memory for a generation of Oregonians. (Otis and Lincoln City, Lincoln County; 1960s, 1970s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1709c.pixieland-old-oregon-cultural-artifact-461.html)
The former logger tried to cash in on his knack for boat design and total lack of normal fear by paddling over waterfalls: Willamette Falls, Celilo Falls, South Silver Falls. But although he got famous, he never managed to get rich. (Silver Falls State Park, Marion County; 1920s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1708c.al-faussett-waterfall-running-daredevil-457.html)
The real Mary Leonard was probably someone who had given up “the good life” after realizing, during her time in jail, that the powerless women of her time were getting a raw deal — and determined to do something about it. (Portland, Multnomah County; 1900s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1205d-mary-leonard-legal-mother-teresa.html)
Had Mary Leonard died in 1890, she'd be remembered as she really was — a brilliant orator and an inspiration to future Oregon women and attorneys. But fate let her live another 20 years, during which she devolved into a total nut case. (Portland, Multnomah County; 1890s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1205b-mary-leonard-murder-trial-part2.html)
Many historians, eager to see in her the caricature of the nagging, garrulous fishwife and gold-digging black widow, have missed the real story of Mary Leonard — and done both her, and the historical record, a disservice. (The Dalles, Wasco County; 1880s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1205b-mary-leonard-murder-trial-part1.html)
A MILE OR two north of the picturesque little Central Coast town of Depoe Bay, there’s a little unassuming wide spot at the side of Highway 101 where you can pull off the road and park. There are a couple trails leading down to the sea from that spot, and at very low tides you’ll often see people there, climbing over the ridge and picking their way down to the rocky, forbidding shore below.You’ll also sometimes see one of them stop to get a photo of a really incongruous thing at the top of the bluff. It’s a large, rusty steel pipe, wide at the top and narrow at the bottom, shaped like an air duct or maybe a ventilation stack on a steamship. The pipe towers about eight feet above the ground and is very obviously buried nearly that far into the dirt below.That duct is one of two remaining large pieces left from what must have been the most spectacular shipwreck in West Coast history: The fiery, explosive demise of the steam schooner J. Marhoffer.And yes, that huge piece of steam-engine ductwork is where it is, sticking out of the ground hundreds of yards from the bay, because it fell out of the sky and jammed into the ground like a giant Lawn Jart after being blasted into the air by the explosion.Here's the story .... (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/2411b1004b.boiler-bay-shipwreck-675.069.html)
State treasurer Straub was a regular visitor to the state park through which the highway department wished to route the main Oregon Coast arterial. He took one look at the department's plans — and declared war. (Nestucca Spit, Tillamook County; 1960s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1708b.bob-straub-saves-nestucca-spit-456.html)
Desperate for men, shanghai artists once tried to kidnap the local Methodist minister. He turned out not to be as soft a target as they'd anticipated. (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1203d-astoria-once-hotbed-of-shanghaiing.html)
Don't be fooled: Fern Hobbs was a secretary in the “Secretary of Defense” sense of the word. A practicing attorney, she was the highest-paid woman in public service. Copperfield's city fathers thought they could charm her ... they were wrong. (Copperfield, Baker County; 1910s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1708a.copperfield-affair-oswald-west-martial-law-455.html)
The six-week-long drunken party was thrown by the notoriously rascally Jonathan Bourne Jr. to keep the state Legislature from convening, so it couldn't elect John H. Mitchell to the U.S. Senate. It worked — well, sort of.(For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1201e-bourne-40-day-party-stopped-legislature.html)
THERE WERE TIMES, during Hollywood’s golden age, when Clark Gable simply couldn’t be found anywhere.Studio executives would search frantically for the top-shelf star, needing to talk to him about a project and facing a tight deadline. He’d be gone.In fact, he’d be fly-fishing on the Rogue River in Oregon, while staying in a small inn that today is the oldest continually operating hotel in the entire Pacific Northwest: The Wolf Creek Tavern.Clark wasn’t the only Hollywood bigshot in on the secret, either. The Wolf Creek Tavern was a regular place of refuge for a bunch of Golden Age Hollywood stars, including Carole Lombard, Douglas Fairbanks Jr., Mary Pickford, Orson Welles, and even John Wayne.Also, if you are more of a literature buff, Sinclair Lewis’s name is also on the guest register, and Jack London was a regular and did quite a bit of writing there. With his wife, Charmian Kittredge London, he holed up in a tiny little garret-like room over the hotel’s front porch for several weeks in 1912 to put the finishing touches on the manuscript for The Valley of the Moon.... (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/2411a1004a.wolf-creek-tavern-674.068.html)
Marooned in a frozen winter wasteland after a hostile tribe attacked and killed everyone else, she kept herself and her two children alive through the winter and then led them home to safety. (Snake River basin; 1810s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1707c.marie-dorion-oregons-revenant-part3-452.html)
Charged with blazing a trail to the West Coast, the voyageurs in the party decided to paddle down a strange river, hoping for an easy ride to the sea. Only the charity of local Native American tribes saved them all from starvation. (Snake River wilderness; 1810s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1707b.marie-dorion-astorian-party-part2-451.html)
As the Native American bride of a French-Canadian interpreter, she joined the Astorian Party on its overland voyage to Oregon to set up a trading post on the Columbia River. Did she know what they were getting into? (Snake River area, 1810s - Part 1 of 3 parts) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1707a.marie-dorion-part1-450.html)
During its glory days, the Gertrude was the fastest blockade runner in the Confederate fleet. But just 17 years later, it was just another dumpy old steamer on a lowly coastwise run, wrecked in what was probably an insurance-fraud scheme. (Coos Bay, Coos County; 1880s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1310a-gussie-telfair-shipwrecked-warrior.html)
The dispute over the McQuinn Strip was no simple neighborhood kerfuffle. The amount of land in dispute was roughly 80,000 acres — close to 10 percent of the whole Warm Springs Indian Reservation. And the dispute burned hot for 101 years.Not until 1972 did Congress finally do the right thing and pass legislation giving it back. And even then, there were still people in the government (notably the Forest Service) who didn’t want to do it. (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/2410b1002c.mcquinn-strip-101-year-land-dispute-671.html)
IF THERE IS an entry in the Guinness Book of World Records for the longest active land dispute, it has to belong to the Confederated Tribes of Warm Springs Indians in central Oregon.But maybe it wouldn’t count for the record, as the land was only in dispute for the first 16 of those years. The whole rest of the time was taken up trying to get the government to follow the law and give the stolen land back. (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/2410b1002c.mcquinn-strip-101-year-land-dispute-671.html)
Bunco Kelley was out of prison, Mysterious Billy Smith was at loose ends, and Jumbo Riley was looking for something to do ... somehow, they ended up at a table at Erickson's Saloon with the Jost brothers, talking about getting back into the shanghaiing business. Alas, it was not to be ... (Portland, Multnomah County; 1907) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1906c.jost-brothers-the-last-shanghaiers-552.html)
Oregon's Sailors' Boardinghouse Commission seemed completely uninterested in any enforcement activity other than ordering Larry Sullivan's competitors to leave the business. Naturally, those competitors fought back as best they could. (Portland, Multnomah County; 1900s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1906b.mysterious-billy-part2of2-551.html)
After Jim Turk's death, former pro prizefighter Larry Sullivan virtually owned the shanghaiing business in Portland ... but there was one competitor he couldn't seem to shake: 'Mysterious Billy' Smith, boxing's Welterweight Champion of the World -- whose 'day job' was crimping sailors. (East Portland, Multnomah County; 1900s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1906a.mysterious-billy-smith-shanghaier-550.html)
AS OF THE time of this writing, there is some disagreement over the status of Oregon’s largest city. It all came to a head last month when the President of the United States referred to it as “war-ravaged Portland” in a Tweet, and locals responded by going on Amazon and buying every inflatable frog costume they could get their hands on.Interesting times, indeed!A little over 100 years ago, though, you could have made the case that parts of Portland were — not war-ravaged, exactly, but probably the most dangerous city in North America in which to go out drinking.But the risk you ran wasn’t getting killed, injured, or — uh, ravaged. It was the risk of waking up the next morning with a splitting headache and a bad case of seasickness, on board a barque headed for Liverpool. With an angry first mate screaming at you to get up and get to work and probably giving you a few kicks in the ribs to drive the point home that, whatever you thought your occupation was last night, this morning you were a sailor. (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/2511a1006c.portland-shanghaiing-capital-of-world-710.076.html)
Shanghaiing was the most extreme form of a practice called 'crimping,' which was basically a human-trafficking operation that ran on something like forced indebtedness. (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/2511a1006c.portland-shanghaiing-capital-of-world-710.076.html)
The mild-mannered drywall contractor turned out to be a notorious gangster after an article in the Morning Oregonian published his mugshots; he was wanted for the murder of three family members. (Beaverton, Washington County; 1940s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1505e.holden-fbi-most-wanted-caught-341.html)
But Bourne had a plan to turn that around ... (Salem, Marion County; 1890s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1906d.hold-up-session-1897-553.html)
Central and Eastern Oregon was “Oregon's liquor cabinet” during Prohibition; its wide open spaces and tight-knit communities made busting bootleggers uncommonly difficult there. (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1203c-moonshiners-of-oregon-outback.html)
WHEN CHERRY SEASON rolls around, there’s never much doubt about what varieties you’ll find in your local grocery store. They’ll usually have some white or blush cherries, typically Royal Anne or Rainier; but most of them will be Bings.Among cherry fans, the deep-red Bing is the gold standard, and has been for well over 100 years now. Rich and sweet, almost like chocolate in its intensity of flavor, the Bing dominates the supermarket and is most people’s favorite variety. And there is probably no single fruit that’s more closely associated with the state of Oregon than this heavenly cherry, the ancestors of which actually crossed the Oregon Trail and may have saved its fellow travelers on the wagon train from harm at the hands of some fed-up Indian tribes along the way.For all of that, we mostly have three fruit-growing brothers to thank: Henderson Luelling, and his younger brothers John and Seth. ... (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/2410a1001b_luelling-oregon-trail-story-670.056.html)
Hopping on an old steel one-speed and pedaling 30 miles, then mowing a half-acre of lawn with a push mower, chopping down an oak tree twice, and riding 30 miles back again — it was all in a weekend's work for Gov. T.T. Geer. (Champoeg, Marion County; 1890s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1706a.governor-geer-bicycles-to-champoeg-446.html)
The armed men who apparently came to rob and kill the travelers helped pull them over the summit of McKenzie pass instead - after discovering there were six children in the wagon. (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1002a_Robbers.html)
'Diamond Bill' Barrett earned his nickname by sweet-talking a jewelry store into letting him borrow a $55,000 diamond, which he promptly hocked. Later, he deployed that legendary charm to sweet-talk two heiresses into marrying him, then disappeared with showgirl-turned-trophy-wife Sidi Wirt Spreckels' $100,000 string of pearls. But the mystery remains: Did he really steal Sidi's pearls ... or did he fence them for her? (Hillsboro, Washington County; 1910s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1905c.diamond-bill-barrett-heiress-whisperer-548.html)
At the critical moment, the keeper of the rescue station at Cape Arago lost his nerve and deserted his waiting crew. Eleven shipwrecked sailors drowned while he huddled behind the warm stove in his cabin. (Cape Arago, Coos County; 1880s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1905b.lighthouse-keeper-cowardice-547.html)
ABOUT 20 YEARS ago, Alex Hirsch, a student at the California Institute of the Arts in Santa Clarita, set out to make a low-budget short animated film that he hoped would become a demo reel one day. It was called “Gravity Falls” … you have perhaps heard of it, yes?Hirsch used the 11-minute reel to pitch Disney on his show, and they snapped it up. To say it was a success is to understate things quite a bit; when it debuted in 2012 the show was probably the biggest new thing on The Disney Channel that year. Gravity Falls is the adventures and misadventures of a pair of 12-year-old fraternal twins who are sent off to spend the summer with their great-uncle Stan, who has converted his A-frame cabin deep in the backwoods of Oregon into a tourist trap that he calls “The Mystery Shack.” The inspiration for the show, Hirch told reporters, was the “mystery” type roadside attractions that he used to visit with his family when he and his twin sister were young. Places like “The Mystery Spot,” a short distance from his home in the San Francisco Bay area — and the attraction that inspired The Mystery Spot: The Oregon Vortex and House of Mystery, near the town of Gold Hill. (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/2510a1002d.oregon-vortex-keeps-experts-guessing-709.063.html)
HALFWAY THROUGH HIS second term in office, Governor Chamberlain ran for a seat in the U.S. Senate, and won the election. So he resigned his office as governor in favor of his Secretary of State, Frank W. Benson, and prepared to board an eastbound train to take his new seat.There was a problem, though.... (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/23-04.caralyn-shelton-first-woman-guv-620.html)
IF YOU ASK most Oregonians who the first woman governor in state history was, they’ll have an immediate answer … but they’ll be wrong.Conventional wisdom holds that the first woman to take the gubernatorial purple in the Beaver State was Barbara Roberts, who was elected to the job in 1990. In fact, that’s almost true … but, of course, “almost” doesn’t work very well as an answer to a true-or-false question.The truth is, Barbara Roberts was the first elected woman governor in Oregon history. But the first woman to serve as governor of Oregon — or any other state, for that matter — was a remarkable woman named Caralyn B. Shelton.It was because of Caralyn Shelton that Oregon, for one historic weekend in early 1909, became the first and only state in the nation with a female governor. This was especially ironic because it wasn’t until 1912 that women won the right to vote in Oregon. (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/23-04.caralyn-shelton-first-woman-guv-620.html)
Happily ensconced in their little bubble of like-minded businessmen and politicians, the land thieves had gotten to be a bit out of touch with how their activities were playing with the public. As the new century dawned, the old “greed is good” ethos of the Gilded Age was wearing very thin. Members of the public, watching fat cats from out of state (or even out of country) take advantage of the situation to build vast absentee empires, were starting to notice, and resent. (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/23-01.land-fraud-trials-617.html)
ON THE MORNING of Dec. 7, 1904, Stephen A.D. Puter had just arrived at the office of U.S. Marshal Jack Matthews. He was expecting some friends to come by … and bail him out of jail.Puter had just been convicted of masterminding a plan to swindle the U.S. government out of thousands of acres of prime timberlands. He had not yet been sentenced. Like all convicts, he had the option of either staying in jail until sentencing, or posting bail. In his case, bail was set at $4,000. He figured his friends — or, rather, unindicted co-conspirators — would be by shortly to help him raise the funds.No one came.It was starting to dawn on Puter that no one was going to come. He now realized he was to be sacrificed to appease the gods in Washington D.C. He was to be thrown under the bus, branded a “bad apple” and socially disowned in order to protect the bigger fish involved and enable them to keep the good times rolling.And how much bigger were those bigger fish? Well, several of them were out-of-state millionaires; two of them were members of the U.S. House of Representatives; and one was United States Senator John H. Mitchell. (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/23-01.land-fraud-trials-617.html)
LATE IN THE MONTH of March, 1948, in the small coastal town of Gearhart, Pauline Virgin, 12, and her cousin Navarre Smith, 14, were listening to the famous “Gang Busters” radio program on radio station KEX (A.M. 1190). The radio host was telling the story of a wanted criminal named John Harvey Bugg, who back in 1945 had kidnapped a county sheriff, robbed him, and tied him to a telephone pole. Listeners were urged to be on the lookout for a man who walked with a limp, loved horses, and had the word “LOVE” tattooed across the knuckles of his left hand.“Why — that’s Cowboy Jim!” Pauline exclaimed. (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/21-01.cowboy-jim-and-painter-ken-FBI-most-wanted.html)
HAPPY NEW YEAR! In the spirit of the American tradition of the season, today we’re going to explore the stories of two Missouri men whose New Year’s Resolutions probably once included “Give up crime” and “Hide from the F.B.I.”This is the sort of thing that used to be very easy to do in Oregon, which is actually the only state (so far as I have been able to learn) to have ever had one of its U.S. Senators serve under an alias which he adopted while running from law enforcement. (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/21-01.cowboy-jim-and-painter-ken-FBI-most-wanted.html)
The motto of Kate Ann Williams' cult was “Pray and be Cured,” and adherents went on rigorous 40-day fasts that occasionally killed them. The cult disappeared after its leader, who was Mayor George Williams' wife, starved herself to death. (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1204d-kate-williams-starvation-cult.html)
Senate committee went from a solid consensus to confirm George H. Williams, to a firm determination not to, in just one week. The cause? Most believed it was because of the arrogant attitude of Mrs. Williams toward the senators' wives. (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1204c-williams-scotus-confirmation-scotched-by-wife.html)
Today known properly as Yaquina Head Light, the state's tallest lighthouse is a popular tourist attraction, and until recently was the home of the nation's only wheelchair-accessible tidepools. (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1706b.yaquina-head-light-should-have-been-cape-foulweather-light-447.html)
Police figured out who the body snatchers were before they even had time to think about writing a ransom note — so their sentences were much lighter than they would have been if they'd had time to add extortion to the rap. (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/23-03.body-snatchers-resurrected-william-ladd-619.html)
THE NINETEENTH CENTURY was a kind of golden age of body snatching. Digging up the freshly dead to cash the corpse in at the back door of a nearby medical school was — well, not common exactly, but far from unheard-of. So when, around the middle of May 1897, Daniel Magone and Charles Montgomery asked a 20-year-old wood hauler named William Rector to help them steal a corpse out of River View Cemetery, Rector didn’t react the way you or I would.A job was a job, and Rector needed the work, and although it was technically illegal, one couldn’t really get into too much trouble for it … provided, of course, that the corpse being snatched belonged to a poor person. Body snatching as it was practiced back then was an ancillary industry to the medical profession. Medical colleges needed a constant supply of cadavers to dissect in their labs, and there were never enough available through legitimate sources to slake the demand.Well, nature abhors a vacuum, and so does a market; so, an underground industry of body-snatchers, also called “resurrection men,” developed to meet the demand for fresh corpses, by stealing them out of cemeteries in the middle of the night.... (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/23-03.body-snatchers-resurrected-william-ladd-619.html)
Before Oregon was even a state, its territorial government outlawed all booze. Why? It all has to do with a fellow who could probably be called the true founder of the city of Portland — and his ever-bubbling moonshine still. (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1311d-blue-ruin-whiskey-sparks-oregons-first-prohibition.html)
BY THE TIME George Graham Rice met Larry Sullivan at Sullivan and Grant’s “palace” in Goldfield, he was doing a booming business in Nevada as the owner and copywriter of an advertising agency, working with the local mine owners. He provided a full-service kind of operation — not only placing ads for investors, but also sending out hundreds of fake “human interest” stories about life in the mining camps for East Coast and West Coast newspapers to run. These articles were basically dime-novel narratives of feuds and gunfights and gold strikes and virtuous-maiden-rescuings and all the other wild-West story tropes; and, of course, they prominently featured Rice’s clients in heroic roles. They were eagerly run by newspapers all over the country, and were very popular with readers. (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/20-09.larry-sullivan-goldfield-swindles.html)
For anyone interested in the shanghaiing of sailors on the old Portland waterfront, the name “Larry Sullivan” needs no introduction. Smooth, polished, well-connected and ruthless, Larry Sullivan was essentially the Boss Tweed of the Portland waterfront from the early 1890s right up to the moment the music stopped. But in 1904, as the upcoming Lewis and Clark Centennial Exposition drew near, a reforming spirit was in the Portland air. Thousands of visitors were about to come to Portland and see it for the first time, and the city’s underworld was far too much on public display for that to go well if changes were not made.Larry Sullivan was the Portland underworld, and he had good enough political instincts to know when to hold ’em and when to fold ’em.Selling his stake in the Portland Club, his gambling house, to fellow underworld tycoon Nate Solomon and closing the doors on his sailors’ boardinghouse, Larry packed up and headed east, looking for fresh fields of endeavor.And, in a rip-roaring Nevada mining boomtown called Goldfield, he found what he was looking for.And it was at The Palace that Larry met one of the most colorful and rascally characters in the history of American con-artistry: George Graham Rice. (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/20-09.larry-sullivan-goldfield-swindles.html)
Women who'd married German men suddenly learned they'd been legally (and very unconstitutionally) made stateless, and were forced to register as 'enemy aliens'; those who'd married Chinese men fared even worse. (Statewide; 1910s, 1920s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1312e-germans-in-oregon-enemy-aliens.html)
If you’d been lucky enough to live in Portland in July of 1848, you would have been able to say, literally, that your ship had come in.The ship in question was the sailing ship Honolulu. And, funny thing: she arrived in port in ballast, with her cargo holds empty.That raised some eyebrows. At the time, Oregon was not even part of the U.S.A. yet — just a vast extranational territory jointly claimed by the U.S. and Britain. There was no national government authority to issue money, nor was there any gold or silver around to make money with. Wheat was officially legal tender there; but, there wasn’t much wheat being harvested in July. All of Oregon was on a barter economy. Down in Oregon City, Provisional Governor George Abernethy was actually using specially marked pebbles, known as “Abernethy Rocks,” as fungible I.O.U.s in the Methodist mission merchantile store that he was in charge of. Presumably the captain of the Honolulu would not be interested in investing in Abernethy Rocks. So, what was he going to do in Portland with nothing to trade with?The answer wasn’t long in coming. The skipper headed straight into town almost the moment the Honolulu was at the dock. He raced from one store to another, snapping up every pick, shovel, and washpan he could get his hands on.And paying for them with gold dust. (Statewide; 1840s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/23-02.gold-rush-beaver-money.html)
Designed for calm inland waterways, the sidewheel steamboat Alaskan was no match for the massive late-spring gale that pounced on it off Cape Blanco one fateful night in 1889. (Cape Blanco, Curry County; 1889) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1311c-riverboat-alaskan-caught-in-offshore-hurricane.html)
ON THE MORNING OF NOV. 5, 1915, at the back of the entrance to Coos Bay, a big steamship could be seen towering improbably over the beach, stuck fast in the sand close to shore.This was the Santa Clara, a 233-foot steamer on the Portland-San Francisco run. The Santa Clara didn’t much look like the scene of a humanitarian disaster, jutting out of the sand nearly plumb and level and nearly high and dry; but appearances were deceiving. Sixteen people died trying to get ashore when she first struck, three days before.Nor did the wreck scene look like a very likely place for a massive, boozy free-for-all mob rampage … but a little later on that day, after a small army of looters swarmed aboard and found certain very desirable refreshments among the ship’s cargo, things would be different.... (Coos Bay South Spit, Coos County; 1910s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/21-02.santa-clara-shipwreck-looting-party.html)
Dreamed up by supporters of the old south, the plan envisioned an independent “Pacific Republic” as a slave state — to be stocked with slaves by a sort of bait-and-switch swindle. But the supporters misjudged public opinion badly. (Salem, Marion County; 1860s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1503d.pacific-republic-scheme-331.html)
And then there was the climactic scene, which is the main thing people talk about in South Lane County when this movie comes up. It was literally a train wreck, although metaphorically it was anything but. Buster wanted the climax of the movie to involve a locomotive falling through a burning bridge into a river. .... (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/2409d-1002b.buster-keaton-the-general-in-cottage-grove-668.061.html)
IF A COTTAGE Grove logger had been bonked on the head in January 1926, and woke up six months later, he would have scarcely recognized his home town.There was a whole new Main Street built way out east of Main Street, with businesses and boardinghouses and banks and everything.... (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/2409d-1002b.buster-keaton-the-general-in-cottage-grove-668.061.html)
IF YOU LOOK UP Prohibition Agent Glenn H. Price on the “Fallen Agents” page at www.atf.gov, you’ll get a very brief account of his death:“Prohibition Agents Glenn H. Price and Grover Todd were attempting to arrest a bootlegger named Phillip Warren in Grand Ronde, Ore. Warren escaped, obtained a rifle, and killed both agents. Warren was later taken into custody and charged with murder under state law.”All of which is true … in the same way that “Using dynamite on a beached whale in 1970 led to success in removing it from the beach” is true. It just … leaves out a few things, that’s all. (Grand Ronde, Polk and Yamhill County; 1920s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/2508c.prohibition-shootout-in-grand-ronde-706.522.html)
IN EARLY FEBRUARY of 1933, the mayor and city council of North Bend had a big problem on their hands.It was, of course, the depths of the Great Depression — possibly the deepest of the depths. Former Oregonian President Herbert Hoover was still in office, but it was the interregnum — he’d been voted out of office three months earlier, so he was the lamest of lame ducks.All across the country, confidence in institutions like banks was at an all-time low. Every American with money in a bank account was at least a little worried about the bank just disappearing in the night with their money. Increasingly, they were going down to the local branch like in the Bailey Brothers Building and Loan scene from It’s a Wonderful Life, and demanding their cash. Nationwide, the banks just didn’t have the liquidity to come across for every nervous depositor — so they started closing and collapsing.One of the banks that closed and almost collapsed was the only bank in North Bend, the First National Bank. It wasn’t insolvent, but it soon would have been if it had kept its doors open; so its directors locked up, promising they’d reopen soon after they’d figured out how (or if) they could make everybody whole.For every business or government agency in North Bend, this meant making payroll would be a tough trick.So, early in March — about the time President Roosevelt was inaugurated and proclaimed a nationwide “bank holiday” to stem the flood — Mayor Edgar McDaniel and local businessman Irvin Ross came up with a plan:They’d mint their own currency. (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/2508b.1008e.myrtlewood-money-north-bend-705.086.html)
Imagine, for a moment, that you’re passing through a little Harney County town when you see, in a used-car lot, a DMC DeLorean that someone has modified as a replica of the car from Back to the Future. It even has a replica flux capacitor, and the readout of the dates in old-school LED readouts on the dash.The price is right, so you buy it, and immediately you want to take it out on the highway and see what the replica equipment does when you hit 88 miles an hour. Twiddling the knobs, you set the red “Destination Time” readout for something random, which turns out to be “July 15, 1908.” Then you punch it, and watch the speedometer needle rise towards 88.There is a sudden flash of light and then the car starts shaking vigorously. You think you must have had a blowout, but as you slow down you realize the pavement on the highway has run out and you’re rocketing over a potholed, washboarded dirt road at 88 miles an hour. You quickly slow to a stop.And that’s when you realize that the car isn’t a replica, or even a movie prop. It’s an actual working time machine, and it has brought you back to — what was that date again? July 15, 1908?You’ve come to a stop in a part of the road that overlooks a shallow canyon, close by the rim. You see something moving in the canyon below, so you get out for a better look.In the canyon below, you see a line of people — probably 200 of them — moving through the sagebrush, beating at it with clubs. And the ground at the people’s feet is quick with little furry creatures — running, hopping, bounding away toward the end of the canyon, which someone has closed off and enclosed with a portable fence. Looking through your binoculars (don’t leave home without ‘em!) you see that the creatures are jackrabbits. There are literally thousands of them. And the people — men, women, and children, some of them as young as 5 or 6 — are smashing them with their clubs when they can, and driving them toward the portable-fence corral when they can’t.You’re close enough to see the joy, enthusiasm, and occasional vengeful fury on the faces of the people with the clubs. Little kids are jumping up and down waving bloody cudgels and carefully dressed ladies are daintily dabbing gore off their blouses, and everyone who is not a jackrabbit is having a thundering good time. Looking above the fray, past the tightly woven fence where a small heap of dead bunnies has been piled up, you see some other folks setting out what looks like a big multi-family picnic with, as they say, all the fixin’s. Everyone looks just as happy as a toddler at Disneyland. Except, of course, the terrified bunnies.Cold sweat stands out on your brow as you wonder if your DeLorean actually brought you not into the past, but into a David Lynch movie. In a panic you leap back into the car, start it up, and twiddle knobs until today’s date is in the red numbers. Heedless of the rough road surface, you gun the car up to 88 miles an hour, hoping desperately that the whole “lightning has to strike the car for this to work” thing isn’t also real .... (Central and Eastern Oregon; 1900s, 1910s, 1920s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/2501c.rabbit-drives-in-eastern-oregon-685.513.html )
The “Genius of Corvallis” hoped his cattle-powered riverboat would give the upper-Willamette sternwheelers a run for their money; and so it did, so long as it didn't try to go upstream... (Corvallis, Benton County; 1850s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1706c.cow-powered-riverboat-hay-burner-448.html)
Stranded for the winter on Sauvie Island, the members of Nathaniel Wyeth's trading post struggled to get enough to eat. But for some of them, the greater problem was finding something to drink. (Sauvie Island, Multnomah and Columbia County; 1830s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1707d.townsend-lizard-liquor-453.html)
Original owners of the falls tried for years to log it, but the steamship and railroad moguls were making a lot of money on excursion trips, so they blocked the scheme, preserving the falls for today's park. (Columbia River Gorge, Multnomah County; 1890s, 1900s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1707e.fight-for-multnomah-falls-454.html)
In the glory days of Portland shanghaiing, sailors were 'helped back aboard ship' on the city streets; there was no need for a tunnel to sneak them down to the docks. But the tunnels under the saloons and streets were useful for lots of other shanghaiing-related activities ... (Portland, Multnomah County; 1890s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1905d.shanghai-tunnels-based-on-true-story-549.html)
Had Edgar Rice Burroughs and his brothers been successful with their Snake River gold dredge, Ed likely would never have had the time or inspiration to start writing “John Carter of Mars,” “At the Earth's Core” and “Tarzan” books. (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1503b.edgar-rice-burroughs-in-oregon.html)
One fine day in October of 1891, a teenage boy named Aquilla Ernest Clark left the farm in Scappoose where he’d been working, headed for Portland. He was going to see the sights and maybe show himself a good time for a few days.He wandered around the waterfront, taking drinks here and there and probably taking a hand in a card game or two; then, when it was getting close to evening, he met a pleasant fellow who happened to mention that he was staying at the sailors’ boardinghouse at Second and Glisan streets. “It’s the best place to stay in Portland,” he said.That sounded good; Aquilla needed a place to stay for the night. So he went with his new friend to the boardinghouse.“The place was rather dimly lighted,” Aquilla told author Stewart Holbrook, years later, in a 1933 interview for the Portland Sunday Oregonian. “A Scandinavian was playing an accordion in the big main room on the ground floor; several old-time seamen, or at least I took them to be such, were sitting in chairs around the room, smoking pipes that reeked to the skies and telling how these new-fangled steamboats would never amount to much.”It was good enough for Aquilla. He checked in.... (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/20-10.aquilla-clark-shanghaied-590.html)
ONE GRAY OCTOBER day in 1898, three British ship captains were sitting in the parlor of the Seamen’s Rest, a sort of YMCA for sailors located in the bustling port of Tacoma. They were in a betting mood. One of them, although he didn’t know it, was gambling with his life. All three skippers captained full-rigged windjammers. They were H.A. Lever of the Imerhorne; David Thompson of the Earl of Dalhousie; and Charles McBride of the 265-foot clipper Atalanta. Atalanta, you may recall, was the virgin-huntress character in Greek mythology who challenged all her suitors to bet their lives on a footrace against her. If they won, they got to marry her; if they lost, they were put to death. And, until Hippomenes came along and cheated by throwing golden apples, she won, and they died, every time. The Atalanta was named after her in a reference to its great speed; she was one of the fastest sailing ships in the world. But, before too long, the name would seem appropriate in other ways as well. ... (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1905a.shipwreck-atalanta-wager-gone-wrong-546.html)
Portland band The Kingsmen recorded the song quickly and cheaply, and the words they were singing were unintelligible. But when the song became a hit, fans started guessing at the lyrics ... and some of them had rather dirty minds.... (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1312d-louie-louie-kingsmen-fbi-investigation.html)
Oct. 1, 1880, was a very big day in Portland.For the first time in the history of the city or the state, a sitting President of the United States had come to visit. President Rutherford B. Hayes had arrived in Portland the night before and was staying in the Esmond Hotel, the nicest in Portland at the time, on the corner of Morrison and Front streets.Portland was, of course, very much a frontier town in 1880, still dotted with the stumps of the trees that had been cleared to make room for it. So it can’t have come as too much of a surprise to the president when, at 9:30 the next morning, a gunfight broke out directly beneath his hotel window.He was probably a little more surprised, though, when he found out who the gunfighters were: It was the president of the local synagogue — and the rabbi.... (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/20-12.rabbi-gunfight-rutherford-hayes-592.html)
While the captain of the Emily G. Reed was sadly reporting the loss of 11 brave mariners, four of the missing were adrift, desperately bailing water out of a damaged and leaky lifeboat. Destination: Puget Sound. (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1503a.shipwreck-emily-g-reed.328.html)
IF THE IDEA of cable car service to Timberline Lodge strikes you as a not particularly bad one, you’re not alone. Over the years since the Wyler group proposed the glass-and-steel mountaintop skyscraper, several proposals have been floated for cable-car service up the mountain. So far, only one has been built, and it was an immediate and colossal failure: The Skiway Tram project. (Government Camp, Clackamas County; 1950s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/20-08.timberline-lodge-skiway-bus.html)
HIGH UP ON the side of Mount Hood, Timberline Lodge has over the years become an Oregon icon. Its rustic, WPA-financed design and construction strike most visitors as a good fit for the state’s general reputation for woodsy civility. But had it not been for a particularly persnickety U.S. Forest Service manager, Timberline might have looked a lot different... (Timberline Lodge, Clackamas County; 1920s, 1930s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/20-08.timberline-lodge-skiway-bus.html)
Fresh from a 20-year stretch in the pen, the famous stagecoach robber known as 'The Gray Fox' found the world had changed and he would now have to learn to rob trains instead. His learning curve started in Portland and ended in disaster. (Troutdale, Multnomah County; 1900s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1311b-bill-miner-train-robber-in-oregon.html)
After blowing his chance at a prosperous, respectable life in the Tygh Valley, the gambler and liquor man roared through frontier life as a keeper of rowdy saloons and bawdy joints before a Temperance crusader changed his life. (Part 2 of 2) (Wasco, Baker, Multnomah County; 1850s, 1860s, 1870s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1312b-edouard-chambreau-part2-portland-years.html)
French-Canadian gambler started out as one of the most scurrilous rascals in the state, then reformed his ways and became one of its most earnest and effective reformers. This is the story of his early years. Part 1 of a 2-part series. (Lower Willamette River, Clackamas County; 1840s, 1850s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1312a-edouard-chambreau-part1-early-years.html)
The coroner ruled Thomas McMahon's death an accident, and everyone moved on. But the testimony of witness Eliza “Boneyard Mary” Bunets was suspicious and contradictory. Could she have gotten away with murder? (Portland, Multnomah County; 1870s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1311a-did-boneyard-mary-murder-thomas-mcmahon.html)
Legendary author Frances Fuller Victor fell on hard times in the late 1870s. She never quit, but after she took a job writing for Hubert Howe Bancroft, he took credit for the books she wrote. (St. Helens, Columbia County; 1880s, 1890s, 1900s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1504a.frances-fuller-victor-part2.333.html)
Frances Fuller Victor became the founding mother of all Oregon history, and one of its most important writers of all time. By the time she arrived in the Beaver State, she was already a well-known writer. (St. Helens, Columbia County; 1860s, 1870s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1503e.frances-fuller-victor-part1.332.html)
In May of 1895, on the old San Francisco waterfront, four sailors signed onto the four-masted barkentine Arago for a voyage to Valparaiso, Chile (“and thence to such other foreign ports as the master might direct, and thence to return to the United States”) via Astoria. By the time they got to Astoria, the four of them had had enough of conditions on the Arago. They stepped off the ship and essentially told the skipper, “We quit.” In doing so, they changed history — and the legal status of sailors would never be the same. (Astoria, Clatsop County; 1890s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/20-11.arago-four-sailors-slavery-591.html)
He might have accomplished it, too, but he lost friends when he tried to claim water rights to Bull Run, and when his primary investors went bankrupt in a bank panic, he was forced to give up the scheme and leave town. (Portland, Multnomah County; 1900s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1502d.lafe-pence-guild-lake-scheme.327.html)
THE YEARS JUST after the discovery of germ theory were a great time to be a mainstream physician. By understanding, for the first time, the true vectors of disease, doctors suddenly found they were able to make real and undeniable changes in patient outcomes. But understanding those vectors — microbes — did something else too.... (Astoria, Clatsop County; 1900s, 1910s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/2504b1008c.bethenia-owens-adair-oregons-prometheus-697.084.html)
It was a remarkable start to an even more remarkable career — the more so as Bethenia was over 30 years old when she launched it. It was also not a “second act” career, but a fourth — she’d been a wife, then a teacher, then a hat-shop entrepreneur, and now a physician. She had seen much of the world, and conquered more than most. (Portland, Multnomah County; 1880s, 1890s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/2504b1008c.bethenia-owens-adair-oregons-prometheus-697.084.html)
In Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley’s classic novel Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus, Shelley tells the story of a brilliant and gifted scientist-physician who reaches too far in his quest for knowledge, and dares to lay his hands on the power that rightly belongs only to the gods: that of the creation of life. Oregon history has its own Modern Prometheus. She didn’t create and animate a monster out of corpse-parts, and the product of her overreach didn’t hunt her down with vengeance on its mind. But it has cast a terrible shadow over her legacy.... (Roseburg, Douglas County; 1870s, 1880s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/2504b1008c.bethenia-owens-adair-oregons-prometheus-697.084.html)
Yesterday, in Part One of this story, we had just gotten to the part where the Tonquin had been blown up, marooning the Astorians on the far side of the continent. But the damage done by the Tonquin and its captain, Jonathan Thorn, went far beyond the loss of the ship. Thorn’s bargaining style had not only cost the expedition its ship and stranded Fort Astoria in the wilderness, it had sent a really powerful message that the “Bostons” were dangerous and untrustworthy.... (Astoria, Clatsop County; 1810s, 1820s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/2508a.1008b.astoria-party-saved-oregon-from-uk-704.083.html)
For most people today, the story of the original colony of Astoria is remembered — if it’s remembered at all — as a dismal failure. It was an ill-equipped party sent out by a rich guy in New York, which failed and was forced to sell out at fire-sale prices to the British.And yeah, that’s all kind of true … but the most interesting thing about Fort Astoria is, if John Jacob Astor’s explorers had stayed home — or even left a year later than they did — the Oregon country would probably be part of Canada today.Going a bit farther (and being quite a bit more speculative) — if Astor had made even slightly less awful hiring decisions when he launched the project, the British would likely have ended up locked out of the entire central West Coast, from Mexico to Alaska; and it’s possible, if not likely, that it would have become its own independent country, governed or ruled by Astor’s descendants.To explain all that historical what-iffery, I need to give you a Cliff’s Notes version of the story of the Astoria project. (Astoria, Clatsop County; 1810s, 1820s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/2508a.1008b.astoria-party-saved-oregon-from-uk-704.083.html)
Everyone thought John Hawk was stealing cattle, and he refused to talk about it. So one night, a group of cattlemen snuck into his camp and assassinated him — and were shocked by the frontier community's response. (Joseph, Wallowa County; 1870s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1310d-john-hawk-murder-by-vigilantes.html)
The job got off to a bad start when the fireman escaped and sprinted for the nearby town. The main suspect in the robbery quickly left town, and a few months later was killed in a streetcar holdup in Washington. (Roseburg, Douglas County; 1890s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1502c.roseburg-train-robbery-jack-case.326.html)
The “Baritone Bandit” led a small group of desperados with a large cache of dynamite, and they got away with a good bit of loot from the Douglas County robbery. But one of the passengers saw behind the bandit's mask ... (Cow Creek Canyon, Douglas County; 1890s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1502b.cow-creek-train-robbery.325.html)
Extortionists, jailbreakers, safecrackers, jealous lovers and even truant students have, throughout the early years of Oregon history, found high explosives a powerful aid to their nefarious schemes. (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1501d.crime-and-dynamite.html)
Award-winning criminal mastermind/ motivational speaker Blackie DuQuesne shares a few key insights for aspiring train robbers on how to avoid “n00b mistakes” on a railroad heist. (1890s, 1900s, 1910s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1501c.how-to-rob-trains-with-blackie-duquesne.html)
The sailor wanted to quit, but the captain didn't want him to; so he deposited a $60 'blood money' bonus with the British consul, as a reward if shanghaier Jim Turk could swindle him back aboard. Unfortunately, they killed him in the attempt. This kicked off a three-act courtroom drama oddly reminiscent of a Three Stooges episode. (Portland, Multnomah County; 1880s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1903e.frederick-kalashua-shanghaied-541.html)
For workers in the 'bad old days' of working in the woods and in janky, underengineered sawmills, the occasional loss of a finger or two just came with the territory. (Garibaldi, Tillamook County; 1930s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1904b.loggers-were-tough-guys-543.html)
Smithfield rebels' gesture of defiance on the main stagecoach route caused shock and outrage, but nobody was outraged enough to risk being shot over it; so the flag waved there until federal troops arrived and confiscated it. (Franklin, Lane County; 1860s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1502a.rebel-flag-over-oregon.324.html)
The evidence against Charles Kimzey was circumstantial, but police had the goods on him for an attempted murder the year before, so he was sent up the river on a life stretch. But clearly two men had done the killing -- and no one ever really got a line on who his partner might have been. (Big Lava Lake, Deschutes County; 1920s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1904d.trapper-murders-lava-lake-part2-545.html)
Ed Nickols hadn't wanted to spend the winter by himself at the remote cabin, because he'd made a dangerous enemy in a former coworker who turned out to be an escaped convict. So Roy Wilson and Dewey Morris spent the winter there with him ... and all three disappeared halfway through it. (Lava Lake, Deschutes County; 1920s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1904c.trapper-murders-lava-lake-part1-544.html)
Astoria shyster L.G. Carpenter coveted Darius Norris's valuable acreage on Long Beach Peninsula. So he got the police chief to arrest Norris on bogus charges, swindled him into signing over his property, and shanghaied him off out of town on a sailing ship. (Astoria, Clatsop County; 1890s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1903b.darius-norris-shanghaied-538.html)
When World War I broke out, Herbert Hoover was the world's most successful mining engineer. He abandoned all that to build an organization to feed the starving, first in Belgium and then throughout war-torn Europe. (London, UK; 1910s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1702c.herbert-hoover-in-belgium-431.html)
He arrived in Oregon at age 9, and people called him “Poor Little Bertie.” He left Oregon for good to go to college at Stanford when he was 17. But Herbert Clark Hoover remained a member of the Salem Quaker church until his death. (Newburg, Yamhill County; 1880s, 1890s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1702b.herbert-hoover-raised-in-oregon-430.html)
Laura Starcher and her friends were fed up with the halfhearted, desultory service they were getting from city government. So they got organized, ran for all the public offices, and won ... much to the chagrin of the defeated mayor: Starcher's husband. (Umatilla, Umatilla County; 1910s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1903d.umatilla-petticoat-revolution-540.html)
Clarence the logger was running a trapline as a side hustle. One day, he decided a passing skunk would look great on his stretching rack, and impulsively seized the skunk with his bare hands. This did not turn out to be one of Clarence's better ideas. (Garibaldi, Tillamook County; 1930s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1904a.tillamook-county-wildlife-encounters-542.html)
At Jake Silverman's trial, 11 jurors wanted him to hang, but couldn't convince the lone holdout to change his vote. So voters changed the law and made Oregon the only state in the country where you could be convicted on a 10-2 vote. (Portland, Multnomah County; 1993) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1809e.1812.silverman-verdict.html)
It had been an accident, but small-time Portland crook Jimmy Walker had shot Rose City crime boss “Shy Frank” Kodat. Unfortunately for Jimmy, he picked the wrong friend to run to for help. (Portland, Scappoose; Multnomah and Columbia County; 1930s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1310c-jimmy-walker-gangland-murder.html)
The Outlaw as Elder Statesman: In 1883, Eastern Oregon's wildest horse-rustling gunfighter gave up his stock-thieving ways (mostly) and became a wheat farmer. But to say he'd settled down wouldn't quite be accurate. (Part 2 in a 3-part series about Oregon's notorious Hank Vaughan) (Athena and Pendleton, Umatilla County; 1880s, 1890s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1402d.hank-vaughan-part-3-farmer-hellraiser.html)
The Oregon frontier's most colorful almost-outlaw spent a dozen years dodging posses and slipping in and out of the Indian reservation with stolen horses and cattle. Some of his exploits are still being talked about today. (Part 2 in a 3-part series about Oregon's notorious Hank Vaughan) (Pilot Rock, Umatilla County; 1870s, 1880s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1402c.hank-vaughan-rustling-years-2of3.html)
Quick to make both friends and enemies, Oregon's most famous frontier cowboy and almost-outlaw was a gifted horseman and rustler. But his hard-drinking, quick-shooting ways nearly got him lynched as a teen. This is part 1 of a 3-part series on the notorious Hank Vaughan. (Canyon City, Grant County; 1860s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1402b.hank-vaughan-frontier-legend-1of3.html)
THIS TIME OF year, the burden of all the serious arguments and disagreements left over from Thanksgiving dinner melt deliciously into a far more congenial controversy, which plays out at every ice-cream shop in the land:Do you prefer a cake cone, waffle cone, or a sugar cone?If you’re partial to the wafer-like texture and subtle flavor of the cake cone, especially after it’s become slightly soggy with melted ice cream, you’re certainly not alone. And the bold cookie flavor and crunch of a sugar cone has many fans too — although most Americans, given a choice, go for the generous size and luxuriant crispness of a waffle cone, sometimes dipped in chocolate.No matter what your preference, though — unless it’s hand-rolled using homemade dough — your favorite cone is the great-great-grandchild of the first mass-produced ice cream cone that dropped out of a brand-new machine invented and fabricated in Portland, Oregon, circa 1912 — the brainchild of a creamery executive named Frederick A. Bruckman, in collaboration with his boss, George Weatherly... (Portland, Multnomah County; 1910s, 1920s). (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/2507b.ice-cream-cone-inventors-703.521.html)
East Portland's White Eagle Saloon has a colorful past. Over the years, it's been local headquarters for the Polish Resistance, a rough watering hole for sailors and dock workers, and Portland's hottest blues and rock-and-roll hot spot. (Portland, Multnomah County; 1900s, 1910s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1703c.white-eagle-shanghai-spot-435.html)
Just a few dozen years ago, nearly anyone in Oregon could easily get all the high explosives he or she might want — if not by buying it, then by mixing a few common ingredients together with some old sawdust. (Statewide; 1890s, 1900s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1501b.dynamite-in-oregon-history.html)
Let's face it: No one actually knows where the famous English privateer and explorer spent the summer, and his notes, upon his return, were deliberately opaque. But it's possible that his “Nova Albion” was on the Oregon Coast. (Whale Cove, Lincoln County; 1500s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1703b.francis-drake-whale-cove-nehalem-bay-nova-albion-434.html)
As a historical account, the Lost Blue Bucket Mine story is, to put it mildly, questionable. But there can be no denying the impact it has had as a legend, repeated and believed by generations of Oregonians. (Auburn, Baker County; 1860s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1701d.blue-bucket-gold-mine-427.html)
Joe Knowles' wilderness-survival demonstration had been a huge success, and made him famous. But he'd been dogged by rumors that he cheated. Now, a continent away, he was going to redeem his reputation with a second try ... in Oregon. (Holland, Josephine County; 1910s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1812e.joe-knowles-survival-guru-528.html)
A.C. Gilbert was a practicing magician good enough to astonish Hermann the Great at age 7, a world-record-holding athlete at age 17, and a born salesman — in the best “win-win” sense of the word. (Salem, Marion County; 1890s, 1900s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1703d.ac-gilbert-growing-up-in-salem-436.html)
When Salem native Alfred Carlton Gilbert, inventor of the Erector Set, learned that government officials were going to cancel Christmas with their “Buy Bonds, Not Toys” campaign, he went to Washington to change their minds. He did. (Salem, Marion County; 1910s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1702d.ac-gilbert-man-who-saved-christmas-432.html)
Had James Marshall stayed in Oregon for one more month, he likely never would have left; instead, he headed south and found gold. And the discovery led more or less straight to his ruin. (American River, Calif.; 1840s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1702a.oregon-farmer-started-gold-rush-429.html)
The construction crew had knocked off work for the night, and outside the building the blustery January weather raged. Then, over the roar of wind and surf, the crew heard a terrified voice from below shouting, “Hard aport!” (Tillamook Rock, Tillamook County; 1880s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1704b.lupatia-shipwreck-tillamook-rock-438.html)
OREGON IS A state with more than its share of buried-treasure legends. But the one that gets the most attention, and until fairly recently attracted by far the most treasure hunters, is the lost Spanish gold of Neahkahnie Mountain.Like most buried-treasure stories, it’s a near certainty that nothing is there. But unlike most treasure stories, it seems likely that something real once was. The story of the lost Spanish gold has been passed down and around through Natives and fur traders and later augmented for maximum drama by professional storytellers at Ben Holladay’s Seaside House resort. It’s even been riffed on (sort of) to create one of the most beloved blockbuster movies of all time — I am, of course, referring to “The Goonies.” Today, there really isn’t an official version of the story. But, this is as close as I can come to summarizing the most common version:Sometime in the 1700s, a sailing ship put into Nehalem Bay.... (Nehalem Bay, Tillamook County; 1600s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/2507a1008d-spanish-gold-of-neahkahnie-702.085.html)
The most famous con artist of the Old West started in Portland, then traveled throughout the state working the “marks” with his signature swindle. Fifteen years later, an Oregonian shot him in a gun fight in Skagway. (Portland, Multnomah County; 1880s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1705d.soapy-smiths-oregon-story-445.html)
Is there anything to the story of the Native American man who came out of the woods every few years with a snuff can full of gold dust? Maybe. (McKenzie River valley; 1920s, 1930s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1001d_GoldSnuff.htm)
College professor's forensic investigation fingered the DeAutremont Brothers in the brutal robbery; after a years-long manhunt, and more than 2 million “wanted” posters, they were caught. But we still don't know the full story. (Siskiyou Pass, Jackson County; 1920s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1701b.part2-deautremont-train-rob-manhunt-425.html)
After several other attempts to get into the crime business didn't work out for them, the DeAutremont brothers came up with a plan to rob a train at the summit of the Siskiyous. It did not go well — for anyone involved. (Siskiyou Pass, Jackson County; 1920s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1701a.part1-deautremont-train-rob-robbery-424.html)
Lebanon man lived a quiet, respectable life after the Civil War, but back in his youth he was a member of Olney's Detachment of the Oregon Cavalry — a Union Army outfit nicknamed “Olney's Forty Thieves.” (Lebanon, Linn County; 1860s, 1940s, 1950s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1111c-black-sheep-of-union-army-last-oregon-vet.html)
The conditions were too rough even for the legendary Coast Guard 36-foot motor lifeboat to make it through the breakers, so a fisherman brought them ashore two by two in his rowboat. (Port Orford, Curry County; 1940s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1112d-dory-fisherman-rescues-shipwrecked-sailors.html)
Frontier Oregon's favorite game of chance was a “banking” game that's little played today. That's because the only way to make money as a faro banker is to cheat ... and cheat they did. (Portland, Multnomah County; 1880s, 1890s, 1900s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1312c-faro-crooked-gamblers-dream-game.html)
Desperate for some ready cash after his steamer wrecked on the beach, the would-be magnate hastily built a “railroad to nowhere” over Santiam Pass in an attempt to swindle the federal government. It probably would have worked, but ... (Newport, Lincoln County; 1880s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1703a.hogg-railroad-yaquina-433.html)
Summer Lake, Abert Lake and Goose Lake were once all part of a vast network of seas surrounded by lush vegetation. In dry years they can evaporate completely — which led to some confusion on the Applegate Trail one year. (Lake County) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1701c.alkali-abert-goose-lakes-426.html)
LATE ONE SPRING evening in 1917, a man named A.L. Sauvie was trying to sleep, and not having much success. The problem was his downstairs neighbor, who had gotten roaring drunk and was now verbally abusing, and physically beating, his wife. Complicating the situation even further was the fact that the downstairs neighbor was Sauvie’s landlord. He was renting an upstairs room in the Clackamas Tavern, just outside Oregon City.The Clackamas claimed to specialize in chicken dinners, but its real claim to secretive fame was as a speakeasy. Prohibition had started early in Oregon. Also, the wife-beating owner of the Clackamas was about as close to royalty as old Portland’s liquor industry had. His name was August Erickson — the former owner of the legendary Erickson’s Saloon, on Burnside downtown. (Portland, Multnomah and Clackamas county; 1880s, 1890s, 1900s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/2506b.august-erickson-cautionary-tale-701.520.html)
One of the 20th Century’s most influential show-biz men, the Jacksonville native was a Beaver who made it big; he worked on Disney projects and Popeye cartoons and delighted kids as the first Bozo the Clown. (Jacksonville, Jackson County; 1900s, 1910s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1310b-pinto-colvig-pioneer-animator-showbiz-legend.html)
The nationally notorious “Oregon Style” of newspapering involved vicious personal attacks and a take-no-prisoners style of cutting invective; but it was ink being spilled, not blood. That is, until one day in downtown Roseburg ... (Roseburg, Douglas County; 1870s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1306e-bud-thompson-gunfighting-newsman.html)
His teachers may not have appreciated Mel Blanc's humor and talents, but Portland radio listeners sure did — and later, so did generations of Bugs Bunny fans. (Portland, Multnomah County; 1910s, 1920s, 1930s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1112c-voice-of-looney-toons-mel-blanc.html)
If it's true, the 11-ton space rock is still out there — and worth over $300 million. But the guy who says he found it was in financial trouble, and many geologists today suspect he made the whole thing up. (Port Orford, Curry County; 1860s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1112b-port-orford-meteorite-hoax-or-is-it-real.html)
A recording of an on-air conversation with Bill Lundun and Gerry Snyder of the Wake Up Call on Eugene's KPNW Radio AM 1120. Topic: James Lotan's path from political fixer, to state party president, to drug-smuggling kingpin. (For the full story, see https://offbeatoregon.com/2408a-1202d.james-lotan-opium-king-661.161.html)
There were, so far as we know, no survivors. But when the upside-down hulk drifted ashore, it was 200 miles off course — and there was no sign of the 40-pound keg of gold it had been carrying. What happened? Nobody knows. (Columbia River Bar, Clatsop County; 1870s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1112a-missing-gold-makes-mystery-shipwreck-sinister.html)
Shorty Davis was a popular sheepman who one day in 1900 disappeared ... and no one has ever seen a sign of him since. Virtually everyone suspects foul play. (Prineville, Crook County; 1900s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1901b.shorty-davis-coldest-cold-case-mystery-530.html)
It was no 'Heaven's Gate' -- 'The Way West' was more like the 'Ishtar' of the late 1960s. It was spectacularly and expensively shot on location in Oregon, but plans to celebrate its release here foundered in a tidal wave of scathing reviews. (Lane, Deschutes and Lake counties; 1966) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1901a.way-west-movie-spectacular-flop-529.html)
They pedaled their bicycles from Portland to Astoria, snuck aboard a wrecked ocean liner, and spent the night marooned on board, with breakers crashing all around them. (Peacock Spit, Pacific County (Wash.); 1930s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1812d.admiral-benson-shipwreck-summer-vacation.html)
The city business leaders hoped the Shakespeare Festival would do OK, but just in case it tanked, they insisted that it share the stage with a series of prizefights. The boxing matches bombed badly; luckily, the Shakespeare plays did not. (Ashland, Josephine County; 1930s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1704a.shakespeare-festival-vs-boxing.html)
Among musicians and fans of old-time string-band music, Benjamin Franklin Jarrell is basically royalty.As a member of one of the most influential bands from the golden age of old-time music — DaCosta Woltz’s Southern Broadcasters — old Ben helped preserve that classic Appalachian-mountain style of fiddle-and-banjo string bands. His son, Thomas Jefferson “Tommy” Jarrell, is maybe the most influential old-time fiddle player even today, 40 years after his death.In Oregon, though, in the years of Ben’s youth, he was a different kind of royalty. The newspapers called him “The King of the Moonshiners.”And by all accounts, anyone lucky enough to acquire a quart or two of his product had to agree that the title was his.... (Umatilla and Clatsop county; 1910s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/2506a.ben-jarrell-king-of-moonshiners-700.519.html)
For more than 40 years, amateurs and pros alike have put forward dozens of theories, many quite plausible and backed with some evidence. But the story seems destined to remain a delicious historical mystery. (Statewide; 1970s, 1980s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1306d-db-cooper-part4-the-theories.html)
The hunt for the man who called himself Dan Cooper started just hours after he disappeared into the night sky with a bag of $20 bills tied to his waist. Did he get away? Did anyone find him? The search continues to this day. (Part 3 of 4 parts) (Portland, Multnomah County; 1970s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1306c-db-cooper-part-3-the-hunt.html)
After demanding four parachutes and a knapsack of $20 bills, the legendary anonymous skyjacker disappeared into the night sky over southwest Washington with $200,000 — touching off a massive manhunt. (Part 2 of 4 parts) (Columbia River, Multnomah County; 1970s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1306b-db-cooper-part-2-the-getaway.html)
History's only unsolved hijacking drama started at Portland International Airport when a nondescript man calling himself 'Dan Cooper' stepped aboard a Boeing 727 bound for Seattle. (Part 1 of a 4-part series) (Portland, Multnomah County; 1970s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1306a-db-cooper-part-1-the-skyjacking.html)
A recording of an on-air conversation with Bill Lundun and Gerry Snyder of the Wake Up Call on Eugene's KPNW Radio AM 1120. Topic: The wonderful tall tales of Hathaway Jones, the legendary Rogue River Wilderness mailman who almost everyone agrees was Oregon's all-time greatest liar/storytller! (For the full story, see https://offbeatoregon.com/2406b.hathaway-jones-countrys-biggest-liar.html)
Ame died in 1874, more than 10 years after President Abraham Lincoln set her free. So, why does her gravestone still identify her as a slave? We'll probably never know. (Corvallis, Benton County; 1870s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1110c-civil-war-didnt-end-slavery-for-oregon-woman-named-ame.html)
When the mercury dropped below 20 degrees for six weeks, a six-inch layer of ice formed on many Willamette Valley lakes — and locals took up ice skating. And five years earlier, it got so cold, a newly built steamship actually cracked in half. (Willamette Valley; 1940s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1705c.ice-skating-cottage-grove-lake-444.html)
Young cowboy David Tucker wanted a share of the loot so he could marry his sweetheart; after he got out of prison, he worked for decades to earn back the trust of both her and their community. (Joseph, Wallowa County; 1890s, 1920s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1305d-former-bank-robber-named-vp-of-bank-he-robbed.html)
In the mid-1870s, a fast-talking East Coast hustler teamed up with a famous half-Native Indian scout to cash in on his fame with a line of dodgy faux-Indian patent remedies — and the Oregon Indian Medicine Co. was born. (Warm Springs Indian Reservation; 1880s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1812c.ka-ton-ka-donald-mckay-warm-springs-indian-medicine.html)
Forest Grove drugstore responded to city's ban on recreational alcohol by adopting the 'marijuana dispensary' model for medicinal booze, and opening a blind pig in the back. The city fathers were not amused, but when they tried to crack down, things did not go as they'd planned ... (Forest Grove, Washington County; 180s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1812b.drugstore-saloon-fight-forest-grove.html)
BY EARLY 1941, the U.S. Army knew it was about to get sucked into at least one of the wars that were already raging around the world.The Selective Service and Training Act had passed the previous fall, and already young American men were being drafted into the Army, swelling its ranks with green recruits. Sooner or not much later they’d be in combat, fighting for their lives. There was no time to be lost — those combat noobs had to be trained and hardened and prepared so that they would have as good a chance as possible when thrown into the fight.With that in mind, the Army started looking for suitable locations for a combat-training campus between Portland and San Francisco on the West Coast.It would need to be about 65,000 acres and, in addition to the usual building sites and gunnery ranges, it would have to include geography similar to the sites where the fighting was expected to happen: rolling hills, steep slopes, swampy terrain, thick forests, and something approximating jungle foliage.Moving very fast — after all, new conscripts were coming in all the time — the Army settled on two prospective sites: one near Eugene, and one just north of Corvallis.The Corvallis site won the toss — there were fewer residents to be displaced, and the railroad and highway infrastructure was more developed. That was in June 1941.By the end of that year, the funds were allocated and the plans drawn up, and nine months later Oregon’s second largest city had spring into being out of the swampy ground. (Camp Adair, Benton County; 1940s, 1950s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/2505b1004d.camp-adair-699.071.html)
Back when the Mazama Club formed, with membership open only to those who had climbed old Wy’East, standing on top of the mountain meant more than it does today. Just 35 years earlier, fire had been belching out of it. (Wy'East, Hood River and Clackamas County) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1705b.mount-hood-active-volcano-443.html)
At the scene of a notorious double-murder of young lovers Larry Peyton and Beverly Allan, police paid little attention to Edward W. Edwards and soon eliminated him as a suspect. But if they'd dug a little bit deeper ... (Portland, Multnomah County; 1950s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1305a-peyton-allan-murders-manwiththehook.html)
Twenty years after he tried to light the surrounding forests on fire, Japanese pilot Nobuo Fujita returned to Brookings as an honored guest and presented the town with his family's Samurai sword. (Brookings, Curry County; 1960s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1305c-japanese-pilot-fujita-friendship-with-brookings.html)
After World War II started, submariner and pilot Nobuo Fujita hatched an idea: Use his tiny, rickety submarine-launched seaplane to attack an enemy 5,000 miles away from the nearest aircraft carrier. (Brookings, Curry County; 1940s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1305b-fujita-bombs-oregon.html)
A recording of a June 2024 on-air conversation with Bill Lundun and Gerry Snyder of the Wake Up Call on Eugene's KPNW Radio AM 1120. Topic: 'Bobbie the Wonder Dog's' 2,500-mile odyssey. Lost in Illinois, the affable collie crossed the Rocky Mountains on foot in the dead of winter, making friends along the way and causing a sensation upon his arrival home again. (For the full story, see https://offbeatoregon.com/2406a-1101a.silverton-bobbie-the-wonder-dog-104.652.html)
THERE WAS NO reason why the U.S. Marshal should spend the night on board the cramped, smelly little freight schooner he was in charge of. After all, the ship was anchored in a semi-civilized town — Steilacoom, near Tacoma in the Washington territory — and there were several decent hotels there. The next day he’d have a few hours’ cruise to Seattle, where the ship would be sold to pay the debts of its owner, Captain James “Jemmy” Jones — who was, by a happy coincidence, locked up in a jailhouse over 100 miles away.Or so he thought. Actually he was much closer. In fact, as the marshal stepped off the deck of the little freighter and walked off toward his comfy hotel bed, there is a pretty good chance Jemmy Jones actually waved a cheerful goodbye to him as he left.THE WHOLE SITUATION stemmed from a near-death experience Jemmy and his crew had had the previous year, while crossing over the dreaded Columbia River Bar in his ship.... (Columbia River Bar, Clatsop County; 1860s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/2503e1110b.jemmy-jones-rascally-captain-695.143.html)
“Uncle Joab” was the most famous preacher in the West for a reason ... and that reason was pretty much exactly why the pioneer lawmakers found him to be such a lousy fit for the job of Chaplain of the Legislature. Suddenly they were desperate to get rid of him. But, they'd hired him before his salary was in the treasury.... (Salem, Marion County; 1850s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1901d.uncle-joab-powell-political-firsts-2of2.html)
When the Legislature of the new state of Oregon started looking for someone to serve as the state's first Chaplain of the Legislature, Uncle Joab's name naturally came readily to mind. But it wouldn't be long before they wished they'd never even heard of this plain-speaking, long-preaching circuit rider.... (Near Jefferson, Marion County; 1850s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1901c.uncle-joab-powell-part1.html)
After out-of-state interests overplayed their hand and showed how little power locals had in their own state, Populists and renegade Republicans got together to do something about it. The result: The initiative-petition system. (Salem, Marion County; 1890s, 1900s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1612d.oregon-system-initiative-referendum-423.html)
Dr. E.R. Huckleberry came to Tillamook County in 1923, fresh from medical school; by the time he retired, in the 1960s, he could safely say the career he'd chosen had been neither easy nor safe ... but he wouldn't have traded it for anything. (Garibaldi, Tillamook County; 1920s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1903a.country-doctors-huckleberry-537.html)
JUST BEFORE SUNSET on the evening of April 12, 1946, Milwaukie residents James and Mary Rader were strolling with their friend H.C. Foster along the river by the Wisdom Island Moorage in Oak Grove when they saw a strange parcel swirling in an eddy under the dock.The parcel was about the size of a suitcase, wrapped in burlap and tied up with ropes and wires. It looked like it could be something important — or not. Foster thought not; he said it was probably “a bag of drowned cats” and best left alone, but he got a stick and hooked it and dragged it to the shore for curiosity’s sake.It was carefully wrapped, that was for sure. And it was a solid object, about 30 inches long and 16 inches wide and less than a foot thick. The three of them untied it and started unwrapping the layers of burlap. They peeled off the burlap, then a grayish-black tweed topcoat, followed by a long pair of “union-suit” underwear, a dark blue sweater, and a pair of brown slacks.The slacks were the inmost layer. When those were removed, the three of them found themselves looking down at a naked female torso — headless, armless, legless. (Portland, Multnomah and Clackamas County; 1920s, 1930s, 1940s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/2505a.torso-murder-anna-schrader-698.518.html)
Someone killed Oliver Kermit Smith with a massive dynamite bomb planted under his car seat ... and police soon figured out who. But did Smith's wife really put the killer up to the job, like a real-life version of Nicole Kidman's character in 'To Die For'? (Portland, Multnomah County; 1950s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1811d.kermit-smith-murder-car-bomb-523.html)
After being nearly killed in a range war, sheep baron Jack Edwards started looking for a more peaceable place to run his operation. He found it in Hay Creek Ranch, near Prineville; and soon after settling in, he proceeded to put Oregon's wool industry on the map. (Near Shaniko, Wasco County; 1890s, 1900s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1811c.sheep-king-jack-edwards-522.html)
Is there a lost crystal cave in central Oregon somewhere, lined with thousands of quartz crystals? Or is the whole thing just a legend? If it's real, maybe it would be better if we never found out .... (Deschutes and Crook counties, 1890s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1811a.central-oregon-lost-crystal-cave-520.html)
In September, deranged housewife Emma Hannah gunned down a dangerously sexy neighbor she suspected of making moves on her husband; then in November, 18-year-old Lloyd Montgomery had a temper tantrum and murdered his parents. (Jordan and Brownsville, Linn County; 1890s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1810a.1812.montgomery-murder.html)
A recording of an on-air conversation with Bill Lundun and Gerry Snyder of the Wake Up Call on Eugene's KPNW Radio AM 1120, in May of 2024. Topic: When Thomas Lawson, one of the architects of the Anaconda Copper affair, one of the greatest pump-and-dump swindles in Wall Street history, came to Prineville and used his Wall Street wiles to foil Silver Lake's evil plan to win a baseball tournament. (For the full story, see https://offbeatoregon.com/2405a-1211a.thomas-lawson-baseball-bet-196.648.html)
IF THERE WERE a category in the Guinness Book of World Records for the state with the crankiest former governor, Oregon would surely hold the title.The state would have earned the record in 1886, when it elected Sylvester Pennoyer. And Pennoyer would have clinched it seven years later with a telegram he shot off to the President of the United States of America telling him, in essence, to mind his own damn business.His precise words: Washington: I will attend to my business. Let the president attend to his. — Sylvester Pennoyer, Governor of Oregon.This famous telegram was in response to a note from the president, Grover Cleveland, urging western governors to take steps to make sure no Chinese people got hurt in riots or demonstrations following the renewal of the Chinese Exclusion Act. The president had sent the same telegram to the governors of Idaho and California and gotten very different replies. (Washington wasn’t a state yet.)But then, Pennoyer was no friend of the Chinese. Or any other ethnic minority either, for that matter. In fact, he owed his governorship to an incident in 1886 in which he and a mob of workers crashed an outdoor meeting being held by the mayor of Portland and turned it into a slogan-chanting anti-Chinese rally-cum-riot. His role in the riot catapulted him to the head of the anti-Chinese worker movement in Oregon, which clinched the election for him a few months later.But I’m getting ahead of myself here. Let’s take this story from the top — it’s more interesting that way.... (Salem, Marion County; 1880s, 1890s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/2502d1008a.pennoyer-crackpot-governor-690.082.html)
The saloon owners won in court, but the temperance ladies absolutely destroyed them in the court of public opinion. Delighted, the preachers and patriarchs who fancied themselves their leaders geared up for victory in the upcoming election ... and seriously overplayed their hand. (Portland, Multnomah County; 1870s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1902d.temperance-wars-4of4-536.html)
Angry, surly saloonkeeper Walter Moffett attracted a large, hostile crowd with his harassment of a group of ladies holding a prayer service outside his bar. When the crowd rioted and trashed his saloon, he got the Portland police chief — also a saloon owner — to arrest them for instigating it. (Portland, Multnomah County; 1870s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1902c.temperance-wars-3of4-535.html)
Very few of Portland's saloonkeepers threw firecrackers at the ladies of the Women's Temperance Prayer League and called them 'damn whores' when they came by to hold prayer services at their bars. But, as the old song goes, there's one in every crowd ... and it's usually Walter Moffett of the Webfoot Saloon. (Portland, Multnomah County; 1870s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1902b.temperance-wars-2of4-534.html)
Inspired by the successes of temperance activists back east, a group of Portland ladies decided to join the “crusade against that terrible villain, Demon Rum” and take their message of abstinance out of the churches and into the streets. They may have been surprised by the reaction they got.... (Portland, Multnomah County; 1870s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1902a.temperance-wars-1of4-533.html)
DAWN WAS ONLY a couple hours away when 33-year-old lumber mill owner Gene Harington got home from a really long night. He pulled into the drive around 5:45 a.m., and immediately proceeded to wake up his pretty young wife, Virginia, along with their two babies (ages 1 and 2). Virginia tucked the two kids back into bed, and after that, an argument ensued. Virginia later said it was a bad one — at one point Gene threatened to kick her out of the house, and at another point he threatened to push her down the basement stairs.Finally, she said, around 7:45 a.m., he got undressed for bed. But then he got back up again, got into the closet, and got out his .38 Special.“I’m getting this so you won’t,” he said. Then he put it down on the floor beside the bed.The couple continued their argument. Virginia wanted Gene to stop drinking; Gene wanted Virginia to get off his back, and maybe have a drink or two herself (she was a teetotaler). She probably accused him of having an affair; after all, he had been out all night. Then — something happened. Precisely what, only Virginia really knew afterward — but after it was over, Gene Harington was dead, a pair of .38-caliber bullets buried deep in his brain.... (Eugene, Lane County; 1940s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/2504a.virginia-harington-shooting-696.517.html)
But in 1861, the worst floods in state history turned the Willamette Valley into one giant half-million-acre lake and swept several burgeoning towns away. And, despite our flood-control dams, someday it will probably happen again. (Willamette Valley; 1860s, 1890s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1704c.willamette-floods-1894-1861-439.html)
Half a century of winning labor disputes left the waterfront employers feeling overconfident. When the Portland longshoremen walked out, they expected it would be a repeat of earlier victories for them ... it wasn't. (Portland, Multnomah County; 1930s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1304a-1934-dock-strike-paralyzed-oregon.html)
Arguably, the outcome of World War II became inevitable on the day the S.S. Star of Oregon slid into the Columbia River. It was followed by a torrent of new ships — far more than the Nazis could ever hope to sink. (Vanport, Multnomah County; 1940s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1612c.portland-liberty-ships-saved-canada-422.html)
Litter enraged outdoor enthusiast Richard Chambers, so he launched a one-man campaign to pass a deposit bill. Then Gov. Tom McCall leaped aboard, and Oregon became the first state to ban nonreturnable bottles and cans. (Pacific City, Tillamook County; 1970s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1810c.1812.bottle-bill-tom-mccall.html)
South Lane and north Douglas counties felt their county seats neglected them and treated them as a tax-revenue milch cow. So they proposed seceding and forming a new county, Nesmith County. Eugene city leaders campaigned hard against the plan at the ballot box, and it was defeated. But a year or two later, the embittered south-county town got the opportunity to be revenged... and it was brutal. (Cottage Grove, Lane County; 1910s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1704e.eugene-cottageGrove-feud-over-nesmith-county-441.html)
Part of the problem with owning and operating the only flight school in town in the 1920s and 1930s was, every time one of your students slapped together some home-built piece of kit, you’d be expected to help fly it. And 'help fly it' usually translated into 'go first.' (BEND, DESCHUTES COUNTY; EARLY 1930s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1811b.ted-barber-diy-test-pilot-521.html)
Gasping for hard currency to finance the Civil War, and awash in raw gold from two Eastern Oregon gold rushes, the federal government tried to build a mint in The Dalles in 1863. But the Oregon delegation, dominated by Portland interests, would not stop trying to switch its location to Portland ... finally, the gold rush petered out, and the feds said, 'Never mind!' (The Dalles, Wasco County; 1860s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1810d.the-dalles-mint-that-wasnt-519.html)
A recording of an on-air conversation with Bill Lundun and Gerry Snyder of the Wake Up Call on Eugene's KPNW Radio AM 1120. Topic: Reading between the lines of the story, it’s clear that Governor Oswald West’s well-intentioned intervention in pardoning his friend City Marshal Z.H. Stroud was probably the worst thing that could have happened to Stroud, and precipitated the closest thing Oregon history has to Arizona’s famous O.K. Corral gunfight. Which, as I’m sure you’ve gathered, the lawman lost. (For the full story, see https://offbeatoregon.com/24-04a.1107e_os-west-pardons-gunfighter-marshal.html)
AS LEWIS AND CLARK’S Corps of Discovery made its way across the continent to Oregon, the men (and woman) of the party probably weren’t thinking much about their place in history. So they weren’t taking any particular pains to document their every movement.There were, however, some particular pains they were experiencing, as a result of a relentlessly low-fiber diet: Everyone was constipated, all the time.Luckily, they had something that helped with that — a lot. The Corps of Discovery left on its journey with a trove of 600 giant pills that the men called “thunder-clappers,” which the soldiers and travelers used to jump-start things when they got bound up. And everyone used them pretty regularly.And, strange as it seems, that fact is why we know several of their campsites along the way. The main active ingredient in “thunder-clappers” was a mercury salt, which is a pretty stable compound. Archaeologists simply have to search for dimples in the ground — which is what old latrine pits often end up looking like, hundreds of years later, after Nature has partly filled them in — and take samples of the dirt in them. If it comes up with an off-the-charts reading for mercury, well, that’s a Corps of Discovery pit toilet — and the layout of the rest of the campsite can be extrapolated with considerable precision by consulting the military manuals they used to lay out their camps. (Astoria, Clatsop County; 1800s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/2501d1006d_biliousPills-686.077.html)
Portlander Walter Waters arrived in D.C. at the head of 20,000 disciplined, well-intentioned petitioners to request that First World War vets be paid their service bonus early. Hoover refused to meet with him — a big mistake. (Portland, Multnomah County; 1930s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1704d.bonus-army-ended-hoovers-hopes-440.html)
Four states away from his family, with no living parents, young Carroll Beebe was like a walking, talking invitation to a shanghaiing. And when he checked into Bridget Grant's boardinghouse, she obliged. (Astoria, Clatsop County; 1880s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1903c.carroll-beebe-shanghaied-539.html)
Once the finest residence in Oregon Territory, the John McLoughlin House also was once one of the most disreputable — so when history buffs set out to save it, they had to overcome some resistance (Oregon City, Clackamas County; 1840s, 1900s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/22-09.mcloughlin-house-613.html)
Fresh from breaking out of jail in Utah, Harry Tracy apparently came to Portland looking for a fresh start; he married, and then for three years kept his nose clean. But, it seems, the call of the outlaw trail was too much for him to resist, and he was caught and sent to prison. His prison break, and the subsequent two-month manhunt for him, became legendary. (Salem, Portland; Marion and Multnomah County; 1900s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/22-10.harry-tracy-wild-west-outlaw-jailbreak-614.html)
Back in the 1800s, a fire on a riverboat was a very serious matter, and not as rare as you might think. Riverboats were made of wood and powered by steam boilers, so there was always a fire on board. If powered by coal, there was coal dust to worry about; if, in later times, by oil, the engine room was often soaked with flammable liquids. The stories of paddlewheel riverboats on American rivers are peppered with tales of fires breaking out on them and quickly surging out of control, and nearly all such anecdotes come with a body count.Oregon’s most famous riverboat fire has a body count, too. It’s 1. But it unquestionably would have been a lot higher than that, if not for the quick thinking and clear decisionmaking of its legendary skipper — and, probably more importantly, his instant unwillingness to gamble his passengers’ lives to try and save his boat.THE BOAT THAT burned was a legend in its own time, and that legend has only grown since. (Astoria, Clatsop County; 1880s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/2503d1111a.heroic-captain-scott-telephone-694.145.html)
The executives in charge of Henry Villard’s Oregon Railway and Navigation Co. no doubt thought they’d played their cards very cleverly when they bought the little screw-driven riverboat Gold Dust in 1881. They could not have been more wrong.... (Cascade Locks, Hood River; 1880s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/2503c1110e.steamboat-wars-uriah-scott-693.145.html)
READERS OF A certain age all over North America will remember a really excellent Canadian comedy-variety show called The Red Green Show, which had a 15-year run starting in 1990, starring Steve Smith as gravel-voiced handyman Red Green.Each week, Red would preside over the “Handyman Corner” segment of the show, in which he would do something ridiculous with duct tape and, usually, one or more rusty old cars.In one memorable episode from Season 14, Red made a DIY “mid-engine sports car” by sawing off the trunk of a rusty Mercury Grand Marquis, squashing the cabin flat, and duct-taping what remained onto the front of another car of the same model. The result was a remarkably ugly barge-shaped thing, about 50 feet long, which Red then hopped into and fired up, remarking proudly, “This isn’t an old junker anymore, it’s a fancy Italian mid-engine junker,” and adding his famous tagline: “If the women don’t find you handsome, they should at least find you handy!”Viewers and studio-audience members of Red’s show probably felt, watching him drive off in this monstrosity, about the same way the executives of Oregon’s two big riverboat almost-monopolies did back in 1874 while they watched an Ohio greenhorn’s progress on the riverboat he was building. They watched, and they laughed.The executives were also, it seems clear, congratulating themselves for having had the good sense not to hire that “Red Green” type guy when he’d applied to them for a job a few months earlier. The Ohio man, whose name was Uriah B. Scott, had come to them almost as soon as he’d arrived in Oregon, asking for a job and babbling about “shallow-draft hulls” — as if their riverboats weren’t already on shallow-draft hulls! What, did he think they ran a blue-water fleet or something?They were in for a big surprise.... (Canemah, Clackamas County; 1870s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/2503b1110d.uriah-scott-riverboat-genius-692.145.html)
DURING THE FIRST year of the Second World War, the conflict in the Pacific was all about aircraft carriers. With a carrier, one could take the fight to the enemy. Without one, one could only huddle on an island as a passive target, waiting for an enemy carrier’s aircraft to arrive and attack.When the war broke out, the U.S. had seven of these precious warships, but only three were in the Pacific. They were the actual targets of the attack on Pearl Harbor — the Japanese knew if they could get them out of the way, they’d have a free hand for at least a year. It had taken an average of more than three years to build a regular full-size aircraft carrier before the war. Mobilization would cut that timeframe to under a year, but that was still a long wait.The Japanese almost had a free hand for that year anyway. Much of their equipment was just more advanced in 1942, especially airplanes. By the end of that year the U.S. was down to one carrier. Both sides were hurriedly converting existing ships to bolster their fleets, but it certainly looked, from far away, as if the U.S. was not too far from ending up in that helpless position that the Japanese had hoped to put it in with the Pearl Harbor attack. Carriers were rare, complicated ships, hard and time-consuming to build. Japan had lost four of their best ones at Midway, but they still had at least six left.And that’s about the point at which Henry Kaiser decided to go into the aircraft-carrier business.... (Vanport, Multnomah County; 1940s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/22-07.kaiser-aircraft-carriers-611.html)
Klamath County was about to move into a courthouse just outside town -- but downtown businesses, fearful they'd lose their status as county seat, fought the plan with every weapon they had ... and won. (Klamath Falls, Klamath County; 1900s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1812a.klamath-courthouse-battle.html)
A recording of an on-air conversation with Bill Lundun and Gerry Snyder of the Wake Up Call on Eugene's KPNW Radio AM 1120, recorded in January of last year. The topic of conversation: Luther Cressman. He was a maverick anthropologist with an unimpeachable Ivy League background, a tenured faculty member at Oregon’s flagship university, a former military man who did his fieldwork in an Army-surplus campaign hat with a big revolver on his hip in case he ran across a snake (he hated snakes) ... as far as I know, he never used a whip. But other than that, the parallels with Indiana Jones are quite striking.There’s even an echo of Indy’s love life in our man. In lieu of Marian Ravenwood, our candidate’s love interest was a diminutive classmate four years younger than he — a fellow anthropoligist whom you just might have heard of. Her name was Margaret Mead. (For the full story, see https://offbeatoregon.com/24-02.luther-cressman-oregons-indiana-jones-630.html)
AS OF THE time of this writing, it’s election season, and some of us are being asked to approve bond measures for local schools. So, most likely I don’t have to tell you that such debates can get pretty heated.We should count our blessings, though. Some Oregonians used to argue over this sort of thing with dynamite.More specifically, a few of the residents of the unincorporated hamlet of Mohawk did.... (Marcola, Lane County; 1890s, 1900s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/2410c1003b%20ping%20yang%20school-672.065.html)
IMAGINE YOU'RE A gold prospector from the Willamette Valley, on your way to the California gold fields in the first year of the 1848 gold rush. You’re a little late to the party, and you’ve chosen to try to reach the gold fields in a somewhat unusual way: By going over the Coast Range to the beach, and traveling south along the coast.As you make your way southward by the great ocean, you reach a broad expanse of black sand. And when the sun hits it just right, you can see it’s actually glittering … with tiny flakes and grains of gold.You’re all alone on the beach. There aren’t even any other footprints. Apparently nobody else was crazy enough to try to travel to the gold fields via Coos Bay. Everyone else in the area, such as there are, has decamped inland to the gold fields. It’s just you, on the uninhabited edge of a continent, crunching a trillion dollars’ worth of gold under your feet.... (Randolph, Coos County; 1840s, 1850s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/22-05.gold-on-the-beach-609.html)
Lumber magnate Simon Benson needed to get logs from the Columbia to his mill in Southern California, so he designed cigar-shaped log rafts a full acre in size. They were a familiar sight until the early 1940s. (Clatskanie, Columbia County; 1890s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1202c-benson-log-rafts-built-city-of-san-diego.html)
They never did see any action against the Japanese spies and commando teams they expected. But the fact that they were on the job may have had something to do with the fact that none ever tried to come ashore. (Coast, 1940s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1503c.sand-pounders-uscg-ww2-330.html)
Although he had done it, Return Everman stoutly denied having burgled Cyrenius Hooker’s home. Hooker just as firmly accused him of the deed, and wouldn’t stop talking about it. So Everman decided it would be best if he just went ahead and murdered him. “I would rather the news get home that I had killed a man for trying to injure my character, than for news to go home that I had stolen a watch,” he wrote later. (Dallas, Polk County; 1850s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/22-08.cyrenius-hooker-murder-612.html)
So, what's the real story of Richard Brumfield? Even today, it’s a remarkably unsatisfying account. There’s plenty of evidence that Brumfield committed the murder — but there’s also a bunch of evidence that makes no sense at all in that context. Why would a murderer mail a box of sexy panties to the exact place he planned to run away to, the day before an apparently premeditated crime? Was “Mrs. Norman Whitney” a real person, and if so, who was she? Did Brumfield have a second family in Calgary? Then, too, why would a man who’s contemplating a murder like this use such a small amount of dynamite? Why would he stage the entire pageant on Pacific Highway, the most heavily traveled road in the area? Was there a second man involved in the plot, as the district attorney broadly hinted to reporters? Why was his wife so doggedly insistent that the burned corpse was that of her husband, when it was so obvious to everyone else that it was not? Was she in on it? And those suicide attempts: How many people, crazy or not, can cut two inches into their own throats with a dull instrument? How many can hang themselves from a bunk bed without help? If he had help, who could have provided it? It’s possible that all these anomalies can be explained by Brumfield simply being an unhinged homicidal maniac, and yeah, maybe that’s all there was to it. But looking back over the record at all the loose ends hanging off this messy little murder mystery, a person sure has to wonder. (Roseburg, Douglas County; 1920s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/20-06b.brumfield-murdering-dentist-mystery-part2of2.html)
On a warm summer’s evening in 1921, Dr. Richard Brumfield loaded about a dozen sticks of dynamite into his snazzy red convertible and left Roseburg, headed for handyman Dennis Russell’s tiny shack in the hills near Dillard.Dr. Brumfield had hired Russell to blast out some stumps from around a rural farm property he owned. At least, that’s what he’d told Russell when he hired him.But, as it turned out, he was lying about that. What Brumfield really wanted to hire Russell for was to impersonate a corpse.His corpse.... (Roseburg, Douglas County; 1920s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/20-06a.brumfield-murdering-dentist-mystery-part1of2.html)
Legendary Coast Guard lifesaver took his brand-new rescue boat dangerously close to shore to save four drowning people; hundreds of people were watching and cheering, but USCG brass wanted to bust him for risking the boat. (Newport, Lincoln County; 1950s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1202b-mcadams-legendary-coast-guard-rescuer.html)
Murderer Pleasant Armstrong said he had no idea what came over him. But a strange woman claimed, in court, that he was the victim of a family of murdering hypnotists. (Haines, Harney County; 1900s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1805b.pleasant-armstrong-murder-495.html)
On December 6, 1977, a car pulled past the conspicuous “No Trespassing” and “Beware of Dog” signs at the perimeter of Arthur Allen’s oceanside ranch, about ten miles south of Bandon. Three men got out and approached the house.Allen, who had obviously been watching them approach, promptly emerged from the house and ordered them off the property.“We’re from the Bureau of Land Management,” one of them said. “We wanted to talk to you about negotiating to buy an easement across your land so visitors can access BLM property on the New River.”Allen relented and let the men approach the house, where he demanded to see their identification. Two of them promptly whipped out their wallets and showed their badges; the third, whose name was Larry Gano, said he’d left his wallet at home.It was a lucky break for Gano that Allen didn’t push it. Because he wasn’t with the BLM. He was with the United States Customs Service. And he was there because he was pretty sure Allen was running a smuggling operation.Spoiler alert: Oh yes, he was.... (Bandon, Coos County; 1970s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/20-07.new-river-drug-bust.html)
A recording of an on-air conversation with Bill Lundun and Gerry Snyder of the Wake Up Call on Eugene's KPNW Radio AM 1120, recorded in January of last year. The topic of conversation ... the time, in 1906, when fed-up farmers dynamited the Oregon Iron and Steel Co.'s diversion dam on the Tualatin River that had flooded some of their fields, which the company had installed after promising to set up steamboat service on the river and then never followed through. (For the full story, see https://offbeatoregon.com/24-01.tualatin-dam-dynamited.html)
In the early 1880s, visitors in the Klickitat Valley, just across the Columbia River from The Dalles and Biggs Junction, recalled seeing some very singular signs posted regularly along the right-of-way:NOTISE:All land in woods pastDraper Springs is for Settlerscattle. No sheep is allowed.Sheep men take notise. — Comitee By “Comitee,” it was clearly understood, the writer meant some sort of vigilance committee, a coalition of cattle ranchers and sodbusters who had come together to fight the encroachment of the flocks of sheep that seemed to be taking over the public rangeland. Similar signs, and “comitees,” were springing up all across the Columbia River basin. And over the decades to come, the problem would only get worse … and bloodier.Luckily, nearly all of the blood would be coming from sheep, not men. (Central and Eastern Oregon; 1880s, 1890s, 1900s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/2401b-1009c.sheepshooters-089.630.html)
Crusty, spluttering city leaders, full of self-righteous outrage over mixed-race dancing that was going on at “The Dude Ranch,” found an excuse to order the West Coast's hottest jazz club shut down. (Portland, Multnomah County; 1940s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1203b-dude-ranch-portland-jazz-scene.html)
He “married” her to get title to her land claim, but then she found out he had another wife in Dufur, so she moved out. So he killed her and her mother and forged her signature on the land-claim deed. (Hood River, Hood River County; 1900s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/index-all.htm#2011)
Western gambler and white-hat con man Deadwood Dick was the hero of dozens of dime novels in the late 1800s. But his New York author didn't really know much about the West ... and it showed! (Roseburg, Douglas County; 1880s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1805a.deadwood-dicks-danger-ducks-494.html)
Ask anyone to name a mythical Oregon creature, and you’ll get a very predictable answer: Bigfoot, a.k.a. Sasquatch. The stories and legends of Bigfoot, the Pacific Northwest’s reigning “hide-and-seek champion,” are vast and growing every year. Just a list of them, from 1945 to present, would be longer than this article. But Bigfoot is neither the only Oregon cryptid, nor the most plausible. There are others.And chief among those others is the Columbia Bar Sea Serpent. (Columbia River Bar, Clatsop County; 1930s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/20-02.columbia-river-bar-sea-serpent-colossal-claude.html)
EVERYONE IN THE tiny Harney County town of Westfall knew something bad was going to happen after City Marshal Asa Carey was fired for the second time.Carey had been an odd pick for city marshal, but maybe he’d been given the job because he wanted it badly — and Carey was a dangerous man to say “no” to. Basically, he was the “Bad Bad Leroy Brown” of Westfall ... right down to the “.32 gun in his pocket for fun,” about which more in a red-hot minute.And the town council really should have known better. This was not Carey’s first time being entrusted with the town marshal’s baton. His first term in office had gone a long way toward demonstrating to everyone in Westfall that giving the “meanest man in the whole damn town” a badge was bad for business. In fact, Carey appears to have been one of the main reasons the town had a regional reputation as a nest of hooligans. In 1906, while serving as marshal, Carey had gunned down fellow Westfall resident Frank Cammeron in a fight. He was acquitted on a plea of self-defense; but three years after that, he got in a fistfight with 80-year-old Dan Brady and beat the frail octogenarian to death. Both of these little incidents had made headlines statewide.The Brady incident appears to have been the point at which the town council replaced Carey as town marshal, ending his first term of office by appointing a hardware-store clerk named Ben Corbett to the position. Doubtless the town’s business leaders breathed a sigh of relief. But 'Bad Bad Asa Carey' wasn't going to go quietly .... (Westfall, Malheur County; 1910s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/2502c.westfall-gunfight-asa-carey-689.515.html)
Bafflingly, the Coast Guard's biggest rescue boat on the Columbia River Bar was one that hadn't been designed to survive a rollover. So, in early 1961, it didn't — and neither did five members of its six-man crew. (Columbia River Bar, Clatsop County; 1960s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1201d-triumph-coast-guard-disaster-2.html)
Mammoth seas on the legendary Columbia River Bar, plus the untimely removal of a vital piece of life-saving gear by short-sighted military brass, cost the lives of five Coast Guardsmen that night. (Columbia River Bar, Clatsop County; 1960s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1201c-triumph-disaster-coast-guard-columbia-bar.html)
Alfred Belding targeted his wife's family with murderous rampage, shot at his young son, and tried to claim “temporary insanity.” It didn't work ... and neither did his crackpot plan for a prison break. (Portland, Multnomah County; 1900s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1804e.UL-alfred-belding-murderer-493.html)
On the evening of March 23, 1964, Seaside resident Margaret Gammon hadn’t been asleep more than an hour or two when she was awakened by howling. It was the community fire siren, blaring at full blast without stopping. She looked at the clock. It was 11:30 p.m.“I lay in bed thinking to myself, ‘Why doesn’t that fellow at the fire station get his big thumb off the siren button so we can all go back to sleep, and let the firemen take care of the fire?’” she recalled later, in an article for Oregon Historical Quarterly. “In just a few seconds the cars started zipping up our street toward the highway like the devil himself was on their tail. I thought it must be a tremendous fire, so I figured I’d get dressed and go watch it.”It didn’t take long for Gammon to learn that it wasn’t a fire. It was a tsunami — and it was almost upon her. (Oregon Coast; 1960s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/22-06.tsunami-1964-610.html)
AROUND 6 A.M. on the morning of Sept. 9, 1942, Forest Service lookout Howard Gardner heard the sound of an approaching airplane. Peering out into the South Coast pre-dawn gloaming light, Gardner made out a small seaplane, heading toward him, flying low, circling.Showtime! This was what Gardner was here for, bundled up in the little Forest Service firewatch lookout shack atop Mt. Emily. Nine months into the Second World War, Gardner’s duties had expanded a bit from what they had been a year before. Now he was looking not only for smoke from forest fires, but for enemy airplanes.And right then, that’s exactly what he was looking at. (Brookings, Curry County; 1940s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/2402a-0907b.glovebox-bomb-031.634.html)
Captains are supposed to be the last to leave their sinking ships, not the first. But that required act of valor has always been easier said than done — as evidenced by the story of the 1903 wreck of the S.S. South Portland off Cape Blanco. (Off Cape Blanco, Coos and Curry county; 1900s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1203a-steamer-captain-named-poultroon-of-the-sea.html)
Willamette Valley town's mascot was the state's wealthiest housecat; he owned City Hall along with the farm it was built on, as well as an iconic red barn. Today, you can visit Kitty Kat's grave, but his barn has been moved to a new place. (Tangent, Linn County; 1980s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1201b-kitty-kat-owner-of-city-hall-richest-cat.html)
Created and priced as a luxury line to compete with coal-fired steam trains, the railroad collapsed rapidly after automobiles came on the scene. Would a cheaper, less opulent service have survived? (Willamette Valley; 1900s, 1910s, 1920s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1612b.oregon-electric-rise-and-fall-421.html)
They found the grizzled prospector’s body slumped over a sample of ore on the floor of the rude log cabin he’d been staying in, deep in the wilderness of southern Oregon, late in the spring of 1897. He’d apparently dropped dead one evening while assaying out the samples he’d gathered that day – probably poisoned by some of the chemicals he was using.But this wasn’t just any random gold prospector. This badly decomposed body was all that was mortal of the most famous prospector of the American West ‑ and certainly one of the richest and most successful: Ed Schieffelin, the man who discovered and named the Tombstone mine in Arizona.And by the time Ed’s body was securely buried under a tall miner’s cairn near Tombstone, the hills near that cabin were already alive with eager prospectors following up on the “lost gold mine” legends that sprang up following his death. At least one of those legends is still bringing hopeful prospectors out into the hills of Southern Oregon today.... (Near Jacksonville, Jackson County; 1897) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/20-03.ed-schieffelin-prospector-lost-gold-tales.html)
The little company town was located smack in the middle of the country's most productive tree-growing land; so, in the 1980s, the company drained its lake, bulldozed it into a pile, torched it, and replanted it with trees. (Valsetz, Polk County; 1920s, 1950s, 1980s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1611c.valsetz-company-ghost-town-418.html)
Canadian bootlegger gang tried to bust three rumrunners out of Lincoln County Jail; it probably would have worked if they hadn't tried to take the confiscated whiskey too ... (Toledo, Lincoln County; 1930s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1809d.whale-cove-rumrunners-jailbreak-514.html)
In Whale Cove, Canadian rumrunners lost their boat engine at the worst possible time and ended up on shore. So they buried the booze, burned the boat, and tried to get away ... and got caught. (Depoe Bay, Lincoln County; 1930s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1809c.whale-cove-rumrunners-shipwreck-513.html)
When the sheriff arrived to enforce the law, he brought with him a pro-temperance preacher from one of the local churches — whose presence seems to have sparked a murderous response from the man he'd come to arrest. (Plainview, Linn County; 1920s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1611d.sheriff-murdered-in-liquor-raid-gone-bad-419.html)
From 1901 until the First World War, in the age just before movies became popular, Mayor George Baker's theater was the great shaper and driver of Portland's unique culture. (Portland, Multnomah County; 1900s, 1910s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1803d.baker-stock-theater-in-portland-488.html)
PORTLAND'S RIVER VIEW Cemetery is the state’s oldest nonprofit cemetery, founded in 1882 by three of Portland’s most prominent citizens: Henry Corbett, Henry Failing, and William S. Ladd. All three of them are buried there — Ladd’s grave in particular was the target of a bizarre raid by a gang of grave robbers 15 years later, but that’s a story for another time. But the most visited grave at River View isn’t one of them. It’s not even the grave of an Oregonian. The name carved into the stone is Virgil W. Earp. (Portland, Multnomah County; 1880s, 1890s, 1900s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/2401c-1009d_virgil-earp-090.631.html)
Legendary physician Dr. Bethenia Owens-Adair was an unstoppable force battling to get a eugenic-sterilization law passed ... until she encountered the immovable object that was medical-liberty activist Lora C. Little. (Portland, Multnomah County; 1910s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1808d.lora-little-vs-bethenia-owens-adair-eugenic-sterilization-510.html)
Entrepreneurs figured out how to send power long distances for the first time in history; later, after a flood wiped out power station, they pioneered alternating-current transmission. (Oregon City, Clackamas County; 1880s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1201a-oregon-city-home-of-worlds-first-power-grid.html)
By 1899, when Samuel L. Simpson’s drinking problem finally got around to killing him, he was essentially Oregon’s poet laureate — the Stewart Holbrook of the 1800s. But thirty years earlier, he was just another fresh-faced lawyer, just out of Willamette University’s law school. He’d moved to Portland to open his practice, and now he was sitting at his desk in his brand-new office in Portland, sipping a glass of rye and waiting for his first client to walk in the door.No one did. There were just too many lawyers in Portland in 1868. Fresh out of law school, with no social connections, Sam just didn’t have a chance.But finally the door did open, and somebody stepped inside.It wasn’t a client, though. It was one of the other residents in the boardinghouse he was staying in, a greenhorn from Chicago named Ted Harper. And Harper had a proposition: He wanted Sam to close up his law office and come to Southern Oregon with him. They would spend the summer hunting for a certain ruined cabin with an immense hoard of gold buried inside, deep in the wilderness south of Jacksonville, in a hidden valley boxed in by steep cliffs. Only problem was, Harper didn’t know exactly where the valley was. It was possible that they’d search all summer and get nothing for their pains.But Harper did have a letter giving partial directions to the cabin, which his cousin — who'd built the cabin and buried the gold — had dropped dead in the middle of writing.Simpson agreed to the scheme. He was brand new in the law business, had no clients and very few prospects; a summer in the woods, a possible fortune – sure, why not? (Siskiyou Mountains, Josephine County; 1860s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/20-05b.sam-simpson-lost-cabin-gold.html)
One of the most interesting and colorful Lost Cabin Gold Mine stories is the one told by frontier poet Sam Simpson, which supposedly took place in the hills south of Jacksonville in 1853. In this case, it’s not a mine that’s been lost — it’s a vault: a small stone-lined crypt stuffed with millions of dollars’ worth of freshly dug gold, and guarded by whatever remains of the skeletons of two long-dead men. (Siskiyou Mountains, Jackson County; 1853) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/20-05.sam-simpson-lost-cabin-gold.html)
SOMETIME IN MID-1956, Corinne Gunderson Stumbo of Wolf Creek opened her mail and found a bill from Douglas County for delinquent property taxes.It was only $1.50, but Corinne was a detail person. It bothered her that this had been overlooked.It bothered her more when she figured out what the bill was for. It was several years’ taxes on a small strip of her family’s land that the Oregon Highway Department had built Highway 99 on, eight years earlier.It seemed the state of Oregon, when it had moved the highway to its current location, hadn’t bothered to buy the land first.... (Wolf Creek, Douglas County; 1950s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/2502a.stumbo-stand-vs-bureaucrats-687.514.html)
After the rumrunner ship Pescawah responded to an S.O.S. from a sinking steam schooner, the Coast Guard pounced, arresting the crew and rewarding their heroism with prison sentences. (Offshore, Clatsop County; 1920s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1808c.pescawah-rumrunner-rescuers-509.html)
The Frishkorn family lived with two boarders, who paid the rent in exchange for board. Then they found out the boarders expected something else, too ... a fight broke out — and was ended by the roar of a double-barreled shotgun. (Manhattan, Clatsop County; 1880s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1807e.girl-defended-her-family-with-a-shotgun-506.html)
A poorly engineered jetty was installed at the mouth of Tillamook Bay that changed the ocean’s currents, and over the following three decades the sea relentlessly scoured away the town. Today, no trace remains of once-thriving Bayocean. (Bayocean Spit, Tillamook County; 1910s, 1920s, 1930s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1611b.bayocean-town-swallowed-by-the-sea-417.html)
A startup newspaper in Albany was determined to see Mattie Allison hanged, one way or another; and the townspeople were mostly convinced. But when her court case got started, the real story came out (Albany, Linn County; 1880s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1803b.campbell-the-stalker-murdered-in-albany.486.html)
FAR AWAY FROM the Beaver State, in the backcountry of West Virginia by the Kentucky border, a man named Floyd Hatfield was the proud owner of a fine razorback hog.A distant neighbor, from across the Tug River on the Kentucky side, saw the hog one day, and claimed the hog was really his. He could tell, he said, by the distinctive notches in the hog’s ear.Hatfield was enraged; the neighbor was basically calling him a thief, an insult that was, in the heart of Appalachia just after the Civil War, not to be borne.The neighbor took Hatfield to court, suing for the return of the hog, and lost. But the Justice of the Peace was Anderson Hatfield, a relative of Floyd, and the neighbor was convinced the fix was in. Now the neighbor was enraged too.That was in late 1878, and the dispute over the allegedly stolen hog blossomed out over the following 12 years into the most notorious family feud in U.S. history. The neighbor, as you have probably guessed by now, was named McCoy — Randolph McCoy.The Hatfield-McCoy feud ended with more than a dozen members of both families being measured for coffins, and a decade or so of prosecutions for murder.The stakes in the Lincoln City-Great Falls, Mont., feud, if it can be called that, are a lot less serious. In fact, the whole situation is the kind of thing that’s just fun and funny.But the parallels are striking, and — now that nearly 150 years has passed since the last Hatfield-McCoy blood was spilled — amusing.... (Delake/Lincoln City, Lincoln County; 1940s, 1980s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/2412d1006b.d-river-short-river-long-drama_681.075.html)
Talking fast and dreaming big, M. Penn Phillips blew into Christmas Valley like a tornado. His dreams never came true, but he left an indelible impression on northern Lake County. (Christmas Valley, Lake County; 1960s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1808a.developer-penn-phillips-christmas-valley-dream-507.html)
Abigail Scott Duniway is remembered today as a journalist, a suffragist, and an intellectual powerhouse ... all of which would have surprised her: She expected to be remembered for the novels that, today, very few people realize she wrote. (Portland, Multnomah County; 1870s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1806c.abigail-scott-duniway-noveliste-500.html)
Everybody had gold in Jacksonville, and nobody wanted to pack it around, and the bank had no access to outside markets where it could be invested. So, instead of paying interest, they charged a storage fee on all deposits. (Jacksonville, Jackson County; 1850s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1611a.jacksonville-where-bank-robs-you-416.html)
Corvallis/Toledo railroad tycoon T. Edgenton Hogg (pronounced “Hoag”) was always a little reticent about his past. Especially the Civil War part. To some extent, that was understandable. “Colonel” Hogg had fought with the Confederacy in the Civil War. His side had lost, so, sure — better not to talk about it, right? Nevertheless, the real story is so much more bonkers than that, that one wonders why the rumor-passers even bothered with making things up. His story was unearthed somewhat painstakingly by historian Clark, a faculty member at Central Oregon College (now Central Oregon Community College) in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Clark compares the whole thing to a rip-roaring B-movie Western, and he is not even slightly wrong about that. (Toledo, Lincoln County; 1860s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/20-04.colonel-hogg-war-record-robbery-on-the-high-seas.html)
What comes to your mind when I mention the name “Balch”?For most of us, it’s the sordid, nasty tale of Danford Balch, the first Portland resident to be hanged for murder, a fate he earned in 1858 by reacting to his stepdaughter’s elopement by chasing the young couple down with a shotgun and murdering his new son-in-law on the Stark Street Ferry (here’s a link to the Offbeat Oregon article about that).And yeah, that’s one way to make it into the history books!Half a century ago, though, most Oregonians would instantly recognize the Balch name from a more benign, and certainly a more important, historical character, who probably was distantly related to Danford — Frederic H. Balch, the author of what may actually be the most important and influential work of literature in Oregon history: a misty, mythical novel titled The Bridge of the Gods: A Romance of Indian Oregon, published in 1890.In part, the reason Frederic’s name is so seldom recognized today is that he died young. The Bridge of the Gods was supposed to be Volume One of a six-part saga telling the story of the Oregon country. But tuberculosis claimed him when he was just 29 years old, leaving the great work unfinished. (Lyle, Washington Territory; 1890s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/2501b.frederic-balch-bridge-o-gods-684.512.html)
A defeat in the Oregon primary, for candidate John F. Kennedy, would have sent the message that his Catholic faith was a deal-killer; a win would signify that it was not. The task of sending that signal fell to Oregon voters. (Statewide; 1950s, 1960s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1806d.oregon-was-JFKs-make-or-break-election-501.html)
The miners believed Berry Way had murdered a man while robbing him. So they kidnapped the sheriff so he couldn't interfere, then empaneled their own DIY court of law, with the stated purpose of finding him guilty ... which, of course, they did. (Canyon City, Grant County; 1860s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1806a.berry-way-perry-mason-paint-your-wagon-498.html)
Oregon's official state university got off to a rocky start, in part because in 1859 Judge Matthew Deady thought it was a bad idea to have one ... (Eugene, Lane County; 1870s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1805d.matthew-deady-opposed-university.html)
Portlanders tolerated three years of strident calls for revolution and regime change, but when The Firebrand started saying mean things about marriage, the gloves were off. (Portland, Multnomah County; 1890s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1803c.firebrand-newspaper-shut-down-for-smut-487.html)
(NOTE: This episode is being posted two days early just in case we lose connectivity in the forecasted thunder/hailstorm later today.) Today, as travelers outside the Beaver State’s borders know well, Oregon’s roads are merely average, or maybe slightly above average, in terms of crowdedness and quality. Certainly other states tend to have more and wider interstate freeways.But you don’t have to go too far back into the past to find a time when Oregon’s highway system was something rather special. It’s a legacy that goes all the way back to the dawn of motoring; when the Good Roads movement got started, it really took off in Oregon, starting in the early 1910s with the nationally famous Columbia Gorge Highway.But the true reason for the lion’s share of Oregon’s transformation into a midcentury motorist’s paradise is much more prosaic:Our state was the first in the nation to levy a gasoline tax to fund its highway system. (Forest Grove, Washington County; 1910s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/2402b-0905b.oregon-highways-gas-tax-025.635.html)
Wild with grief over the death of one daughter, and convinced he had seduced her other daughter, Caroline Briggs attacked schoolteacher John Dalmater in front of his class, shouting 'Shoot the son of a bitch' -- and her son, who'd accompanied her, did so. This episode is being posted a day early just in case we lose connectivity in the forecasted thunder/hailstorm later today.(Kerbyville, Josephine County; 1870s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1808b.caroline-and-david-briggs-UL-murder-508.html)
Printer George Himes saw the historical value of the everyday things around him, and although that made for some very unsuccessful publishing ventures, his collection is the heart of the Oregon Historical Society's archives today. (Portland, Multnomah County; 1870s, 1880s, 1890s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1512b.george-himes-history-hoarder.html)
Fourteen thousand years ago, in a cold dry cave deep in the “Oregon Outback,” someone answered a “call of Nature” — leaving behind a hefty load that, today, is the oldest evidence of human habitation on the West Coast. (Fort Rock, Lake County; 1839s, 2000s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1610a.prehistoric-oregon-sandals-coprolites-411.html)
ONE OF THE most significant events in the history of the world took place in 1892, when a corrupt political hack named James Lotan managed to land a cushy government job as the head of the customs inspection service for the Port of Portland.Believe it or not, Lotan’s landing that job led directly to Pearl Harbor and eventually Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and indirectly to the defeat of Nazi Germany in Europe. Not bad for a small-time white-collar criminal in a tiny backwater seaport town on the far side of the world, eh?I realize you may be a bit skeptical of this claim. Bear with me while I unpack it and prove it to you, along with the strong possibility that most of us owe our lives and the continued existence of human civilization to James Lotan and the sleazy little band of well-heeled drug smugglers and human traffickers who worked with and for him, on the Portland waterfront in the early 1890s.... (Portland, Multnomah County; 1890s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/2408a-1202d.james-lotan-opium-king-661.161.html)
THE TOWN OF Long Creek developed in the late 1870s and early 1880s on the banks of Long Creek, one of the tributaries of the John Day River. It was, and is, a little north of the center of Grant County, a few dozen miles north-northwest of John Day and Canyon City. It was a prosperous little town, well positioned, and it grew relatively quickly to become one of the most promising settlements in Grant County, so much so that in 1891 the residents incorporated the town and started the process of trying to take over from then-fading Canyon City as county seat.But before anything could come of that, the town got flattened by the most intense cyclone in recorded Oregon history.And yeah, about that cyclone: One of the people who watched it descend upon the town gave what may actually be the earliest known eyewitness description of the creation of a “bomb cyclone.” ... (Long Creek, Grant County; 1890s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/2412e.long-creek-bomb-cyclone_682.511.html)
For centuries, mysterious chunks of beeswax have been washing up on Oregon beaches. Scholars have finally learned, with about 99 percent certainty, that the ship it's coming from was the San Cristo de Burgos, a Spanish galleon that disappeared in 1693. (Nehalem Spit, Clatsop County; 1600s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1807d.beeswax-wreck-mystery-solved-505.html)
Passengers on the speeding liner said an incompetent crew and disappearing ship's officers contributed to a shocking death toll after the liner Alaska crashed onto the rocks in the fog; the captain blamed an “uncharted current.” (Portland, Multnomah County; 1920s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1512a.alaska-shipwreck-368.html)
Taken to Ocean Park after being nearly killed in the wreck of the Glenmorag, William Begg was nursed back to health by Maude Taylor - who turned out to be the love of his life. (Columbia River Bar, Clatsop County; 1890s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1804b.william-begg-lucky-shipwreck-glenmorag-490.html)
Back before World War II, when racism was still a mainstream attitude with little or no social stigma attached, Portland was not a very friendly town for Black people.It’s not that way any more, of course. There’s still racism; but the toxic race-hierarchalism that winked at lynchings and enabled the rise of the Ku Klux Klan — that, thankfully, is a distant and uncomfortable memory today.And one has to wonder how much of that transformation — not just in Portland, but around the nation — can be attributed to the influence of one man, a man still today widely known as “The World’s Greatest Entertainer”: Sammy Davis, Jr.Davis came to Portland with his dance group, the Will Mastin Trio — composed of Davis, his father, and his father’s best friend, Will Mastin — just after the Second World War. For a little while he was a regular in P-town’s clubs and Vaudeville theaters. ... (Portland, Multnomah County; 1940s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/2404d-1111d.sammy-davis-jr-portland-story-149.646.html)
THE YOUNG U.S. Cavalry captain was getting a little frustrated. He was explaining to the short, fireplug-shaped German man with the serious mouth and commanding eyes why he really, really should turn around.It was the spring of 1855, you see, and the Oregon Trail had been going full steam for about a decade. The Sioux tribes, along with other Plains Indian tribes, had been nonplussed at first by the torrent of travelers, but by now they were really alarmed, and they had started attacking wagon trains.The German man was Dr. Wilhelm Keil, and he was the leader of a particularly large wagon train.Well, actually that wasn’t quite true — the man who was leading the wagon train was Dr. Keil’s 19-year-old son, Willie. But Willie was dead. (Aurora Mills, Clackamas County; 1850s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/2404b-1007c.aurora-colony-willie-keil-311.644.html)
Holed up on a nearby hillside clutching a stolen shotgun, local drunken rowdy Charlie Earhart held the whole town at bay until dawn, when he finally gave himself up; surprisingly, no one was killed. (Ione, Morrow County; 1900s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1511d.ione-all-night-gunfight-366.html)
Abusive husband Nathaniel Lamb probably didn't really plan to kill his wife, but when he aimed his rifle at her that morning, he clearly wanted her to think he did. That night, over supper, he learned the hard way how successful he'd been. (Oregon City, Clackamas County; 1850s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1511e.charity-lamb-murder-367.html)
ANYONE WHO'S DONE much driving around Oregon — especially along the coast — knows the state’s bridges have a particular and distinctive style.That style is actually hard to put your finger on, isn’t it? The bridges themselves are very different from one another. Many of them aren’t even built with the same materials. The spectacular structure that soars over Coos Bay could not be much different in size, technique, and style from the elegant little archway that links Oregon City with West Linn; but even if you’d never seen them before, you could just look at either one of them and instantly identify it as an Oregon bridge.The common thread linking these classic Oregon bridges was Conde McCullough, the legendary bridge designer and engineer who led the teams that designed and built them. (Statewide; 1920s, 1930s, 1940s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/2407b-1111b.conde-mccullough-2of2-147.658.html)
CONDE MCCULLOUGH had a problem. Actually, let’s restate that. The Iowa highway department, which McCullough worked for at the time (in 1914), had a problem; what McCullough had was an opportunity.His solution to Iowa’s problem would, several years later, enable him to basically write his own ticket, and the name he would write on that ticket in the “destination” category would be “Oregon.” But at the time, that happy day was several years in the future and was far from certain. The problem the highway department was depending on McCullough to solve for them was a big one, and success was far from assured.The problem’s name was Daniel Luten, and he was the founder and president of the National Bridge Company. And he was a patent troll — possibly America’s first. (Corvallis, Benton County; 1910s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/2407a-1111b.conde-mccullough-1of2-147.657.html)
SEPT. 1, 1962, WAS an unusually sultry day for the north Oregon coast, and the little beachside resort town of Seaside was crammed with high-school and college kids.They had come from all over the state and beyond for a rowdy, high-spirited end-of-summer Labor Day beach-party weekend that had become almost like a tradition in the postwar years.Something was a little different this year, though. The crowd was larger than usual, for one thing. Actually, it was a lot larger. The first baby-boomers, born in 1946, were 16 years old in 1962 ... and there were a lot of them on the beach that day, and they were a bit wild. Something else that was different that year was the attitude of the Seaside cops. They were being noticeably more hard-nosed than they had been in years past. Seaside had elected a new mayor, Maurice Pysher, a 68-year-old former heating engineer who had retired to Seaside from Portland a couple years before. Pysher didn’t like his new town’s reputation as a place where kids could blow off steam, and he’d seen that they were getting noticeably rowdier year after year. He wanted visitors to Seaside to be quieter, more respectful, and less rambunctious. So he had fired Seaside’s longtime police chief and replaced him with someone who would be more strict and firm about keeping things orderly.The crowds of college kids and high-school students who flocked to town for Labor Day had always been a little high-spirited, and the town’s cops had learned to strike a balance with them. They’d be there if somebody really needed help, and they’d stop any actual vandalism or other criminal activity; but they wouldn’t accost anyone on the street and hassle them for carrying an open beer, or ticket them for disorderly conduct for getting too loud around a beach bonfire.But, not any more. Today was the start of Labor Day Weekend, 1962. The crowds were enormous, the beer was flowing freely, and the cops had a new attitude.It wouldn’t take long for that combination to explode into something close to a worst-case scenario for the town: the first Seaside beach-party riot. (Seaside, Clatsop County; 1960s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/2412b.seaside-riots-gidget-goes-berzerk-679.510.html)
Was the flying saucer photographed over the Trent farm near McMinnville real, or a clever hoax? Either way makes for a great story. (McMinnville, Yamhill County; 1950s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1807c.mcminnville-ufo-sighting-504.html)
While looking for a crashed plane, aviator Kenneth Arnold saw a squadron of strange shining metallic things flying by Mt. Rainier. His description of them led to the coining of the term 'Flying Saucer' by the local paper. (Pendleton, Umatilla County; 1940s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1807b.flying-saucer-UFO-stories-started-in-pendleton-503.html)
A handful of California newspapers started a UFO scare in 1896 with a series of stories of sightings. But were they making it all up? Oregon newspapers sure thought so. (TL;DR: Yes, they were.) (Statewide; 1890s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1807a.oregon-called-bs-on-california-ufo-stories-502.html)
IT’S WIDELY KNOWN that the first newspaper west of the Mississippi River was the short-lived Oregon Spectator, which published its first issue on Feb. 5, 1846.But that’s only true if you define “newspaper” very narrowly. In truth, there was an earlier publication that met every definition of a newspaper but one ... specifically, it was “printed” by hand, every copy, with pen and ink — longhand. No printing press was involved.This early newspaper was called the Flumgudgeon Gazette and Bumble Bee Budget, and it first appeared in the spring of 1844 just in time for the first legislative council of the Oregon Provisional Government. Its editor identified himself only as “The Curl-Tail Coon,” and it’s not entirely clear if that was just for fun, or for protection from revenge by those whose feathers he ruffled in its pages.It was a tri-weekly, with a press run of roughly 12 copies (written out longhand, remember, and with original art depicting its author hand-drawn individually on the front page of each by a friend of the editor, a German artist named Springer).Now, “Flumgudgeon Gazette and Bumble Bee Budget” is a very long name, so to save time we are going to refer to it by a shortened version, in the spirit of Windy City residents who call their daily “The Trib” instead of “The Chicago Tribune” or Stumptowners calling theirs “The Big O” instead of — well, “The Oregonian,” of course ... In the present case, we’re going with “The Gudge.”The Gudge was a mercilessly satirical publication. Its motto, printed prominently on the front page of every copy beneath the flag, read “A Newspaper of the Salamagundi Order and Devoted to Scratching and Stinging the Follies of the Age.” Above that appeared a drawing, by Herr Springer, of the Curltail Coon himself, with the caption “Don’t stroke us backwards! There is enough of villainy going on to raise our bristles without that!”If the editor was pseudonymous, so were the legislators he lampooned — which makes it a bit hard to dope out who was who in the little bit of surviving text we have from the Aug. 20, 1845, issue. Historian Lawrence Powell suggests that “The Big Brass Gun” may have been Jesse Applegate’s nickname, but confesses himself baffled as to who “The Blueback Terrapin” was. (Oregon City, Clackamas County; 1840s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/2412a1007a.flumgudgeon-gazette-first-newspaper-handwritten.678.078.html)
At a time when anarchist terrorists had Americans good and scared, a rumor got started that a cell of Polish radicals based in the White Eagle Tavern was planning to assassinate President Roosevelt ... luckily, one of the local newspaper reporters spoke Polish. (Portland, Multnomah County; 1900s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1806b.white-eagle-anarchists-499.html)
By the 1990s, support for keeping Monmouth's ban on booze wasn't about morality; it was about the cachet that came with being the only “dry” town west of the Mississippi. But that wasn't enough to overcome the economic issues. (Monmouth, Polk County; 1850s, 1970s, 2000s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1511c.thirsty-monmouth-last-prohibition-town.html)
IT HAS BEEN said of Karl Marx that he was a fine diagnostician, but a lousy prescriber. Obviously, Marx remains a super polarizing figure even today, a good 175 years after he set the world on fire with The Communist Manifesto. But, in light of what’s been done in his name over the years since then, it’s certainly fair to wonder if ideas like “from each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs” and “the workers should own the means of production” can actually work in the real world. So it’s ironic that the closest thing to Marx’s ideal vision of society was a little utopian community of devout but antidogmatic Christians in Oregon — none of whose residents had probably ever heard of him.... (Aurora Mills, Clackamas County; 1850s, 1860s, 1870s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/2404c-1110a.aurora-colony-best-of-utopias-080.645.html)
PORTLAND, 1901 — The police wouldn't return her call, and she knew the thieves would be gone by morning. So Mrs. Whitlock picked up the phone and woke up the District Attorney. And it turned out theft wasn't the only crime Jack Wade and William Dalton were guilty of ... (Portland, Multnomah County; 1900s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1804c.dalton-wade-murderers-ratted-out-by-snoopy-landlady-491.html)
Thomas Condon didn’t set out to become a geologist; he was a Congregationalist minister with a hobby of collecting fossils. And although over the years his hobby took over, he never lost touch with his ministerial kindliness. (Oregon Caves, Josephine County; 1880s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1610e.thomas-condon-oregon-caves-415.html)
Just a quick Sunday morning update — I’m going to be in Los Angeles on Monday and Tuesday doing an interview for an upcoming episode of The UnXPlained with William Shatner. My on-the-road computer is so old the Apple folks have quit supporting it, so I’m not sure I’ll be able to post episodes from it; so just in case, I’m uploading the Monday and Tuesday episodes early!
EARLIER THIS YEAR, as you may remember, country music singer Zach Bryan had a few too many alcoholic beverages before pulling out his phone and opening “X,” the app formerly known as Twitter.“Eagles > Chiefs,” he tweeted tipsily. “Kanye > Taylor. Who’s with me?”It’s not clear exactly what Bryan intended — most likely he was joke-trolling the Taylor Swift fan community, which, as he realized the next morning when he awakened with a penitent headache and looked at his phone, is about as good an idea as sneaking up behind a sleeping grizzly bear for the old “popping a paper bag” prank.A few days of red-faced apologies later, Bryan deleted his Twitter account, explaining that he’d decided it was too tempting for him, especially after a few beers.“It gets me in trouble too much,” he wrote, on an Instagram post. “Don’t drink and tweet! Don’t drink and tweet!”This seems to have done the trick; the kerfuffle faded quickly away. Probably that’s because Bryan’s last line rang like a bell. Nearly everyone who has a social media account and is not an absolute teetotaler has had the experience of waking up the next morning after a friend’s birthday party and discovering that he has embarrassed himself with a late-night Facebook post that seemed like the right thing to do at the time, but ...The first drunk tweet in Oregon history didn’t end nearly so benignly. Maybe it would have, if Twitter had been a thing in March of 1838 when, fortified with a nice zesty jolt of French brandy, the Rev. Herbert Beaver took quill pen in hand and sat down to compose it; but, then again, maybe not.Now, I have to confess that I have no hard evidence that Beaver was drunk when he belted out his handwritten “tweet.” But, one of the unintended consequences of the tweet, much later, would be the publishing of Beaver’s household liquor consumption, which was absolutely heroic. I figure a fellow who burns through the alcoholic equivalent of 17 “fifths” of Jack Daniels every month probably can be assumed to be no stranger to the whole “Dutch courage” thing, when sitting down to write an angry letter.... (Fort Vancouver, Washington Territory; 1830s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/2411d.herbert-beavers-drunk-tweets-677.509.html)
Oregon's only national park is a surprisingly dangerous place, and a number of people have died there. Several of these left only bones behind to help us understand what caused their death. (Crater Lake, Klamath County; 1940s, 1970s, 1980s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1309e-skeletons-of-crater-lake.html)
The nearest TV station was in Seattle. But Ed Parsons figured out he could catch a very weak signal on top of a building in town. All he had to do was figure out how to boost the signal without boosting the noise as well, and ... the rest was history. (Astoria, Clatsop County; 1940s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1109c-astoria-man-invents-cable-tv-as-favor-for-wife.html)
Claude Branton and Courtland Green had left Condon with a wealthy rancher and murdered him on the way. Only then did they realize how bad it would look to show up at their destination without him ... (McKenzie Valley, Deschutes and Lane County; 1890s) (For text and pictures, see URLOFWEBPAGEURLOFWEBPAGEURLOFWEBPAGE)
Russell Hecker borrowed a friend’s car to make a quick liquor run. He brought it back 12 hours late and dripping with blood — and there was no sign of the man he’d gone on the run with the previous night. (Multnomah, Clackamas, and Linn County; 1920s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1610d.murder-of-bootlegger-frank-bowker-414.html)
All she wanted to do was not finance the killing that was going on in war-torn Europe. But in the war-crazed atmosphere of Portland during World War 1, pacifism was tantamount to high treason. (Portland, Multnomah County; 1918) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1805c.traitor-louise-hunt-wouldnt-buy-war-bonds-496.html)
Dead in the water and drifting toward Peacock Spit in a gale, passengers and crew of the steam schooner Washington thought they were goners. But then out of the mist and spray came Buck Bailey's tugboat ... (Columbia River Bar, Clatsop County; 1910s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1510c.tatoosh-rescues-steam-schooner.361.html)
“Professor” Ray V.B. Jackson just happened to be on hand, playing the role of helpful witness, at almost every high-profile murder scene in Lake and Harney counties. What were the odds? (Near Lakeview, Lake and Harney County; 1900s, 1910s, 1920s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1109b-ray-jackson-central-oregons-angel-of-death.html)
It's hard to believe, but in 1902 the school district put a convicted felon, fresh from serving hard time at the state pen, in charge of its grade-school kids. But the forgery and robbery he was convicted of may have been the least of his crimes. (Silver Lake, Lake County; 1900s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1109a-silver-lake-schoolteacher-possible-serial-killer.html)
For the art students and pop-culture aficionados lined up, the once-in-a-lifetime chance to see and meet the “Peter Pan of Pop Art” turned out to be merely a chance to be the butt of one of his irreverent pranks. (Lane and Yamhill County; 1960s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1610c.andy-warhol-punks-oregon-413.html)
IN THE EARLY 1980s, on Stark Street in Southeast Portland, there was an aging Hudson Oil Co. gas station that never seemed to get much business. It had an appearance reminiscent of a Kmart store three years ago, like a neglected outpost of a once-huge nationwide business that was slowly fading away — which was in fact the case.Hudson Oil Co., at its peak in the 1950s and 1960s, had about 300 gas stations in 36 states, plus an oil refinery. It was owned and managed by an oil tycoon named Mary Hudson, a remarkable woman who founded the business in 1933 when she was just 21 years old. She launched it by borrowing $200 from her father and using it to open a gas station in Kansas City. At her peak, Hudson was one of only three women on the Forbes 400 list of the richest people in the U.S. At her downfall in 1982, she was convicted of felony theft for tweaking her company’s gas pumps to short-change customers, a desperate move made to try to stave off bankruptcy after her company got caught unprepared for a sudden glut on the crude-oil market.But probably the most interesting thing about the Stark Street Hudson station was the giant wall mural on its side. The left side of the mural showed two big Arabian camels with packsaddles on them towering over a miner-49er-type guy pitching a little pup-tent camp; the right side was taken up with a large colorful map of the U.S. with the words “36 States” printed over the top of it.“First it was camels in the west,” reads the type over the picture. “Now HUDSON serves you best!”As advertising, this mural was a bit of a mixed bag. It did attract attention, but mostly it was the wrong kind. Most people who looked at it probably wondered how a company could have gotten big enough to be in 36 states without learning what kind of animals cowboys and miner-49ers used. Mules, yes; horses, sure; but — camels?Well, as it turns out, camels did have a role to play in the American West. They started out strong, and hopes were high that they would be a great addition to the frontier transportation infrastructure; but then their number-one booster disgraced himself by doing something super illegal, and the camels kind of fell out of favor in the West and faded away.Come to think of it, maybe it’s not such a bad analogy for Hudson Oil Co. after all.... (Oregon outback; 1850s, 1860s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/2411c_camels-in-old-oregon-676.508.html)
Few people know a small whaling venture was launched in Astoria in 1961 — seeking whale oil for the space program and whale meat to feed to hungry minks. But breakthroughs in synthetic oil made whale oil unnecessary, and they stopped. (Hammond, Clatsop County; 1960s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1108a2-astoria-whaling-operation-was-helping-with-space-program.html)
Of the 32 towns in Oregon offered a grant to build a library, not one failed to raise its matching money; no other state was as successful. Today, the distinctive looking split-level edifices are architectural treasures in their communities. (Statewide; 1900s, 1910s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1109d-carnegie-libraries-in-oregon.html)
The little logging-company town, owned by the Shevlin-Hixon Company of Bend, was fully portable. When the timber was all gone from an area, the company simply loaded the houses on railroad flatcars and moved on. (Shevlin, Deschutes and Lake county; 1920s, 1930s, 1940s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1308d-shevlin-oregons-wandering-timber-town.html)
Only after the body was handed over to the undertaker did the truth come out: The roughest, toughest, most skillful “whip” on the West Coast was not what he appeared to be. (Siskiyou Pass, Jackson County; 1850s, 1860s, 1870s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1610b.legendary-one-eyed-charley-412.html)
Logger, watching 'timber worms' chew through a log, wondered, 'How do they do that?' So he took some home, figured it out, and invented the modern chisel-toothed cutting chain. (Tillamook County; 1940s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1809b.joe-cox-invents-bug-inspired-chainsaw-512.html)
Joe Wolf invented it for loggers, but they wanted nothing to do with his electric saw. Luckily for Joe, the construction and shipbuilding industry loved it. (Portland, Multnomah County; 1920s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1809a.wolf-electric-chainsaw-511.html)
Stranded four-masted schooner North Bend, the last sailing ship ever built in Oregon, was stranded on Peacock Spit; it worked its way through and, a little over a year later, launched itself in Baker Bay on the other side. (Columbia River Bar, Clatsop County; 1920s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1108d-last-sailing-ship-crossed-a-beach-relaunched.html)
R. Thomas Dickerson, after gunning down the chief witness in his wife's upcoming suit for divorce, clearly expected the jury to buy his claim that the man was a “home-wrecker” and deserved what he got. He miscalculated. (Portland, Multnomah County; 1900s)(For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1510a.dickerson-UnLaw.html)
NOTE: This will be the last of these oral-history readings until at least summer. If you have been enjoying them, please reach out and let me know. — This one is writer Sara B. Wrenn's oral history interview with the great-granddaughter of old Sam Barlow — he of the Barlow Road. They discuss a famous avenue of black walnuts, which are probably the progenitor-trees of every black walnut in the state today; and some twin-sisters hijinks that took place on a riverboat, and changed the destiny of an entire pioneer family. (For the transcript, see https://www.loc.gov/item/wpalh001993/ )
SOMETIME IN 1922, a letter came in to the city of Pendleton. Enclosed with it was a bill for $45 — for a set of new Goodyear tires.It seemed the letter writer had come to Pendleton for the annual Pendleton Round-Up and had lost both front tires to the city’s downtown potholes.Pendleton’s potholes were famous, both for their size and for their intractability. They seemed hungry; one filled them up and a few weeks later they were empty again, as if some night-stalking gravel thief had scooped it all out.It wasn’t until the 1970s and 1980s, when some of Pendleton’s most intractable roadbeds got a complete rebuild, that road crews realized what the problem had been:Tunnels. The town was honeycombed with them, running a few feet below the ground level, connecting the basements and sidewalk vaults downtown with various other places nearby.And, that’s how the Pendleton Underground was rediscovered. (Pendleton, Umatilla County; 1890s, 1900s 1910s, 1920s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/2410d1001e_PendletonUnderground-673.059.html)
The farmer was a former Union general; the pastor, an ex-Rebel soldier who once faced his forces on a battlefield. But in Corvallis, they traded enmity for friendship, and blue-vs.-gray for Beavers-vs.-Ducks. (Corvallis, Benton County; 1890s, 1900s, 1910s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1510b.bell-thorp-civil-war-story.360.html)
There is a persistent myth that the 'real Klondike Kate' was a female Mountie named Kate Ryan, and that Kate Rockwell, the dancer, stole her name and reputation. It's a bogus charge, but the real story of Klondike Kate, the Belle of Dawson who later took up a land claim near Brothers and became known as Aunt Kate of Farewell Bend, is way more interesting than the myth. (Brothers, Deschutes County; 1910s, 1920s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/2403d-1108b.klondike-kate-katfight-1of2-137.641.html)
A Linn County case with a strong element of self-defense, and a Malheur County child-abuse travesty that ended with a shotgun blast, were called Unwritten Law triumphs in the newspapers — but there were differences. (Linn and Malheur County; 1900s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1509d.powell-n-brown-UnLaw.html)
Part 2 of 2: WPA writer William Haight's oral history interview with Gertrude Balch Ingalls, sister of legendary frontier Columbia Gorge writer Frederic Balch (author of The Bridge of the Gods, and probably the first really important author in Oregon history) recalling ghost stories, common superstitions of frontier folk, and some personal memories of attending weeks-long camp revival meetings. (For the transcript, as well as a good bit of additional content such as song lyrics and original poetry by Frederic Balch, see https://www.loc.gov/item/wpalh001941/ )
One-term governor had a team of secret agents working for him, trying to subvert labor unions and ferret out communists; but most of their efforts seemed to end up scoring points for the “other team.” (Salem, Marion County; 1930s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1601a.charles-martin-part3.272.html)
The retired major general campaigned as a New Deal Democrat, but dropped the mask almost immediately; seeing every hint of opposition as an existential threat to democracy, he reacted to criticism like a junta dictator. (Salem, Marion County; 1930s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1512d.charles-martin-part2.html)
REMEMBER GENERAL JACK D. Ripper, the character from the 1964 movie “Dr. Strangelove; or, How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb”? Can you imagine what might have happened if General Ripper had been elected governor?For Oregonians, just a few years ago, it wouldn’t be too much of a stretch. In 1934, voters elected a retired major general named Charles Henry Martin — known to the soldiers assigned to his care during the First World War as “Old Iron Pants.” And although Martin isn’t known to have gone on any anti-fluoridation rants or spluttered about “precious bodily fluids,” his political style was more than a little reminiscent of Ripper’s … and, of course, it’s not a work of fiction.“If things come to a crisis,” he wrote to a sympathetic fellow military man in 1937, while discussing the likelihood of a Communist takeover in America, “there are enough strong men left in the country to handle it properly. … The Italians wouldn’t submit; they organized their blackshirts. The Germans wouldn’t submit, so they had their brownshirts and Hitler. I don’t believe Americans will submit.”Left unmentioned in this remark was any suggestion for who might play the role of the American “strong man” analogous to Mussolini or Hitler, but it seemed clear that he felt himself to be up to the challenge if called upon to do so. (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1512c.charles-martin-fascist-dictator-part1-370.html)
IT WAS A little after 6 a.m. on June 14, 1907. Dawn was just brightening the decks of the passenger steamer Alliance, docked at the pier in Astoria, when John Bowlsby saw his prey step aboard. He fingered the big .44 in his pocket and tried to stay out of sight, waiting for a chance to make his move. His chance came almost immediately. The marked man was moving away from the crowd of people, and soon he stood in a spot where Bowlsby felt he could get in a good shot without risking hitting any bystanders. Carefully he steadied the big revolver against the side of a deckhouse — and pulled the trigger.Bowlsby’s target, a fellow North Bend man named Cleve Jennings, died in a hospital eight hours later. Meanwhile, with his head held high, a triumphant John Bowlsby quietly submitted to arrest and handed over his revolver.Hard as it is for a modern person to believe, this cold-blooded assassination met with widespread approval. It was about as close to a pure example of “The Unwritten Law” in action as Oregon would ever see.“It was the outcome of one man alienating the affections of another man’s wife and was the result of a manhunt in which the hunter finally found his game,” wrote the Morning Oregonian’s Astoria correspondent the next day. (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1509a.bowlsby-jennings-UnLaw-355.html)
Part 1 of 2: WPA writer William Haight's oral history interview with Gertrude Balch Ingalls, sister of legendary frontier Columbia Gorge writer Frederic Balch (author of The Bridge of the Gods; no known relation to Danford Balch, btw) including details of a childhood in a strict Methodist home, featuring frequent tent revival meetings and such. (For the transcript, see https://www.loc.gov/item/wpalh001941/ )
ONE OF THE more interesting things about Oregon history is how much of a role “colorful characters” played in it.Until a few dozen years ago, historians didn’t much like talking about the contributions of prostitutes, swindlers, shanghaiers and other underworld characters to Oregon’s history, preferring to talk about brave pioneers and clean-living homesteaders and noble missionaries and such.So it’s no surprise that the name and identity of the first woman of European extraction to set foot in the Oregon territory has gone mostly unremarked. Her name was Jane Barnes, and she was, in every sense of the word, an adventuress.That she made it into the historical record at all is a real testament to what an interesting person she must have been. (Astoria, Clatsop County; 1810s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/2409e.jane-barnes-adventuress-669.507.html)
QUITE OFTEN, DURING his precious days of shore leave, lighthouse keeper James Gibbs Jr. would meet people who envied him his job. “Must be nice,” they would say, “to have such a cushy government job. Relaxing at the coast, surrounded by scenic beauty, nothing to do but trim wicks and make sure nothing breaks ….”It’s tempting to wonder how long such critics would have lasted on Tillamook Rock Light, where Gibbs was stationed at the time.When the lighthouse closed for good in 1957, only one person had ever been killed on it — British master mason John Trewaves, who slipped off the rock in 1879 while scouting the site for the lighthouse. But the number of people who, at some time while on the rock, sincerely believed they were about to die — that number is considerably larger. In fact, it’s probably very close to 100 percent of everyone who ever set foot on the tiny island. Conditions there were frequently terrifying. (Tillamook Rock, Clatsop County; 1920s, 1930s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1511b.storms-on-tillamook-rock-364.html)
THE EIGHT STRANGERS must have been a little puzzled when they arrived in Astoria, in the fall of 1878. They’d been brought in at considerable expense from far away by the U.S. Lighthouse Board to work on a new lighthouse construction project. But now that they were finally here, they weren’t even allowed to go into town for a drink. They were whisked away, across the river onto the lonesome wilds of the Washington Territory, and put up in an empty lightkeeper’s house at Cape Disappointment. So, where was the lighthouse they’d been hired to work on? All they knew was that it was on a small, rocky island. But where?More than three weeks dragged by. Finally, when the seas were relatively calm, the revenue cutter Thomas Corwin arrived to take them to the job site. And an hour or so later, their eyes widened with horror as they beheld what they’d signed up to build.Staring at the tiny speck of granite jutting out of the flying spray and foam, the workers now understood why their employer had been so secretive — and why it had been necessary to recruit them from far-distant cities that had never heard of Tillamook Rock.... (Tillamook Rock, Clatsop County; 1870s, 1880s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1511a.building-tillamook-rock-363.html)
ON ONE GRIM winter morning, near the end of the Second World War, a young Coast Guard seaman named James A. Gibbs, Jr., was looking apprehensively out over an angry sea from the rail of the 52-foot motor lifeboat Triumph. Far out over the field of towering pyramid-shaped waves, a tiny speck was just coming into view — his destination.“Tillamook Rock,” the boatswain muttered, as a seasick Gibbs silently fought to hang onto his breakfast. “I wouldn’t take that duty on a bet.”Gibbs might not have either, but he didn’t have much choice. That tiny, lonely speck in the middle of an angry gray ocean was his new duty station: Tillamook Rock, a half-acre hunk of granite with a lighthouse perched dubiously upon its crest in the middle of the open sea, known to the initiated as “Terrible Tilly.” In his book, written many years later, Gibbs referred to Tillamook Rock as a “pint-size Alcatraz,” and indeed, his transfer there had a lot in common with a prison sentence. It was widely known that assignments to Tillamook Rock were given as a punishment for troublemakers, and Gibbs fit that profile pretty well. His record with the Coast Guard was, as he puts it, “checkered.”... (Tillamook Rock, Clatsop County; 1940s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1510d.tillamook-rock-ghost-goose-362.html)
WPA writer Sara B. Wrenn's oral history interview with Portland attorney A.L. Veazie, who grew up in Polk County in the late 1800s, recalling what life was like with the Chinese laborers who were working on railroads and other worksites. Not all his recollections are flattering, but they're not super surprising given that the Chinese were nearly all young, socially ostracized peasant men in a foreign land. (For the transcript, see https://www.loc.gov/item/wpalh001990/ )
FROM THE MID-1800s through the runup to the Second World War, lumber schooners were a familiar sight in all Oregon seaports. These were small, simple cargo ships, with shallow drafts so that they could fit across small river bars and in and out of the “doghole” ports of northern California and southern Oregon. In many of these ports, lumber from local sawmills was actually loaded onto the ships with a block and tackle, dangling from something like a zipline, while the crew fought to hold the ship steady in the swells and breakers. And the ships, when they headed out fully loaded on their way to San Francisco or San Diego, sometimes had so little freeboard and such a tall deck load that it looked like any little wave could just swamp them or roll them over.Starting in the late 1880s, operators started putting steam engines in lumber schooners, which made the tall masts unnecessary; by the First World War nearly the entire fleet had converted to these “steam schooners.” (Since a schooner is by definition a sailing ship, the later mast-free ones weren’t really schooners; but the name stuck.)Steam schooners were a big improvement, particularly with respect to safety. Winds in river bars and bays are notoriously fickle, and plenty of lumber schooners ended up on the rocks when the breeze died at the last minute, or blew onto the beach when caught in a gale. Sometimes, when that happened, the sailors got lucky; and sometimes they didn’t. All in all, it was a very dangerous way to make a living. But there was one key mitigating factor for sailors in lumber schooners: As long as they were carrying a load, they always knew their ships would never sink. The cargo would always keep them afloat.Plenty of sailors ended up owing their lives to that fact, since one of the first things that always seemed to happen when the weather got really nasty was that the lifeboats would all get carried away by boarding seas.Among those lucky survivors were most of the crew of the Frank W. Howe.... (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1804d.frank-w-howe-lumber-schooner-shipwreck-492.html)
One of America's first known serial killers, Earle Leonard Nelson preyed on landladies, killing them while they were showing him real estate. By the time he was hanged, he'd slain at least 21 women — including four in Portland. (Portland, Multnomah County; 1920s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1309d-dark-strangler-earle-nelson.html)
The “good guy” was a petty swindler. The “wronged woman” was a prostitute and bigamist. And the “innocent victim” was a serial philanderer. By the time the “bad guy” was caught, everybody in Portland just wanted to forget the whole thing. (Portland, Multnomah County; 1900s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1509c.bradley-gittings-part2-UnLaw-357.html)
What started out looking like a clean-cut morality play, with a hero, a villain, an innocent victim and a bereaved widow — at Christmastime no less! — quickly turned into a tale of remarkable sordidness as the truth slowly emerged. (Portland, Multnomah County; 1900s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1509b.bradley-gittings-part1-UnLaw-356.html)
WPA writer William C. Haight's oral history interview with Rev. W.C. Driver, talking about his early life as a Baptist circuit preacher and the railroad chapel car — a Pullman coach kitted out as a church — that he was assigned to for 12 years. He and his wife lived in the car, and various trains would pull it from town to town. (For the transcript, see https://www.loc.gov/item/wpalh001938/ )
According to legend, six soldiers scouting a road stumbled across a fabulously rich ledge of gold-threaded quartz. Is it real? Is it still out there somewhere? Well, maybe ... (Cow Creek, Douglas County; 1850s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/21-12.lost-soldiers-mine-coquille-604.html)
These three desperados couldn't seem to catch a break. First they robbed the wrong train; then it turned out to contain a dangerously competent lawman behind a big six-shooter; and finally, someone stole their getaway car. (Meacham, Umatilla County; 1910s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1309c-meadors-gang-train-robbery.html)
Fourth-grader Dorothy Anne Hobson decided her tiny timber town needed a newspaper, so she launched the Valsetz Star. Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt, Herbert Hoover and Shirley Temple were among her subscribers. (Valsetz, Polk County; 1930s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1309a-valsetz-star-and-dorothy-hobson.html)
UNWRITTEN LAW FILES, Episode 1: Orlando Murray's trial had something for everyone: Sex, revenge, vigilante action, a Fallen Woman, drunkenness, hysteria, the insane asylum, and even lawyers getting in fistfights. (Portland, Multnomah County; 1900s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1508e.orlando-murray-UnLaw-354.html)
WPA writer Sara B. Wrenn's oral history interview with the granddaughter of Yamhill County's first sheriff, and daughter of the editress of Oregon City Seminary's school newspaper, The Magnolia. This is Part 2 of 2, comprising primarily a reading of excerpts from The Magnolia. (For the transcript, see https://www.loc.gov/item/wpalh001980/ )
Stories about buried treasure are very seldom completely untrue. Many of the wildest flight of golden fantasy started out, hundreds or thousands of augmented and embellished retellings ago, as true stories. Maybe that’s why people love them so much: One gets to speculating about just how much truth has survived, and if any of that fantasy gold might just be still out there waiting to be discovered.... One particular tale from the Indians of the northern Oregon coast is especially tantalizing in that way, because it’s so close to its source. The old treasure hunter who recounted it to author Ruby El Hult in 1958 had it directly from the grandson of the man who originally (according to the story) buried the loot. (Nehalem Bay, Tillamook County; 1840s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/21-11.portuguese-gold-legend-nehalem-603.html)
Lulu Reynolds was having a torrid affair with her music teacher. Her husband was an ex-Cavalry scout who carried a .38 in his jacket pocket. It wasn't the kind of thing that usually ends well. It didn't. (Portland, Multnomah County; 1900s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1308c-reynolds-love-triangle-kissing-the-corpse.html)
When the treacherous bar claimed a fully-loaded whaling ship, its owner chalked it up as a very expensive lesson learned, and gave up on its plan to hunt whales out of the Oregon seaport. (Columbia River Bar, Clatsop County; 1850s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1108a1-shipwreck-ends-astorias-bid-to-be-nantucket-of-west-coast.html)
For a couple decades around the turn of the last century, if a murderer could convince a jury that his victim had been a “home-wrecker,” he could expect to be not only acquitted, but lionized as a brave and noble domestic hero. (Statewide; 1890s, 1900s, 1910s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1508d.unwritten-law-353.html)
WPA writer Sara B. Wrenn's oral history interview with the granddaughter of Yamhill County's first sheriff, and daughter of the editress of Oregon City Seminary's school newspaper, the Magnolia. (For the transcript, see https://www.loc.gov/item/wpalh001980/ )
In 1882, a land dispute escalated to violence — and then led to a lynch mob taking justice into its own hands. For two years afterward, the members of that lynch mob stayed active, forming a shadow government in the Prineville area enforced by masked riders with drawn guns and ready ropes ... and for a year or two, Prineville was the murder capital of Oregon. This is the story of how that happened ... and how the Vigilantes were defeated. (Prineville, Crook County; 1880s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/2408c-1211d.prineville-vigilantes-663.199.html)
A FEW YEARS after Oregon became a state, some of its leaders participated in what might actually have been the biggest non-Indian-related land-grab swindle in U.S. history. It resulted in more than 1.5 million acres of the best Oregon land — land that belonged to all Americans — getting essentially stolen by a few small gangs of well-connected thieves.It happened a few years after the Civil War. At that time, Oregon was mostly public land, or so the government claimed. But, of course, that “public land” was still in the process of being hijacked from the Indian tribes, which were still fighting to try to hang onto it.... (Central Oregon; 1860s) (For text and pictures, see URLOFWEBPAGEURLOFWEBPAGEURLOFWEBPAGE)
Despite the best efforts of an overzealous federal marshal, the whole episode ended in nothing more than a stern lecture from the bench for 424 unemployed members of “Coxey's Army,” who tried to “borrow” an eastbound train. (Portland, Multnomah County; 1890s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1309b-coxeys-armys-march-on-washington.html)
Jean-Baptiste “Pomp” Charbonneau, the baby born to Sacagawea during the Lewis and Clark expedition, is one of the most important figures in Oregon history — but we know almost nothing of his life. (Jordan Valley, Malheur County; 1860s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1107d-life-of-sacagaweas-mountain-man-son-charbonneau-tantalizing-mystery.html)
Even today, after 135 years, the lawless era of vigilantes and rustlers and six-gun justice meted out by “Judge Lynch” is evoked by the words on an old Klamath Falls tombstone: “Murdered by Masked Assassins, June 24, 1882.” (Linkville, Klamath County; 1880s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1609d.calavan-laws-feud-masked-assassins.410.html)
WPA writer Sara B. Wrenn's oral history interview with Mr. and Mrs. Herman Ledding (we are never given Mrs. L's name), talking about Mrs. Ledding's mother and stepfather: Seth and Sophronia Lewelling, respectively the most famous nurseryman in Oregon history and the proprietress of its most influential literary salon. (For the transcript, see https://www.loc.gov/item/wpalh001981/ )
THE CITY AND environs of Astoria strike most visitors as the kind of place where pirate loot might be stashed away. Certainly it seems to have struck Steven Spielberg that way, back in the early 1980s, when the legendary pirate-treasure film The Goonies was being shot.But the town may actually have come by this impression honestly. There are still a few stories about hidden treasure in and around Astoria -- not counting the silver-screen “Goon Docks” story of “One-Eyed Willy.” And who knows? One or two of them may actually be true. (Astoria, Clatsop County; 1890s, 1920s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/21-10.astoria-treasure-legends-602.html)
The combination of bitter cold air and relatively warm river water acted on the S.S. Schenechtady's brittle welded-steel plates like boiling water poured into a cold Mason jar. The results were similar, but on a massive scale. (Portland, Multnomah County; 1940s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1606c.schenectady-cracked-ship-396.html)
In his spooky nightmare, first mate of the German barque Mimi saw seaweed covering all but three shipmates; the next day, all but three drowned in one of Oregon's worst-ever salvage disasters. (Near Nehalem River, Tillamook County; 1910s) (For text and pictures, see URLOFWEBPAGEURLOFWEBPAGEURLOFWEBPAGE)
As the fishery collapsed, canneries on the upper river near Cascade Locks and gillnet fishermen on the lower river near Astoria blamed one another; both were right, but the biggest culprit was Grand Coulee Dam. (Columbia, Multnomah, Hood River, Wasco County; 1880s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1609b.fish-wheels-and-gillnetters-408.html)
WPA writer Sara B. Wrenn's oral history interview with Robert Robinson, master violin maker and repairer, talking about his memories of the professional musicians of Portland in the late 1800s. (For the transcript, see https://www.loc.gov/item/wpalh001994/ )
OCTOBER OF 1913 was a triumphant time for Professor James Dryden, the poultry specialist at Oregon State University (or Oregon Agricultural College, as it was then called). His name was in newspapers nationwide, in glowing tribute after glowing tribute to his success. One of his experiment-station hens had just shattered the world record for egg production with a stunning 303 eggs in a year.There was, however, one exception to the “glowing tribute” pattern in newspaper coverage of Dr. Dryden’s work. That would be the weekly Cottage Grove Leader.“In our opinion, Prof. Dryden is impracticable, out of harmony with the country’s best and most successful poultry breeders, is discouraging the great and growing poultry industry of the state and is therefore out of place at the head of the Department of Poultry Husbandry in our great educational and experimental institution, the Oregon Agricultural College,” the Leader’s editor raged, in the Oct. 28 issue. “We would suggest, in conclusion, that he tender his resignation.” What was the Leader's objection to Prof. Dryden and his accomplishment? Not to get too clickbait-y, but seriously, it will leave you shaking your head in baffled disgust when you hear it. (Corvallis, Benton County; 1910s, 1920s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/21-09.prof-dryden-and-the-chicken-war-601.html)
Governor Charles Henry “Iron Pants” Martin may have saved the world from a Nazi nuclear holocaust by outplaying President Roosevelt, essentially forcing him to finance a hydroelectric dam that he thought was superfluous. (Bonneville, Multnomah County; 1930s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1609a.bonneville-wins-ww2-407.html)
When the packed community center caught fire, Lucinda Schroder ran back inside and blocked the door open with her body, enabling dozens who otherwise would have been pinned and crushed against the closed door to escape. (Silver Lake, Lake County; 1900s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1107b-schroder-hero-of-silver-lake-fire-died-saving-lives.html)
The century-long quest to make the Columbia River Bar reasonably safe got off to a rough start in 1853, when the ship bringing construction materials for its first lighthouse became one of its early victims. (Columbia River Bar, Clatsop County; 1850s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1608d.taming-the-bar.405.html)
WPA writer Sara B. Wrenn's oral history interview with tinsmith and horse enthusiast J.J. Kadderly, who arrived in Portland in 1876 and set up a store there. 'I bet I've sold more cookstoves to brides and grooms than anyone in this town,' he boasted. He also has a lot to say about his favorite hobby, racing horses. (For the transcript, see https://www.loc.gov/item/wpalh001969/ )
During the go-go years of the uranium-mining rush of the early 1950s, the character of the uranium prospector became iconic. He was basically the gold-seeking “miner 49er” updated for the atomic age: in lieu of a mule, he rode an Army-surplus Jeep; in place of pick and gold pan, he carried a Geiger counter and ultraviolet flashlight. So it’s ironic but maybe not surprising that Oregon’s biggest uranium strike was made by an everyday rockhound - a guy who didn’t even own a Geiger counter. (Lakeview, Lake County; 1950s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/22-04.white-king-lucky-lass-uranium-mines-608.html)
He couldn't claim all the credit for it, although he sometimes tried; and his attitude toward Native Americans was unfortunate. But those who love Crater Lake, in large part, have William Gladstone Steel to thank for it. (Crater Lake, Klamath County; 1880s, 1890s, 1900s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1609cT.crater-lake-will-steel-409.html)
Windjammer still holds a world speed record for sailing ships, but by the time of her demise, had been losing money for years; the age of steam had made her obsolete. So when she sailed onto the rocks, insurance adjusters smelled a rat. (Neahkahnie Mountain, Tillamook County; 1910s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1107a-glenesslin-wreck-insurance-fraud-or-drunken-incompetence.html)
Loaded with ordinance and launched by the thousands on the jet-stream currents, the weapons were a much bigger threat to American citizens than most now realize — and one of them probably started the 1945 Tillamook Burn. (Salmonberry River, Tillamook County; 1940s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1608cT.balloon-bombs.405.html)
WPA writer Sara B. Wrenn's oral history interview with Mrs. Annie Cason Lee, reminiscing about her family's Oregon Trail journey and some of the adventures and misadventures that befell them upon arrival ... including a rather priceless anecdote about her father, Hilary Cason, getting in a vicious fistfight with the owner of the Stark Street Ferry on his way to church! (For the transcript, see https://www.loc.gov/item/wpalh001961/ )
ONE OF THE real privileges of being a lifelong Oregonian of a certain, er, vintage, is the opportunity to have seen this state in its golden age — roughly, 1946 through 1980 — through a child’s eyes.The basic style and culture of the Beaver State have changed a lot over the last 50 years. And, for the most part, it’s changed for the better ... but not entirely.Sociologists would say this change was the transition from a “modernist” culture — proud, conformist, and optimistic about the future — to a “postmodernist” culture — self-critical, eclectic, and neutral or pessimistic about the future. (Statewide; 1950s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/2408b-0902c_OregonGoldenAge-Centennial-662.html)
Every youth orchestra in America today can trace its ancestry back to the a tiny, dusty town in Eastern Oregon, and one gifted, visionary violin teacher named Mary Dodge, founder of the Sagebrush Symphony. (Burns, Harney County; 1920s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1108c-sagebrush-symphony-first-youth-orchestra-in-us.html)
According to legend, the Triskett Gang underestimated the citizens of Sailors' Diggins, which became a fatal error when they went on a shooting spree downtown. But the $75,000 they stole (if true) has never been recovered. (Waldo, Josephine County; 1850s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1106d-gold-field-bandits-loot-has-never-been-found.html)
Four mariners on the sailing ship Arago, in Astoria, tried to quit and were tracked down by police and forced to return to work, like runaway slaves. When they sued, the Supreme Court issued an astonishing ruling against them. (Astoria, Clatsop County; 1890s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1607c.slavery-ok-for-sailors-says-scotus.400.html)
The story of a young lad swept up in the romance of the sea — his maritime adventures and determination to settle down to a quiet retirement far away from home, in the Willamette Valley. From WPA writer Sara B. Wrenn's oral history interview with Frances Looney Cornell. This is part 2 of a 2-part reading of this oral history file. (For the transcript, see https://www.loc.gov/item/wpalh001970/ )
IN THE DECADES before the First World War, an organization called Chautauqua arose that was something like a summer camp for grown-ups.People would take vacation time and travel to the Chautauqua center and stay there in tents, either brought from home or rented on site, for a week, or two weeks, or even longer. There, they’d take classes, attend lectures, listen to band concerts, play baseball, and generally try to make up for the previous year’s intellectual deprivation.In Chautauqua’s heyday there were a number of these centers across the country, and President Theodore Roosevelt famously declared them to be “the most American thing about America.” And the biggest one west of the Rockies was in Gladstone, Oregon. (Gladstone, Clackamas County; 1890s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/22-03.chautauqua-in-oregon-607.html)
The highway engineer in charge of getting rid of a big stinky dead whale on the beach miscalculated the amount of dynamite he would need. The result was a spectacular event that has become a true Oregon legend. NOTE: The 24th anniversary of this spectacular event is coming up on Tuesday, Nov. 12, 2024! (Florence, Lane County; 1970s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1608bT.exploding-whale.404.html)
After finding a battered lifeboat washed up on shore from a fatal shipwreck, Joel Munson made it his life's mission to use it to start a life-saving service. Today, his creation soldiers on, as part of the U.S. Coast Guard. (Columbia River Bar, Clatsop County; 1856s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1106c-joel-munson-founded-lifesaving-service.html)
When a sailing ship found itself in trouble in the legendary “graveyard of ships,” there was nothing left to do but count the bodies. But every now and then, a vessel would slip out of the icy grip of the bar to sail on. Here are a few such stories. (Columbia River Bar, Clatsop County; 1870s, 1880s, 1890s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1508c.escape-from-columbia-bar-352.html)
WPA writer Sara B. Wrenn's oral history interview with Frances Looney Cornell, whose family was on one of the very first wagon trains to arrive in the Willamette Valley from back east. This is part 1 of a 2-part reading of this oral history file. (For the transcript, see https://www.loc.gov/item/wpalh001970/ )
LOST OR ABANDONED cabins pop up so often in legends of missing gold mines and buried treasure that they are almost a cliché. Most of them follow a clear pattern or formula — in fact, all lost-treasure stories do: The seeker stumbles across the treasure while doing something else; he is called away for some reason; and he can never find his way back, despite devoting years to fruitless searching.There may not be a more faithful example of that pattern than the story of the lost cabin of Steamboat Mountain.... (Applegate River, Jackson County; 1850s, 1870s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/22-02.lost-cabin-gold-stories-606.html)
Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer's shiny nose would have been the only light showing on the Oregon Coast after the Pearl Harbor attack; unable to see its position, the ship piled onto the beach at full steam. (Hammond, Clatsop County; 1940s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1608a.christmas-shipwreck-mauna-ala.403.html)
Olympic gold medalist and OSU legend Robin Reed might have been the best wrestler of all time; throughout his 20-plus-year career he was never once pinned. But his plan for the "Delake Rod and Gun Club" was more than he could pull off. (Portland, Multnomah County; 1920s - Lincoln City, Lincoln County; 1930s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1106b-robin-reed-delake-rod-gun-club.html)
Lunching in the woods after church during World War II, hundreds of miles from the sea, Elyse Mitchell and four kids from church were killed in the blast. But, hoping to deny the Japanese knowledge of their “victory,” the newspapers kept it quiet. (Bly, Klamath County; 1940s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1508b.bly-balloon-bombing.351.html)
WPA writer Sara B. Wrenn's 1939 oral history interview with Mrs. H.A. Lewis, granddaughter of the legendary Tabitha Moffat Brown, officially named the Mother of Oregon by the state Legislature in 1987, talking about her life and experiences in Oregon after her arrival in 1847. This is Part 1 of 2 parts; it will be continued next Monday. (For the transcript, see https://www.loc.gov/item/wpalh001985/ )
But the strike enabled Oregon Journal's trustees to sell the paper, in defiance of its former owner's direct bequest, to the owners of the Oregonian; the result was an outsider-owned daily-newspaper monopoly that continues to this day. (Oregon City, Clackamas County; 1960s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1607e.stereotyper-strike-part2.html)
Was the shooting of Donald Newhouse the action of a union thug, related to the strike at the Oregonian and Journal? Or was it a cuckolded husband taking revenge in a case of mistaken identity? Either way, it changed everything. (Portland, Multnomah County; 1960s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1607d.stereotyper-strike-part1.html)
The captain's desperate haste to get out to sea, combined with a terrible decision to cross the bar on the ebb, resulted in disaster — and the ship's stranded armaments resulted in a name for the town of Cannon Beach. (Cannon Beach, Clatsop County; 1840s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1508a.shark-shipwreck-part2.html)
As sailors melted away to take advantage of the opportunities in the new Oregon country, their captain sweated bullets; they could not be replaced. But his haste to get back out to sea while he still could set the stage for disaster. (Columbia River Bar, Clatsop County; 1840s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1507d.shark-shipwreck-part1.html)
WPA writer Sara B. Wrenn's 1939 oral history interview with Mrs. H.A. Lewis, granddaughter of the legendary Tabitha Moffat Brown, officially named the Mother of Oregon by the state Legislature in 1987, talking about her life and experiences in Oregon after her arrival in 1847. This is Part 1 of 2 parts; it will be continued next Monday. (For the transcript, see https://www.loc.gov/item/wpalh001985/ )
ON THE MORNING of April 23, 1936, the city of Portland was proudly preparing to launch its new harbor-patrol and first-aid boat, the Jack Luihn.It was a big moment for the city. Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia of New York City was in town and had been invited to attend. Reporters were on hand, and photographers snapping pictures. And the boat’s inventor was there — it was his moment of triumph. His wife stood ready with a bottle of champagne for the christening.The boat itself was a remarkably strange-looking thing. It looked almost as much like an airplane as a boat, like something out of a Buck Rogers comic. Nothing like it had ever plied the waters of Portland Harbor ... or, most likely, ever would again.THE JACK LUIHN was the brainchild of a Portland attorney, aviator, promoter, and inventor named Victor Wiegand Strode. Strode was a fascinating man. Looking over his life, his career is reminiscent of the early life of Howard Hughes — before he became insane, of course. And he really does give Thomas Slate, the Alsea-born inventor of all-metal steam-powered airships, some serious competition for the title of “The Nicola Tesla of Oregon.” For my money, he’s best described as a real-life Tom Swift....(Portland Harbor, Multnomah County; 1920s, 1930s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/2407d-1209d.victor-strode-aerohydrocraft.html)
In a country divided between slave states and free states just before the Civil War, Oregon was the only example of a third alternative: it was neither. (Statewide; 1850s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1308b-exclusion-law-marred-early-oregon-history.html)
Massive K-series airships were housed in the largest clear-span wood buildings in the world, near Tillamook; one burned in 1992, while the other houses the Tillamook Air Museum today. (Tillamook County; 1940s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1105d-blimp-squadron-first-defense-against-submarines-balloon-bombs.html)
As the Cold War spun up, federal government guarantees sent thousands of Geiger Counter-packing prospectors in Army surplus Jeeps scrambling across Oregon's Outback, hoping to make their fortunes mining “A-metal.” (Central and Eastern Oregon; 1940s, 1950s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1507c.uranium-mining-gold-rush-348.html)
WPA writer Sara B. Wrenn's short but interesting oral history interview with Mrs. John James of Lake Oswego, talking about the difference between life in her childhood versus the then-modern world. Hot and cold running water felt like a miracle the first time she experienced it! (For the transcript, see https://www.loc.gov/item/wpalh001972/ )
Very few people outside Coos County, and probably not that many inside it, know what a big deal Coos Bay is.It’s the biggest deepwater harbor on the Northwest coast — that is, between San Francisco and Puget Sound. And it’s far safer than Portland or Astoria, tucked as they are behind the “Graveyard of the Pacific” at the mouth of the Columbia.So, one has to wonder why it had no railroad connection to the outside world until 1916 — more than 30 years after Portland got one.There have to have been some theories and speculations about that among the residents and business leaders in the towns of Coos Bay (then called Marshfield) and North Bend. Especially after, in the early 1900s, the Southern Pacific railroad suddenly stopped work on a feeder line that it had claimed would link to Coos Bay through Drain.The subtext here seemed pretty obvious to Marshfield and North Bend business leaders: Business interests in Portland were eager to prevent Coos Bay from coming on line as a direct competitor. And since Portland and Salem were where most of the state’s political power was concentrated, what they wanted they generally got.That suspicion would grow even stronger after William J. Wilsey started promoting his planned railroad line, circa 1909. But, that one would not turn out to be a bluff; and despite the best efforts of Harriman+Co., it would turn out to be a rare case in which the tiny upstart wins. (Eugene and Coos Bay, Lane and Coos County; 1910s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/22-01.coos-bay-railroad-fight-605.html)
Bride of Christ cult sought perfect righeousness, Christ-like simplicity and total humility. In practice, though, it spawned nothing but misery and madness, and a legal precedent for “honor killings.” (Waldport, Lincoln County; 1900s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1106a-bride-of-christ-holy-rollers-in-corvallis-ending.html)
Preacher Edmund Creffield's Bride of Christ Church broke up families, sanctioned adultery and inspired deadly violence in the early 20th Century. Ironically, its practitioners' goal was perfect holiness and godliness. (Corvallis, Benton County; 1900s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1105e-bride-of-christ-holy-rollers-in-corvallis-beginning.html)
Young Henry Miller, rejected by his illustrious father, turned to a life of crime, but he turned out not to be very good at it. For his part, the ever-classy Joaquin took to claiming Harry was not really his son. (Coquille, Coos County; 1890s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1507b.black-sheep-of-joaquin-miller-family.347.html)
WPA writer Sara B. Wrenn's oral history interview with Mrs. J.R. Bean, and some excerpts from the reminiscences of one of her in-laws, James Meikle Sharp, who crossed the country on an Oregon Trail wagon train and secured a teacher's certificate in his new Oregon home. (For the transcript, see https://www.loc.gov/item/wpalh001963/ )
Abraham Coryell Edmunds, throughout his several careers in Oregon and California, was almost like a cartoon — a larger-than-life loser in the vein of Wile E. Coyote, with a little Carrie Nation mixed in along with a whole lot of Don Quixote. Nor were his “own-goals” minor affairs. A.C. Edmunds was almost singlehandedly responsible for the demise of the early Universalist Church in California, the temporary collapse of the Universalist congregation in Portland, and for the sudden death of the temperance and women’s suffrage movements in Oregon in 1874. Before he got involved, Oregon was on track to become the first state in which women could vote. His efforts to help make that happen set the process back almost 40 years. ... (Multnomah and Lane County; 1860s, 1870s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/20-01.ac-edmunds-temperance-own-goalie.html)
Oregon went 'dry' in 1914, so by the time the Volstead Act passed in 1919, Beaver State bootleggers were already seasoned professionals. So when the rest of the West Coast needed them, Oregon's 'midnight entrepreneurs' were ready to roll. (Statewide; 1910s, 1920s, 1930s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1308a-rumrunners-moonshiners-and-speakeasies.html)
A small construction engine was being used to build the South Jetty, to protect the mouth of the Columbia River for ships, when one off-course four-masted schooner crashed into it — so construction crews chugged to the rescue. (Hammond, Clatsop County; 1910s; Offbeat Oregon History column by Finn J.D. John, 15 May 2011) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1105c-railroad-train-rescues-shipwrecked-schooners-crew.html)
Not since before the Civil War had so many mariners drowned in a shipwreck on the Columbia River bar; as hurricane-driven breakers tore the big ship to pieces, all the would-be rescuers could do was watch in horror. (Columbia River Bar, Clatsop County; 1930s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1507a.shipwreck-iowa-worst-of-1900s-346.html)
This is the third and final part of WPA writer William Haight's oral history interview with Mrs. Neil Niven (Haight doesn't give us her first name or maiden name). Mrs. Niven came to the wild Oregon hard-rock mining boomtown of Granite as a schoolteacher, later served as its newspaper's editor, and throughout her time there she was a close and occasionally sarcastic observer of its wild, violent, rootin'-tootin' culture. (For the transcript, see https://www.loc.gov/item/wpalh001942/ )
The railroad, the local police agencies, and the U.S. War Department all desperately wanted to prosecute somebody, anybody, just not the young Marine who almost certainly was young Martha Brinson James' actual killer. (Albany, Linn County; 1940s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1607b.war-bride-murder-3.399.html)
Apparently desperate to avoid charging a uniformed U.S. Marine with the crime, prosecutors sought a scapegoat to pin the murder of Martha James on. They found one, and they had to work really hard to make it stick ... but they got it done. (Albany, Linn County; 1940s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1607a.war-bride-murder-2.398.html)
Local authorities were stumped; the entire nation was watching, and the most likely suspect, a uniformed U.S. Marine, was already being hailed a a heroic would-be-rescuer in the press. So they went looking for a patsy to pin the crime on ....(Albany, Linn County; 1940s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1606d.war-bride-murder-1.397.html)
A Ford Trimotor crashed on takeoff in Eugene, and a twin-engined Boeing crashed into the west hills of Portland, within 11 months of each other. Miraculously, there were survivors in both events. (Lane and Multnomah County; 1930s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1712e.1933-a-bad-year-for-plane-crashes-476.html)
This is Part Two of WPA writer William Haight's oral history interview with Mrs. Neil Niven (Haight doesn't give us her first name or maiden name). Mrs. Niven came to the wild Oregon hard-rock mining boomtown of Granite as a schoolteacher, later served as its newspaper's editor, and throughout her time there she was a close and occasionally sarcastic observer of its wild, violent, rootin'-tootin' culture. (For the transcript, see https://www.loc.gov/item/wpalh001942/ )
Talented actress could dilate a pupil at will, dislocate joints, fake broken ribs and get her gums to bleed on demand. She was so good, railroad claims agents actually formed a national association just to share info about her scams. (Salem, Marion County; 1890s, 1900s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1605e.maud-johnson-queen-o-fakirs-393.html)
When the steamboat Gazelle reached the dock, the man in charge of its steam boilers leaped ashore and ran like a man being chased by demons. A few seconds later, the Gazelle exploded, killing 20 people. (Canemah, Clackamas County; 1850s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1307c-boiler-explosions-in-willamette-steamboats.html)
Convinced his only neighbor was out to get him, solitary trapper and paranoid former prospector “Crazy Hugo” ambushed him with a rifle; the state prison became his retirement home. (Agness, Curry County; 1930s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1105b-crazy-hugo-hermit-of-craggies.html)
Lessons learned in the crash ended up saving countless lives in subsequent at-sea ditchings, but those lessons came at a price: Four people died, including the co-pilot who had saved everyone's life. (Portland, Multnomah County; 1950s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1712a.pan-am-845-ditching-off-coos-bay-472.html)
WPA writer Sara B. Wrenn's oral history interview with Miss Jean Slauson of Oswego and two of her young cousins, sharing some of their family stories, oral and written. Part 1 of 3 parts. (For the transcript, see https://www.loc.gov/item/wpalh001975/ )
The “Jackson County Rebellion” faded away after political boss Llewellyn Banks shot a policeman with a .30-06 during an attempted warrant service. Coverage of the whole debacle won the Medford Mail-Tribune a Pulitzer Prize. (Medford, Jackson County; 1930s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1605d.jackson-co-rebellion-part3-392.html)
For leaders of the “Good Government Congress,” the Great Depression was a golden opportunity to crystallize popular bewilderment into hatred that could be used to grab for power. And it worked ... too well, as it turned out. (Medford, Jackson County; 1930s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1605c.jackson-county-rebellion-part2-391.html)
An autocratic populist from southern California, arriving in Medford in a flashy Cadillac, managed to position himself as a leader of the poor and disenfranchised. The results would rock the county, and the state, to the core. (Medford, Jackson County; 1920s, 1930s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1605b.llewellyn-banks-murder-boss-390.html)
Jack Graham had planned for the airliner to explode over the Wyoming mountains; but the plane got out late, and the bomb went off a few minutes after takeoff — while he sat with his wife and son in an airport cafe. (Portland, Multnomah County; 1950s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1711d.united-629-dynamited-on-flight-to-pdx-471.html)
WPA writer William C. Haight's oral history interview with gold miner Carl Hentz, talking about gold mining lore. (For the transcript, see https://www.loc.gov/item/wpalh001947/ )
In 1923 when Oregon’s KGW Radio launched the world’s first radio variety show, it became almost a nationwide sensation within just a few months. At its peak, it had listeners in all but four U.S. states along with the territories of Alaska and Hawaii, as well as most of Canada and Mexico. All three of the U.S. Presidents who served in office during its run — Warren Harding, Calvin Coolidge, and Herbert Hoover — were at least occasional listeners.The show was called The Hoot Owls, and it may actually have been the single most influential radio program of all time. It showed the industry the possibilities of a semi-scripted radio variety show, and it launched the career of Mel Blanc, the voice of most of the Looney Tunes characters. And yet because early radio wasn’t able to be recorded, all we have left of The Hoot Owls today is a handful of scripts and a songbook. (Portland, Multnomah County; 1920s, 1930s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/24-06.kgw-order-of-hoot-owls-on-the-air-649.html)
As his countrymen and colleagues succumbed to the enthusiasm and propaganda for joining the conflict, only Senator Lane and a handful of other lawmakers kept their wits. But Lane paid dearly for his commitment to sanity. (Sellwood, Multnomah County; 1910s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1307b-harry-lane-war-hero.html)
Norwegian freighter got off course, piled onto Peacock Spit; a cutter pulled it off, and motor lifeboat crews rescued its crew, and the wallowing ship was pulled to port and repaired. A happy ending? Well, not for the Russians, it wasn't. (Columbia River Bar, Clatsop County; 1930s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1105a-coast-guard-rescued-future-soviet-gulag-ship.html)
Although nearly everyone agreed the Mache family had had it coming, evidence at the scene convinced the sheriff that Kelsay Porter had ambushed them in cold blood, and the jury sentenced him to swing for it. But the neighbors characterized the whole affair as a railroad job. (Pine Valley, Union and Baker County; 1890s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1711c.kelsey-porter-vigilante-killings-470.html)
WPA writer Andrew C. Sherbert's oral history interview with old Portland pharmacist Ross Plummer, discussing Ross's father — pioneering physician, druggist and telegraphy expert O.P.S. Plummer, who helped Western Union connect Portland to the line and had the first telephone in the Beaver State. (For the transcript, see https://www.loc.gov/item/wpalh001952/ )
Local swindler's anti-impotence scam brought him and his company to national attention; but it wasn't until he added a quack birth-control remedy to his line that he was busted and jailed for his fraud. (Albany, Linn County; 1910s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1605a.swindlers-edward-f-lee-viagra-spammer-389.html)
After homesteading some of the West's best cattle country, the family could have been wealthy squires like TV's Cartwright family; instead, they gave it all up for a series of outlaw enterprises that left some broke and others dead. (Harney, Wallowa, and Baker County; 1890s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1307a-mccarty-gang-bonanza-gone-wrong.html)
The historic structure, halfway between “dry” Silverton and “wet” Mt. Angel, became a meeting place for the thirsty — and a symbol of Oregon's strange relationship with good ol' Demon Rum. (Silverton, Marion County; 1910s, 1920s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1104d-gallon-house-bridge-symbol-of-oregon-battle-over-booze.html)
An East German man, running from the law in a stolen Volvo full of guns and fake IDs, apparently dropped the hand grenade he was preparing to throw at the pursuing officer and was unable to retrieve it in time. (Crater Lake, Klamath County; 1980s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1711b.merzejuskis-blows-self-up-at-crater-lake-469.html)
WPA writer Andrew Sherbert's oral history interview with Catholic Sentinel printshop editor George Gibby in December 1938, in which Mr. Gibby fills him in on the state of frontier-community dancing and how it differed from 'modern' (as of 1938) dancing. (For the transcript, see https://www.loc.gov/item/wpalh001953/ )
The basic idea: Mix a few dramatic ingredients like whiskey, red pepper and opium; stick a label on it; hawk it on streetcorners as a universal medicine; and leave town before the suckers can get wise. (Portland, Multnomah County; 1870s, 1880s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1604d.swindlers-medicine-shows-388.html)
Created to stifle Indian culture, the oldest surviving Native American boarding school has done the opposite — and it's fortunate for Oregon's cultural heritage that it has. (Salem, Marion County; 1880s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1212d-chemawa-boarding-school-cultural-treasure.html)
Two liquored-up Navy deserters planned to seize control of a passenger liner, drive it onto the beach and steal away into the night with three tons of gold. It's probably safe to say they didn't think their plan through very well. (Off Winchester Bay, Douglas County; 1900s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1104c-amateur-pirates-bumbling-scheme-didnt-work-out.html)
Everyone in Ashland knew Amanda McDaniel and Lewis O'Neil were having a little affair; so, when Amanda's husband turned up murdered with O'Neil's shotgun, it seemed obvious what had happened. But ... was it? (Ashland, Jackson County; 1880s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1711a.lewis-mcdaniel-murdered-but-by-whom-468.html)
WPA writer Sara B. Wrenn's oral history interview with Harvey Starkweather, a garrulous old fellow who grew up surrounded by Oregon Trail pioneers in and around Milwaukie. (Part 2 of 2)(For the transcript, see https://www.loc.gov/item/wpalh001988/ )
In the first half of the 1800s, mainstream medical doctors were not very trusted; travelers on the Oregon Trail relied more on herbal remedies or cold water. (1840s, 1850s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1604c.medicine-oregon-trail-387.html)
The old Portland shanghai scene's 'original gangster' was a mysterious character. Did he really inherit a huge fortune? If not, where did the money come from? Stagecoach robbery? Piracy on the high seas? Anything was possible .... (Portland, Multnomah County; 1880s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1212c-jim-turk-the-shanghaiing-millionaire.html)
Edward Dickinson Baker's personal connection with President Lincoln and formidable people skills made him a powerful force; had he not been killed, he might well have become president. Without his influence, Oregon would likely have sided with the South. (Offbeat Oregon History column by Finn J.D. John, 10 Apr 2011) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1104b-edward-baker-only-sitting-senator-killed-in-action.html)
Eager to get started on Smelt Sands Park, the state forcibly vacated Lane County's right-of-way on its 804 Road along the beach, and beachfront property owners quickly fenced it off. It took a 10-year legal battle to fix the problem. (Yachats, Lane County; 1970s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1710e.yachats-804-road-offbeat-oregon-origin-story-467.html)
WPA writer Sara B. Wrenn's oral history interview with Harvey Starkweather, a garrulous old fellow who grew up surrounded by Oregon Trail pioneers in and around Milwaukie. (For the transcript, see https://www.loc.gov/item/wpalh001988/ )
Not many people know it, but Oregon had U.S. history's first female governor (in 1909), first female sworn police officer (in 1908) and first female stagecoach driver (in the 1860s). (Statewide; 1860s, 1870s, 1880s, 1890s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1604b.great-women-part2-386.html)
Other pioneering Oregonians worthy of having bridges and mountains named after them include attorney Mary G. Leonard, historian Frances Fuller Victor and physician Bethenia Owens-Adair. (Statewide, 1870s, 1880s, 1890s; part 1 of 2) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1604a.great-women-part1.385.html)
Perhaps thinking the Benton County Treasurer would have treasure in his office, they blew the safe with dynamite — and were disappointed. A month later, having left pawnshop claim stubs lying around camp, they were incarcerated. (Corvallis, Benton County; 1900s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1104a-bungling-burglars-skunked-in-corvallis-courthouse-job.html)
Richard Marple likely would have been acquitted for lack of hard evidence if he'd been able to keep his mouth shut. But, maybe he figured there was nothing he could do to keep folks from eventually learning his family's dark secret. (Lafayette, Yamhill County; 1880s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1710d.marple-the-triple-ax-murderer-466.html)
WPA writer Sara B. Wrenn's oral history interview with Ernest P. Elliott, grandson of the man who homesteaded Meadowbrook (just northeast of Molalla). (For the transcript, see https://www.loc.gov/item/wpalh001983/ )
THE OREGON TRAIL has been called the world’s longest graveyard. It’s a 2,000-mile road that averages one buried body every 80 yards. Out of the 350,000 emigrants that traveled along it, one out of every 10 died along the way.There were lots of ways to kick the bucket on the Trail. Blood poisoning was a popular way to go — in those pre-antibiotic days, a minor scratch from a wagon fastener or prick from a thornbush could quickly go septic. And accidents — people getting run over by a wagon wheel, stepped on by an ox, or falling off the wagon and landing badly — were also common.So it’s actually pretty ironic that the worst part of the whole trail was, in terms of body count, relatively benign compared with the rest. That hasn’t prevented some great ghost stories from developing around it, though.I’m talking about the dreaded half mile of 60-degree slope on southwest side of Mount Hood known as Laurel Hill. (Near Rhododendron, Clackamas County; 1850s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/24-05.barlow-road-laurel-hill-647.html)
The legendary Portland “boarding master” sparked an international incident when he figured out how to shake the ship captains down, foiling their plan to stiff their sailors for the journey's wages. (Portland, Multnomah County; 1890s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1301a-larry-sullivans-shanghaiing-syndicate.html)
A prizefighter with a great head for business, friends in high places and absolutely no conscience, Larry Sullivan organized Portland's shanghaiiers into a cartel — causing international notoriety for Portland. (Part 1 of 2) (Portland, Astoria; Multnomah and Clatsop county; 1890s, 1900s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1212e-larry-sullivan-shanghaiing-legend.html)
After making a fortune pushing patent-medicine tablets, Roy Currier cashed out and used the money to build a tidy, discreet little fishing resort on Tenmile Creek — with gourmet cuisine, great fishing, and a little illegal gambling action. (Lakeside, Coos County; 1930s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1710c.curriers-village-lakeside-movie-stars-n-mobsters-465.html)
WPA writer Sara B. Wrenn's oral history interview, in January 1939, with a persnickety collector/hoarder of historical artifacts named Miss Mertie Stevens, including some Oregon Trail objects dating back to 1842! As a side note, writer Sara Wrenn does not seem to have liked Miss Mertie very much. (For the transcript, see https://www.loc.gov/item/wpalh001977/ )
The Willamette River was running high and wild on the morning of Feb. 5, 1890, as Alden and Arthur Graham set out from Oregon City in their sternwheel riverboat for the daily run to Portland. They arrived in Portland in what must have been record time, dodging logs and small floating buildings along the way, and promptly canceled the return trip. It was just too dangerous to even try charging into the teeth of all the fast-moving debris. But after they arrived, they learned that theirs was the only riverboat between Willamette Falls and the Portland bridges — and there were some things floating down the river that could potentially damage or even destroy those bridges. So, back out into the torrent they went, to the rescue. (Oregon City, Clackamas County; 1890s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1912e.steamboat-culture-graham-line.html)
Like the hero of an 1800s “cautionary tale,” 17-year-old Joseph Swards stepped off the ship, fell in with bad company, got caught up in a robbery that went horribly wrong — and in the end was lucky he wasn't hanged. (Portland, Multnomah County; 1870s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1212b-young-adventurers-visit-to-portland-ended-in-prison.html)
The year after the Civil War ended, the partisans of North and South still clung to their resentments in Douglas County. On Christmas Day, those hard feelings broke out in a knock-down-drag-out that left two men dead. (Roseburg, Douglas County; 1860s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1412d.319.champagne-riot-civil-war-battle.html)
He called himself James Cook, and spoke with an English accent. But when asked about his past, he spun fanciful and ever-changing stories full of world travels, tiger hunts, shanghaiings and the like; he went to his death a total enigma. (The Dalles, Wasco County; 1870s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1710b.john-cook-international-murderer-of-mystery-464.html)
WPA writer Sara B. Wrenn's oral history interview with Minerva Thessing. Ms. Thessing grew up near Milwaukie in the 1860s and was friends with some of Oregon's most famous pioneer characters, from Ben Holladay to Abigail Scott Duniway. She also seems to have had a knack for psychic matters. (For the transcript, see https://www.loc.gov/item/wpalh001996/ )
The engines that went into these old-school boats were slow, heavy, primitive, and built in one of several factories in San Francisco. In fact, until the mid-1930s San Francisco Bay was the Detroit of the marine-engine industry; the Union Gas Engine Company, est. 1885, was one of the very first manufacturers of gasoline engines of any kind in the U.S. (Astoria, Clatsop County; 1880-1920) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1912d.west-coast-fishboat-engines.html)
Crook County citizens finally decided they'd had enough of the secretive lynchings and killings; they banded together and defeated the gang of masked riders without a single shot being fired. (Prineville, Crook County; 1880s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1212a-prineville-vigilantes-defeated-without-a-shot.html)
In Crook County, the early 1880s were like something out of a Louis L'Amour novel: Masked riders galloping around by night, dispensing what they saw as justice. It all started with the lynching of an innocent man. (Part 1 of 2) (Prineville, Crook County; 1880s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1211d-lynching-kicked-off-vigilante-rule-in-prineville.html)
After Columbia Lightship broke its lines and drifted ashore, the salvage bid was won by a house-moving company from Portland — which, rather than trying to pull the stranded ship off the beach, built a road, trucked it over the peninsula, and launched it in Baker Bay. (Columbia River Bar, Clatsop County; 1890s, 1900s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1710a.lightship-saved-by-house-movers-463.html)
WPA writer William C. Haight's 1939 oral history interview with a fascinating fortune-teller he identified only as 'Miss Smith,' in her tea-room business in Portland's Carlton Hotel. (For the transcript, see https://www.loc.gov/item/wpalh001945/ )
On any list of Oregon “firsts,” there’s one name that almost never pops up - Dr. Adaline M. Weed.Which is understandable, because although Dr. Weed was the first female physician in the Oregon Territory, she was not a “regular” doctor – she was a hydropathist, a practitioner of “water cure.” Maybe that's why, today, when asked who the Oregon Territory’s first female physician was, most people who think they know the answer (including, until just last week, me!) will say, “Bethenia Owens-Adair, in 1874” — and be wrong. (Salem, Marion County; 1850s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1912c.dr-adeline-weed.html)
Sent downstairs to fetch a pan of powdered milk, a kitchen assistant at the Oregon State Hospital dipped his scoop into the wrong bin — and brought back six pounds of roach poison. It was mixed into the eggs and fed to 467 people. (Salem, Marion County; 1940s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1211c-asylum-kitchen-mixup-killed-hundreds-with-scrambled-eggs.html)
She had a record of uninhibited and acerbic writing; she was preparing what appeared to be a super-racy tell-all memoir; and she had just secured a divorce from a prominent community member about whom they’d all heard some pretty tantalizing rumors. What was not to like? (French Prairie, Marion County; 1850s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1909d.margaret-bailey-oregons-first-authoress-2of2-566.html)
MARGARET JEWETT BAILEY WAS not only Oregon’s first author of novel-length fiction, she was also the West Coast’s first published female author, and its first female newspaper journalist. She was also one of the most colorful characters of a remarkably colorful age. She could be absolutely savage when she felt the situation called for it ... and, in fairness, it has to be admitted that her situation seemed to call for it rather a lot. (French Prairie, Marion County; 1850s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1909c.margaret-bailey-oregons-first-authoress-1of2-565.html)
WPA writer William C. Haight's oral history interview with Joseph Stangler, a 62-year-old veteran of James J. Hill's railroad building workcrews who was reinventing himself as a concrete artist. This oral history is a fascinating glimpse into the life and work of one of the wandering workmen who lived a hobo-ish lifestyle, riding the rails and working odd jobs, in the last decade or two of the 19th century. (For the transcript, see https://www.loc.gov/item/wpalh001949/ )
AS EVERY SENSIBLE person knows, there is pretty much no such thing as being “cruel to be kind.” Sometimes it does work the other way around, though. Every now and then you run across a story in which someone did something that was intended as a kindness, but turned out to be anything but.Such a case happened in the office of Oregon Governor Oswald West, sometime in 1912. It had to do with a little shooting scrape that Z.H. Stroud, an acquaintance of West’s, had gotten into in the little frontier town of Harney City, where he was the town marshal.Reading between the lines of the story, it’s clear that the governor’s well-intentioned intervention was probably the worst thing that could have happened to Marshal Stroud, and precipitated the closest thing Oregon history has to Arizona’s famous O.K. Corral gunfight. Which, as I’m sure you’ve gathered, the lawman lost.... (Harney City, Harney County; 1910s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/24-04a.1107e_os-west-pardons-gunfighter-marshal.html)
The grand monument to the Gilded Age was a municipal architectural treasure and hosted U.S. presidents, but was razed in the 1950s to make way for a parking garage; all that remains is a wrought-iron rail. (Portland, Multnomah County; 1890s, 1900s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1211b-pioneer-courthouse-square-once-palatial-hotel.html)
New York schemers sought to have former Oregon governor and Senator Joseph Lane named President. Had they succeeded, the Civil War likely would have been the North seceding from the South, and possibly an independent Pacific Republic in the West. (Salem, Marion County; 1860s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1412c.318.president-joseph-lane.html)
THERE’S NOT A WHOLE LOT going on these days in the Eastern Oregon community of Jordan Valley (pop. 181). But 100 years ago, this tiny, remote hamlet was home to a racetrack that may have been the fastest in the Northwest. (Jordan Valley, Malheur County; 1890s, 1910s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1909b.horse-racing-jordan-valley-homer-davenport-564.html)
WPA writer Sara B. Wrenn's oral history interview with Cyrus Woodworth, a retired banker and former telegrapher living in Salem and Portland from the 1870s to the 1930s. He actually organized one of the first car races, a match between two 'merry Oldsmobile'-era horseless carriages that reached a top speed of 18 miles an hour. This also includes an account of an actual tar-and-feathering incident! (For the transcript, see https://www.loc.gov/item/wpalh001962 )
ESPECIALLY IN THE LATE 1800s, the Oregon frontier was no stranger to acts of judicial lynching – where the local legal system was corrupted to provide cover for murder. What’s more unusual, though, was an 1852 event that amounted to judicial cattle rustling. The cattle that the Benton County courts rustled belonged to a woman named Letitia Carson, and she was the widow of a recently naturalized Irishman named David Carson — or, rather, she would have been David’s widow, if the two of them had been allowed to marry. But they weren’t, because Letitia Carson was black, and a former slave — born in Kentucky in the late 1810s. The other factor that makes this episode of judicial rustling unusual is that Letitia took the thieves to court — and won. Twice. (Corvallis, Benton County; 1850s, 1860s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1912b.letitia-carson-fought-racist-neighbor-in-court.html)
Wall Street financial wizard Thomas Lawson happened to be in town and betting on Prineville. With Silver Lake up 9-0 halfway through, he knew just what to do: Buy the other team a round of drinks ... or two, or three .... (Prineville, Crook County; 1910s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1211a-thomas-lawson-mccall-boozy-baseball-fixer.html)
Asa Mead Simpson came out West for the Gold Rush, but he soon learned there was more money in the timber that blanketed its hills than would ever be scratched out of its rapidly dwindling gold mines. (North Bend, Coos County; 1850s, 1870s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1412b.317.asa-simpsons-empire.html)
“No one seems to know how the present Kiwanda dory evolved,” wrote Portland Oregonian wildlife editor Don Helm in a 1968 article, “but it revolutionized the sport and made Pacific City the dory capital of the world.” (Pacific City, Tillamook County; 1910s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1909a.cape-kiwanda-dories-563.html)
WPA writer Manly Banister's oral history interview with Mrs. Kitty Gray. Mrs. Gray was involved in management of several hard-rock mines during the go-go years of Baker County company gold mining in the first quarter of the 20th century, especially in and around Cornucopia, and offered a lot of insights into the rough and dangerous life of a hard-rock miner back then. (For the transcript, see https://www.loc.gov/item/wpalh001928/ )
The gregarious young entrepreneur usually cleared $2,500 – that’s the equivalent of $57,000 in modern currency – on each county fair. His profit margin hovered around 92 percent. How did he do it? By selling cheap cigars — wrapped in an expensive story. (Portland, Multnomah and Washington County; 1870s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1912a.abe-tichner-frontier-portland-hustler.html)
John Hipple dumped his family, changed his name and moved West. A dozen years and a few easy-money real-estate swindles later, he was a hugely successful railroad-and-timber lawyer and a U.S. Senator. (Portland, Multnomah County; 1880s, 1890s, 1900s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1210e-john-mitchell-oregons-snidely-whiplash.html)
Sure, most people speak English. But there’s an older language whose roots run far deeper in Oregon’s culture and history, and it’s one that nearly every Oregonian knows a word or two of. (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1411d.314.chinook-jargon.html)
It was a notoriously difficult climb, especially on the descent; but the 'idiots climbing Haystack Rock' dynamic didn't become a serious issue until after the helicopter was invented, and climbers started demanding that they be rescued. When they were, the propwash blew all the baby birds out of their nests and into the sea ... something had to be done — so, something was. (Cannon Beach, Clatsop County; 1950s, 1960s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1908d.haystack-rock-climbers-required-constant-rescue-562.html)
'When I asked Miss Spencer about her ancestors she exhibited a tree full of monkeys and said that they were the first one," writes WPA writer Walker Winslow in his oral history interview with Nettie Spencer, which he conducted in 1938 — a little over a decade after the famous 'Scopes Monkey Trial.' Spencer went on to give a wonderful description of frontier life in the Willamette Valley in the years after the Civil War. (For the transcript, see www.loc.gov/item/wpalh001960/ )
The history of Portland mayors in the 20th century largely comes down to the story of the struggle of progressive reformers against various forms of corruption and vice. Put that way, it sounds like a clean morality play: good vs. evil. But it’s a bit more complicated than that. (Portland, Multnomah County; 1950s, 1960s, 1970s, 1980s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1911d.portland-mayors-part3of3.html)
When Dr. James Chapman was elected mayor of Portland in 1882, it was his third non-consecutive stint as P-town’s top executive. His previous two mayoralties had been relatively unremarkable. This one, his third and final stint, would be different. Things started out reasonably well, although a careful newspaper reader at the time might have detected some odd occurrences as Chapman began his term of office. (Portland, Multnomah County; 1890s, 1900s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1911c.portland-mayors-part2of3.html)
Over the years, the city of Portland has had its share of controversy and drama in the Mayor’s office. At times, the political tableaux in the top job in Oregon’s biggest town have ripened into scenes that wouldn’t be out of place in a Vaudeville act. (Portland, Multnomah County; 1860s, 1870s, 1880s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1911b.portland-mayors-part1of3.html)
Sometime in April of 1960, a shy, retiring, hard-of-hearing comic-book artist named Carl Barks got a letter at his quiet suburban home. When he opened it, he found that it was a letter from a stranger named John Spicer. And to his astonishment, he found that it was — a fan letter.“Believe it or not, I have been planning this letter for about four or five years,” Spicer wrote. “I have been kept from doing so for the simple reason that I knew not your name or address. I tried several times, however, but all were in vain.”Spicer’s letter was how Barks found out that he was, and had been for at least a decade, a legend — and the most popular comic-book artist in the world.And at first he refused to believe it. Wary of some trick, or a prankster pretending to be a fan to humiliate him, he hesitated to engage with it. But then he decided, why not?And that’s how the world started to learn, for the first time, who Walt Disney’s elusive, anonymous “Good Duck Artist” was.... (Merrill, Klamath County; 1910s, 1920s, 1930s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/24-03a.carl-barks-the-duck-man.html)
WPA writer Sara B. Wrenn's oral history interview with Cora Ayers Jamerson, a 'small, alert gray-haired' widow and retired schoolteacher and apartment-house superintendent, in her neat but cluttered apartment in 1938. Mrs. Jamerson talked about the songs and ballads folks liked to sing in 1880s Portland. Her brother, John Ayers, was, she says, the man who invented the cigar-shaped seagoing log rafts that lumber magnate Simon Benson made famous. (For the transcript, see https://www.loc.gov/item/wpalh001968/ )
Columbia College, atop College Hill in Eugene, was founded just before the Civil War. It closed after pro-slavery board members took over, and its president skipped town while under indictment for attempted murder; but while it lasted, it gave Eugene a taste for the college-town life that led directly to the founding of the University of Oregon 15 years later. (Eugene, Lane County; 1850s, 1860s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1908c.columbia-college-gunfighter-president-561.html)
The catastrophic failure of several of the Utopian cult's articles of faith — especially on matters of diet and health care — had doomed the community to misery and sickness before it even got a start. (Central America; 1850s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1412a.luelling-love-cult-part2.316.html)
Former devout Quaker Henderson Luelling developed some odd beliefs in late middle age, founded a cult called “Harmonial Brotherhood,” and led his followers into the Central American wilderness. It did not go well. (Milwaukie, Clackamas County; 1840s, 1850s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1411e.315.luelling-love-cult-part1.html)
When the Great Depression hit, many Oregonians decided to head for mining claims. The life of a gold miner was rustic and tough, but in an age of bread lines and 'hoovervilles,' it beat the alternative. (Southern and Central Oregon; 1930s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1908b.gold-rush-of-1933-560.html)
WPA writer Sara B. Wrenn's oral history interview with pioneer Oswego resident C.T. Dickinson, recalling how the land was when the lake was thick with fish and ducks and people were thin on the land. Dickinson also served as a square-dance caller, so if you're yearning for some traumatic memories of elementary-school P.E. class, you won't want to miss this one. (For the transcript, see https://www.loc.gov/item/wpalh001967/ )
Really, the only reason the U.S.S. Peacock didn’t break into pieces and drown all hands within hours of slamming into the sand was that it was a United States Navy ship. That meant it was crewed by some of the best-trained sailors in the world, and built solidly enough for iron shot to bounce off its sides. (Columbia River Bar, Clatsop County; 1840s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1911a.peacock-spit-shipwreck.html)
The hordes of awestruck visitors who admired the scenery at the 1905 Lewis and Clark Exposition would have been shocked if they'd known the beautiful little lake would be gone in 20 years — filled in for industrial lands. Not a trace remains. (Portland, Multnomah County; 1900s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1210d-guilds-lake-portlands-water-wonderland.html)
The little riverboat came loose from its moorings during a storm and floated downriver and onto the deadly bar with the owners aboard. How could such a thing have happened? Did someone do it on purpose? (Astoria, Clatsop County; 1870s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1411c.313.us-grant-suspicious-shipwreck.html)
Some Eastern politicians had a plan for paying down Civil War debt: Send in the Army, with the aid of foreign troops, and seize all the productive gold-mining operations in the West. Luckily, a Nevada Senator had a plan to pre-empt it. (Washington, D.C.; 1860s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1908a.origins-of-american-mining-law-559.html)
When we get the story of early-day Oregon emigrants' journeys, usually they involve covered wagons. This is a story of a lady who came to Oregon on the newly built transcontinental railway, which she did the same year the connection was finished: 1883. This is WPA writer Sara B. Wrenn's oral history interview with Mrs. Hortense Watkins, a widow and Portland resident, in 1938 -- 50 years after her journey. (For the transcript, see https://www.loc.gov/item/wpalh001979/ )
It was the first murder trial ever held in the Oregon Territory. The prosecution alleged that Nimrod O’Kelley was a land pirate who had invented an imaginary wife in order to fraudulently claim extra land, and that he had murdered Jeremiah Mahoney to prevent losing it, and to intimidate his other neighbors so that none would challenge him. But when the 'imaginary' wife arrived, everything changed. (Marysville/Corvallis, Benton County; 1850s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1910d.nimrod-okelly-murder.html)
Sometimes the silent bones of the long dead almost seem to want to tell their stories ... but, of course, they can't.There are a few stories of skeletal remains found in Oregon whose secrets will probably never be known. (Scio, Ochoco National Forest, Peters Creek Sink) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1210c-mysterious-skeletons-of-oregon-history.html)
In 1893, famously irascible governor Sylvester Pennoyer made a mistake on the date of Turkey Day in a speech. But then, instead of admitting his error, he defiantly doubled down on it. (Salem, Marion County; 1890s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1411b.312.pennoyers-thanksgiving.html)
Miner William Aldred, traveling to a rumored bonanza in Idaho with five dozen other miners, found two gold mines on the way — but couldn't get the other miners to stay with him to work them. Luckily, one of the two mines was still unclaimed on their return. (Prairie City, Grant County; 1860s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1907e.prospectors-turned-backs-on-two-fortunes-558.html)
WPA writer William Haight's oral history interview with Miss Etta Crawford, wealthy and cultured member of frontier Oregon's social elite and political activist, recalling her girlhood days in Portland shortly after the Civil War. (For the transcript, see https://www.loc.gov/item/wpalh001943/)
“From 1861 to 1876, every man committed to the Oregon State Penitentiary for ‘life’ either escaped or was pardoned,” writes historian and newspaper columnist Erik Bromberg, quoting from the U.S. Federal Writers Project’s “Oregon Oddities” article of 1939-1941. “Some who escaped were recaptured and then pardoned.” (Oregon Territory, 1850s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1910c.frontier-justice-jailhouses.html)
Cyclones, tornadoes, flash floods, earthquakes and volcanoes — the Beaver State is not immune to any of these things, but they're rare enough that no one is expecting them when they appear. (Statewide) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1210b-deadly-weather-usually-catches-oregon-by-surprise.html)
“Ethelbert” the orca somehow ended up stranded miles from the ocean in the Columbia Slough, much to the delight of most Portland residents. But it wasn't long before the city's would-be Nimrods came out and spoiled everything. (Columbia Slough, Multnomah County; 1930s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1411a.311.ethelbert-portlands-whale.html)
No one in Tillamook County even suspected the “Lee Film Company” was a front for government Prohibition enforcement until the trap was sprung ... but it has to have been the most expensive law enforcement operation in the county's history. (Tillamook County; 1920s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1907d.lobster-trap-for-bootleggers-557.html)
WPA writer Walker Winslow's oral history interview with William Huntley Hampton, a son of Brigham Young although not a Mormon, who was probably Oregon's second most famous mining engineer around the turn of the Twentieth Century (behind Herbert Hoover). He invented the process of hydraulic fracking, worked for the Bureau of Mines for years, and was one of the preeminent authorities on gold mining. (For the transcript, see https://www.loc.gov/item/wpalh001957/)
On the morning of Nov. 25, 1881, two men were walking to work along the North End waterfront when they saw something incongruous in the river, just off the foot of Everett Street ... a pair of feet, sticking straight up into the air. (Portland, Multnomah County; 1990s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1910a.carrie-bradley-2of2.html)
The Femme Fatale, like most really satisfying tropes in fiction, is based on real life. And arguably, the closest Oregon has ever come to a real-life femme fatale worthy of Hammett’s pen was in early 1880s Portland, in what today is known as the Tenderloin — in the person of a gorgeous, hard-eyed 28-year-old brunette who called herself Carrie Bradley. (Portland, Multnomah County; 1882) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1909e.carrie-bradley-femme-fatale-1of2-567.html)
In a race with Portland neophile Henry Wemme to be the first owner of an airplane in Oregon, Cornell-educated John Burkhart was two weeks too late; but unlike Wemme, he designed, built and flew his own machine. (Albany, Linn County; 1910s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1410d.310.burkhart-aviation-pioneer.html)
The geographical evidence isn't there; but every nearby Indian community has legends about the river tunneling underground for miles, and roughly similar accounts of the tunnel's collapse. What are the odds? (Near The Dalles, Wasco County; circa 1450 A.D.) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1907c.bridge-of-the-gods-legend-and-truth.html)
Young Charley Imus was the son of the local undertaker, and he and a school friend were tasked with watching over a corpse while an Irish wake was going on, as the wind howled in the shingles on a stormy, spooky night. Imagine the boys' consternation when the 'corpse' ... woke up. Apparently the wake worked! (Interview conducted on Feb. 24, 1939. For the source documents, see https://www.loc.gov/item/wpalh001939/)
IN THE SUMMER of 1981 a little action-adventure movie titled Raiders of the Lost Ark came out, and fans have been speculating ever since on who the character of Indiana Jones might be based on.The most popular speculation — Vanity Fair magazine goes so far as to opine that he is “almost certainly” the basis for Jones — is Roy Chapman Andrews, a globe-trotting paleontologist and former director of the American Museum of Natural History.Well, the fact is that Jones probably wasn’t based on any real person. Indy is the brainchild of George Lucas, the Star Wars guy. Lucas was a serious fan of pre-war pulp-magazine fiction, and the adventure pulps back in the day were full of characters like Indiana Jones.But then again maybe he WAS based on a real person, because in the era Jones was set in, the real world was full of those characters too. Oregon, too, has a couple candidates it could field as potential proto-Indiana Joneses.... (Fort Rock, Lake County; 1930s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/24-02.luther-cressman-oregons-indiana-jones-630.html)
This was the town where the Eastern Oregon Gold Rush of '61 got started, and it was a wild and lawless place; town ordinances did prohibit stabbing or shooting people “in public places,” but otherwise the town was mostly wide open. (Auburn, Baker County; 1860s, 1880s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1210a-auburn-wildest-mining-town-vanished.html)
On the bright side, though, the owner of the Desdemona did get to go down in history — or, rather, geography — after the deadly sandbar that took his ship was dubbed Desdemona Sands. (Columbia River Bar, Clatsop County; 1850s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1410c.309.desdemona-shipwreck.html)
Up-and-coming Democrat Oswald West had been sent to Portland on a last-ditch attempt to talk Harry Lane into running for governor. But Lane said no; so West decided to give it a go himself. (Salem, Marion County; 1910) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1907b.os-west-banana-peel.html)
Fans of shanghaiing-era waterfront culture will not want to miss this WPA oral history, collected in 1938. Retired fisherman Charles deLashmutt recalls stories of gillnet salmon fishermen 'corking' each other, brawling in bars, and buying hooch from the 'whiskey scows' that anchored 30 feet off the Washington shore and served cheap booze at 'paddle-up windows' for thirsty customers. Mr. DeLashmutt was a piano player in a dance band, so he saw plenty of barroom activity. This one, collected by Sara B. Wrenn, is short but full of good stuff (meaning mostly bad stuff, but good history!). (For text and PDFs, see https://www.loc.gov/item/wpalh001973/)
TIME NEVER WAS on the U.S.S. Oregon’s side. She was launched in 1896, in the middle of a remarkable period of torrid innovation and development in the history of warships, a time when ship designs were only good for about ten years before something better came along. (Portland, Multnomah County; 1940s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1910b.battleship-oregon.html)
“Patriotic Jeffersonians intend to secede each Thursday until further notice,” the rebels said, and played their parts in the grand production to a nationwide audience as newsreel cameras rolled and reporters scribbled in notepads. (Port Orford, Curry County; 1940s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1410b.308.state-o-jefferson-part2.html)
Boisterous and colorful man P.R. man Gilbert Gable, mayor of Port Orford, drew on the frustrations of the West Coast's remotest counties in an effort to get the state to invest in decent highways. (Part 1 of 2 parts on the 1941 Jefferson 'secession') (Port Orford, Curry County; 1940s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1410a.307.state-o-jefferson-part1.html)
After the Civil War, refugees from the devastated South flooded west, seeking a fresh start ... and for a few years, Oregon looked like Dixie on the Left Coast. They even went so far as to try to de-ratify the Fourteenth Amendment. (Salem, Marion County; 1860s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1907a.ex-rebels-changed-oregon-politics-554.html)
Entrepreneurs figured out how to send power long distances for the first time in history; later, after a flood wiped out power station, they pioneered alternating-current transmission. (Oregon City, Clackamas County; 1880s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1201a-oregon-city-home-of-worlds-first-power-grid.html)
(NOTE: For organizational reasons, this column is being published earlier than usual. You may already have heard this one.) The masked outlaw planned the job out carefully, and thought he was ready for anything. But he met his match in the cool-handed express man, and had to leave almost empty-handed. (Saginaw, Lane County; 1900s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1501a.saginaw-train-robbery.320.html)
WPA Writer Sara B. Wrenn one day walked all the way from downtown Portland to the town of Oswego to interview a pioneer woman ... who was not at home. (Ironic, isn't it, that this article should have popped up on April Fools' Day?) Hoping to salvage something from the long walk, Ms. Wrenn asked around, and ended up interviewing Margaret Weightman, a 54-year-old Oswego native, about her pioneer parents. (Full transcripts are at the Library of Congress, https://www.loc.gov/item/wpalh001966/)
Charles Fiester lay there on his cot, eyes open, staring at nothing, pretending to be catatonic, for 515 days ... knowing that when his ruse was discovered, he'd be hanged. (Kerby, Josephine County; 1890s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1803a.fiester-murderer-faked-insanity-515-days-485.html)
The Rebel sympathizers resented the Union soldiers taking all the seats when Vaudeville star Susie Robinson of Corvallis took the stage. The soldiers wouldn't back down. Then somebody pulled a pistol ... and the battle was on. (Corvallis, Benton County; 1860s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1603d.vaudeville-susie-riot.384.html)
Every few years, in the early 1900s, burly and hard-fisted dock workers got into a battle of wills with the autocratic sea-captains who ran the shipping companies. Most of the time, the dock workers got the worst of it. (Portland, Multnomah County; 1900s, 1910s, 1920s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1303e-union-squabbles-on-portland-waterfront.html)
Barnstormer Ted Barber was down to his last half-cup of gasoline when Ralph Grove rescued him by lighting up a field with the headlights of his car; Ted's old Waco 9 biplane lived to fly the next day, and so did he. (Near Andrews, Malheur County; 1930s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1103c-harney-county-rancher-saves-oregon-pioneer-aviators-life.html)
On Nov. 28, 1938, Federal Writers Project worker Andrew Sherbert sat down with a stocky, animated 77-year-old attorney named George Estes to talk about Mr. Estes' recollections of working in the 1800s, first as a telegraph operator and later as an attorney for the Telegrapher's Union at Southern Pacific. (For text and pictures, see https://www.loc.gov/item/wpalh001955/)
IN THE SMALL hours of the morning of Aug. 16, 1906, a powerful explosion jolted residents awake near the little town of Willamette, which today is a neighborhood of West Linn. It came from the direction of the nearby Tualatin River.The cause was soon discovered. When the first rays of the morning sun fell on the Oregon Iron and Steel Co.’s diversion dam, located a little over three miles from the river’s mouth, a 20-foot-wide hole had been blasted in its center. The river water was still gushing through it.Executives of the Oregon Iron and Steel Co. were outraged. In newspaper interviews the next day, they pledged that the dam would be speedily rebuilt, and for weeks afterward newspapers like the Hillsboro Argus and the Oregon City Enterprise ran advertisements from the company offering a $500 reward for information leading to the arrest of whoever blew it up.They also fanned out around the neighborhood of farmers and residents along the Tualatin River upstream from the dam, making the same offer. But nobody seemed to know anything. Most of the residents wouldn’t even admit to having heard the blast.They all knew, of course. Some of them had been in the party that had crept up to the dam in the pre-dawn darkness, set the charge, and touched it off.... (Lake Oswego, Clackamas County; 1900s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/24-01.tualatin-dam-dynamited.html)
Legend of a monk's journey to a land called “Fusang” dates back to 499 A.D.; is it possible that Fusang was Oregon? Or was the whole thing a complete fabrication? (Oregon Coast, 400s; yeah, that's right, literally 1,500 years ago.) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1103b-was-buddhist-monk-first-to-discover-oregon.html)
Crafty county commissioners tried to rig the bidding so their favorite bid, padded to the tune of half a million 1924 dollars, would win —but they didn't move quite fast enough. Three months later, they'd all been thrown out of office. (Portland, Multnomah County; 1920s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1303d-bridge-scandal-aroused-fury-of-1920s-portland.html)
After the only skipper willing to brave their fearsome river bar died, the only way to get wheat and cheese to market was to build their own trading ship — which they did. (Tillamook County; 1850s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1102d-tillamook-tiny-schooner.html)
On Nov. 28, 1938, Federal Writers Project worker Andrew Sherbert sat down with a stocky, animated 77-year-old attorney named George Estes to talk about Mr. Estes' recollections of working in the 1800s, first as a telegraph operator and later as an attorney for the Telegrapher's Union at Southern Pacific. (For text and pictures, see https://www.loc.gov/item/wpalh001955/)
Native Americans told Coronado there was a fabulous gold-and-turquoise city called Quivira just to the east -- or was it the north? All he found were Indian villages. But, was there a real city behind the legend? More specifically, was that city near Port Orford? (Port Orford, Curry County; 1540s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1802d.legendary-city-of-quivira-on-oregon-coast-484.html)
In Gold Rush-era Oregon, the most skilled miners were probably the Chinese — but they were in constant danger. To avoid being robbed, they entrusted their gold to professional couriers who masqueraded as penniless vagabonds. This is a story from the life of one of them, a man we know only as 'Cheng.' (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1103a-secret-chinese-courier-saved-woman-and-baby-then-vanished.html)
Calm seas, a hard-working crew and a cool-headed skipper helped the steamship Congress and everyone on board survive a terrifying night after a fire broke out in the cargo hold and spread throughout the ship. (Coos Bay, Coos County; 1910s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1303c-steamer-congress-won-race-against-fiery-death.html)
State health officials scoffed at the idea of hydrophobia in Oregon — until people started dying. It was the start of a decade of attacks by mad coyotes, when folks carried shotguns everywhere and nature seemed to be in open revolt. (Central and Eastern Oregon; 1910s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1303b-rabies-epidemic-eastern-oregon-mad-coyotes.html)
I've run into a little trouble with my Internet hosting service. My Website has gotten too large for their taste and they want me to upgrade to a $120-a-month 'dedicated server' or 'virtual private server' account. Hey, I do this stuff for fun, I don't make money on it ... Anyway so I went shopping and found a good deal at a new shop, inmotionhosting.com. I'm very excited, but the process of migrating a 30-gigabyte website from one place to another means it's going to take me all week to get it done probably. So I'm uploading all this week's episodes at once, tonight, on Monday. Enjoy!
On May 3, 1938, Federal Writers Project worker Andrew Sherbert sat down with a tall, urbane, professional 70-year-old mining-law specialist named J. Thorburn Ross to talk about Mr. Ross's recollections of working in old Portland for George Himes and later experience in the area of Sailors' Diggin's and Waldo. (For text and pictures, see https://www.loc.gov/item/wpalh001951/)
It was obvious to nearly everyone that Chee Gong was innocent. But one of his tong brothers had murdered Lee Yik and disappeared, and blood had to answer for blood. (Portland, Multnomah County; 1880s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1802c.tong-war-in-portland-averted-with-hanging-483.html)
The Reverend preached the funeral service to an empty church, while the deceased's friends and colleagues fought in the parking lot over who got to ride in the taxicabs. But the hostilities were forgotten when they arrived at a roadhouse. (Tacoma, Washington Territory; 1880s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1603c.circuit-preachers-longshoreman-funeral.html)
When trying to minister to the spiritual needs of a crowd of hard-sinning miners and sailors, it was sometimes necessary to resort to unorthodox tactics — tactics not often seen among men of the cloth in more civilized times. (Old Oregon Territory; 1840s, 1850s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1603b.circuit-preachers-shanghai-flock-382.html)
Eagerly, the Reverend leaped into the waiting bathtub, positioned at the top of the stairs in the chilly foyer of the frontier hotel. And then, to his horror, he realized it was sliding toward the top of the staircase on a sheet of ice ... (Weston, Umatilla County; 1850s, 1860s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1603a.circuit-preachers-wells-wild-ride-381.html)
"I was introduced to Hank Simms by the superintendent of the Home (for the Aged) and he took me to his room. At once Hank Simms asked, 'Well, young feller, what do you want — just some straight running off at the mouth or do you want me to go on something special? I am a long distance talker if you give me a chance, and I might take you for a long ride in the wrong direction.'" (For text and pictures, see https://www.loc.gov/item/wpalh001959/)
When the Oregon National Guard was called up, Oregonians felt vulnerable to Japanese invasion. So they loaded their rifles and possed up ready to give 'em hell! (Tillamook County; 1940s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1802b.tillamook-guerillas-ready-to-fight-off-invasion-482.html)
A truck driver parked 13,000 pounds of explosives next to the hardware store downtown. That night the hardware store caught fire … and so did the dynamite, in the biggest human-caused disaster in Oregon history. (Roseburg, Douglas County; 1950s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1102c-roseburg-blast-looked-like-nuclear-war.html)
Well-meaning church congregations banded together to offer 'wayward girls and fallen women' a place to get away from their profession — but it turned out most of them didn't particularly want to leave it; not yet, at least. (Portland, Multnomah County; 1890s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1303a-open-door-for-wayward-girls-and-fallen-women.html)
Portland native Jack Reed was the only American buried in the Kremlin wall; his enthusiasm for the Bolsheviks was cooling toward the end, but after he died they gave him a state funeral and declared him a martyr to the revolution. (Portland, Multnomah County; 1900s, 1910s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1602d.john-reed-communism-380.html)
Part 2 of 2 parts: On Jan. 3, 1939, Federal Writers Project worker Andrew Sherbert sat down with a slim, quick-moving gray haired 70-year-old furrier/pelt buyer named Louis Schumacher to talk about Mr. Schumacher's recollections of coming to Portland from Baden, Germany, and establishing a business buying the pelts and furs that trappers and mountain-man types would bring him to sell after their travels in the Oregon wilderness. (For text and pictures, see https://www.loc.gov/item/wpalh001956/)
Troutdale Airfield is just 10 miles from Portland International — and built to serve Cessnas, not Boeings. But one dark night in 1962, a jumbo-jet pilot got a little confused .... (Troutdale, Multnomah County; 1960s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1802a.massive-jet-lands-at-tiny-country-airport-by-mistake-481.html)
While they were ashore, their sailing ship sank in a storm, leaving four fur traders alone in a vast wilderness with no prospects for rescue. So they set out for Louisiana – and two years later, they arrived. (Umpqua River, Coos County; 1810s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1102b-shipwrecked-fur-traders-trekked-to-Louisiana.html)
The wreck of the steamship Czarina: A cascade of bad decisions by nearly everyone involved resulted in the worst possible outcome: 23 mariners slowly dying in the surf as friends and family members watched from the beach. (Coos Bay Spit, Coos County; 1910s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1302d-czarina-shipwreck-tragic-concert-of-incompetence.html)
Feeling lucky to be alive, the soldiers and sailors of the shipwrecked schooner Captain Lincoln got busy salvaging everything off their stranded ship. But then the Army had a problem: How were they going to retrieve it? (Coos Bay Spit, Coos County; 1850s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1302c-shipwreck-camp-castaway-inconvenient-miracle.html)
On Jan. 3, 1939, Federal Writers Project worker Andrew Sherbert sat down with a slim, quick-moving gray haired 70-year-old furrier/pelt buyer named Louis Schumacher to talk about Mr. Schumacher's recollections of coming to Portland from Baden, Germany, and establishing a business buying the pelts and furs that trappers and mountain-man types would bring him to sell after their travels in the Oregon wilderness. (For text and pictures, see https://www.loc.gov/item/wpalh001956/)
AT THE TIME of this writing, the Christmas shopping season is just starting to spool up, and folks are getting ready for some serious holiday eating. Most likely, that festive feasting won’t include many of the things on this list. Although inventors from the Beaver State have had a big impact at the grocery store, most of what they’ve created would be a bit out of place at a Christmas dinner.The big exceptions are the products created by scientists at Oregon State University: Marionberries for pie, and modern-process Maraschino cherries for holiday punchbowls.... (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/23-12.oregon-food-inventions-628.html)
During the heyday of hydropathy, the remote mountainside resort was Clackamas County’s No. 1 tourist draw; its waters actually had scientifically provable therapeutic value. (Molalla, Clackamas County; 1910s, 1920s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1102a-little-remains-of-rural-luxury-spa-at-wilhoit-springs.html)
If so, the Linn County lad might have revolutionized air travel. But a launch-day disaster ruined his prototype, the Great Depression scared off all his investors, and the Hindenburg disaster ended the era of airship travel. (Linn and Benton county; 1910s, 1920s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1602c.pt2-slate-metal-airship-inventor-379.html)
Thomas B. Slate first invented the commercial production process for making dry ice, then took his new-made fortune and used it to re-imagine airship travel in an almost unbelievably “steampunk” way. (Alsea, Benton County; 1900s, 1910s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1602b.slate-metal-airship-inventor-part1.378.html)
On April 28, 1938, Federal Writers Project worker Andrew Sherbert sat down with a stocky, rugged-looking 74-year-old prospector and former riverboat captain named W.H. Hembree to talk about his recollections of life in frontier Oregon for a firefighter, sailor, and gold miner. (For text and pictures, see https://www.loc.gov/item/wpalh001950/)
It's nearly certain that Drake was guilty only of extreme naivete — and his landlord, after murdering a neighbor, knew he could pin the crime on him because Drake was black. (Salem, Marion County; 1880s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1801d.joseph-drake-murderer-or-innocent-patsy-480.html)
The big sub was a key part of Oregon history; it fired on Battery Russell in June 1942, tried to light a forest fire with its on-board airplane that September, and sank several merchant ships. (Offshore; 1940s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1101e-Japanese-submarine-blasted-its-way-into-Oregon-history.html)
Danford Balch got drunk and shotgunned his new son-in-law on the deck of the Stark Street Ferry. His diary and official records tell part of the story. But the real questions can only be guessed at — and some of the guesses are sinister indeed. (Portland, Multnomah County; 1850s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1302b-balch-murders-stump-on-stark-street-ferry.html)
Below decks, a chemical fire burned freely through the hold of the Challenger; above deck, her crew worked desperately in a hurricane windstorm to find a port they could put into before the fire broke through the deck. (Columbia River Bar, Clatsop County; 1900s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1602a.challengers-race-with-time-and-fire-377.html)
On Nov. 29, 1938, at the Portland Odd Fellows Home for the Aged, Federal Writers Project worker Walker Winslow sat down with an 86-year-old miner and prospector named Hank Simms to talk about the life of a wandering prospector in the old American West. 'I am a miner, and for 40-50 years I have been tunneling a shaft straight into this poorhouse,' he said. 'You can't call that very good mining. Most miners is fools and I'll bet you that for every dollar lifted off the bedrock in this country two was put back on it.' (For text and pictures, see https://www.loc.gov/item/wpalh001958/)
In the tall tales of 1840s almanacs, the “King of the Wild Frontier” had a lively interest in the Beaver State. But he did get a few of his facts wrong! (Statewide; 1840s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1801c.davy-crockett-tall-tales-about-oregon-479.html)
The shoddily built Portland suburb existed for six years. In that time, it spawned Portland State University and helped bring ethnic diversity to the state. Few people realize how important the place really was. (Portland, Multnomah County; 1940s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1101d-floating-houses-helped-many-survive-vanport-flood.html)
It's an event remembered with some shame in Oregon: A group of innocent, terrified men and women found themselves at the mercy of an angry mob, pawns in a power struggle between a mill owner and a group of townspeople. (Toledo, Lincoln County; 1920s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1302a-toledo-riot-mixed-racism-and-labor-unrest.html)
At great personal risk, Coast Guardsmen had to rescue the skipper twice, because he insisted on staying aboard the stranded steamship to defend its cargo from marauding salvagers. (Columbia River Bar, Clatsop County; 1920s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1601e.shipwreck-laurel-stubborn-captain-376.html)
In March 1938, WPA writer Claire Churchill sat down with Anne Abernethy Starr for an oral-history interview, touching on Abernethy Starr's childhood memories growing up in frontier Portland and working as a draftswoman and as one of Portland's first telephone operators. (Source on Library of Congress Website: https://www.loc.gov/item/wpalh001932/ )
PORTLAND, MULTNOMAH COUNTY - It was the first news helicopter in the nation, and it gave the Oregon Journal a huge advantage. But then, one day ... (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1801b.sam-jackson-helicopter-crash-journal-478.html)
Stories of lost loot and buried booty have kept treasure hunters busy digging for gold in hidden corners of Oregon for the past 150 years. (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1101c-oregon-backcountry-rich-in-legends-of-buried-treasure.html)
Industrial Workers of the World union grew strong in the woods just before the First World War broke out — and the U.S. Army had to teach soldiers to cut timber to get the industry moving again. (Lumber camps, 1910s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1301d-wobblies-come-to-oregon-timber.html)
Before he made it back, Art Lacey had survived a plane crash, bribed a fire department with illegal whiskey, kited a big check and made bitter enemies in Portland City Hall. But hey, all's well that ends well, right? (Milwaukie, Clackamas County; 1940s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1601d.bomber-gas-station-375.html)
In 1847, while a lad of 15, Mr. Brown crossed the great prairies and mountains of the Oregon Trail in a wagon train with his father, grandfather, and sundry other relatives. Brown’s grandfather kept a store back East in Illinois, and, being unable to liquidate it on congenial terms, packed all the inventory into wagons and hauled the whole thing across the country to Salem, where he set it up again. It was the first store in the history of the town of Salem. (For text and pictures, see https://www.loc.gov/item/wpalh002000/)
SOMETIME IN THE late spring of 1909, at the Oregon Railway and Navigation Company’s ticket booth in Portland, a 19-year-old man named Jim Morrell laid down his last $2 for a ticket on the Bailey Gatzert, the famous Columbia River sternwheeler. Destination: The Dalles.Morrell was from Colorado originally; just now he was at loose ends, drifting through Portland looking for work. He thought he might find it in The Dalles. Someone had told him about a great railroad war playing out near The Dalles, as railroad magnates E.H. Harriman of the Union Pacific and James J. Hill of the Great Northern scrambled to be the first to punch a railroad line through from the Columbia Gorge into Bend. Harriman’s road was called the Des Chutes (sic) Railroad; Hill was calling his the Oregon Trunk Railroad.Although still a young man, Morrell had some experience with gasoline-powered equipment, and thought this might be a good opportunity for him.So he had gambled his last two bucks (roughly 65 in modern money) to get to the scene, in hopes he could land a job.Morrell didn’t look like much when he arrived. On the journey his hat, a battered brown derby, had gotten split between brim and crown; his hair poked through the hat above the brim, making for a pretty comical appearance. Luckily, his hair was also brown, so it looked OK from far away.Upon his arrival, Morrell was met by a friend — probably the one who’d told him there was work to be had. Morrell’s friend staked him to a meal and a flophouse bunk, and the next day he wasted no time in seeking out J.D. Porter, who with his brother Johnson Porter ran the construction company that had the Northern Pacific (James J. Hill) contract.Porter’s first question after Morrell introduced himself was straight and to the point:“Do you know how to skin a bubble?” he asked. (The Dalles, Wasco County; 1900s, 1910s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/23-11.automo-bubbling-in-a-railroad-war-627.html)
Sidewheel steamer’s sinking was a major maritime disaster for Oregon; treasure hunters found the gold-laden wreck in 1993, touching off a big, undignified catfight with the state of California over salvage rights. (Offshore, Curry County; 1860s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1101b-shipwreck-of-brother-jonathan-ground-zero-in-fight-over-treasure.html)
The famous First World War aircraft were made of spruce, and one of the most important sources of the strategic wood for the Allies was the northern Oregon coast. (Toledo, Lincoln County; 1910s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1301c-great-war-planes-made-of-oregon-spruce.html)
It's probably just as well that no actual dinosaur bones were found here; the spiteful, unprofessional “cowboy paleontology” practiced by O.C. Marsh and E.D. Cope left Oregon's pioneer scientists profoundly unimpressed as it was. (John Day Fossil Beds, Wheeler and Grant county; 1870s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1601c.bone-wars.374.html)
In 1847, while a lad of 15, Mr. Brown crossed the great prairies and mountains of the Oregon Trail in a wagon train with his father, grandfather, and sundry other relatives. Brown’s grandfather kept a store back East in Illinois, and, being unable to liquidate it on congenial terms, packed all the inventory into wagons and hauled the whole thing across the country to Salem, where he set it up again. It was the first store in the history of the town of Salem. (For text and pictures, see https://www.loc.gov/item/wpalh002000/)
When it came out just after the war, the Beechcraft Bonanza was the hottest private plane in the sky — a sleek, speedy, fuel-efficient hot rod. But it was very easy for a novice to get in deadly trouble flying one. (Rural south Lake County; 1940s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1801a.earl-snell-plane-crash-bonanza-477.html)
Lost in Illinois, the affable collie crossed the Rocky Mountains on foot in the dead of winter, making friends along the way and causing a sensation on his arrival. (Silverton, Marion County; 1920s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1101a-bobbie-the-wonder-dog-put-silverton-on-map.html)
Robert Gordon Duncan was the first radio broadcaster ever to be sent to prison for cursing on the air. For the first six months of 1930, the entire city was riveted to his radio show, wondering who he'd slander next. (Portland, Multnomah County; 1930s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1301b-oregon-wildcat-was-early-shock-jock.html)
Regular motorists would swing by streetcar stops and offer to take passengers faster and in greater comfort for the same nickel. But the competition enraged the powerful plutocrats who owned the streetcar company. (Portland, Multnomah County; 1910s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1601b.jitneys-vs-streetcars.273.html)
On today’s Primary Source Monday offering, we have the first of a three-part series, which consists of most of the autobiography of J. Henry Brown. In 1847, while a lad of 15, Mr. Brown crossed the great prairies and mountains of the Oregon Trail in a wagon train with his father, grandfather, and sundry other relatives. Brown’s grandfather kept a store back East in Illinois, and, being unable to liquidate it on congenial terms, packed all the inventory into wagons and hauled the whole thing across the country to Salem, where he set it up again. It was the first store in the history of the town of Salem. (For text and pictures, see https://www.loc.gov/item/wpalh002000/)
The rising waters of lakes and reservoirs have submerged many budding Oregon metropolises over the years, from tiny one-horse towns to an entire Native American homeland. (Klamath, Baker, Lane, Wasco County) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1406e.lost-cities-oregon-atlantis.html)
The case of John Ottoson (ne Otokichi) in 1832 illustrates what can happen: Blown off to sea by a gale, he and his comrades rode the Kuroshio Current to Washington State — much to the astonishment of Dr. John McLoughlin. (Oregon Coast; 1830s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1404d.japanese-junks-blown-across-to-oregon.html)
The alcoholic derelicts of on Burnside Street knew they could count on denatured alcohol for a cheap-but-nasty buzz; it might make them sick, but it wouldn't kill them. But then, one day, it did. (Portland, Multnomah County; 1930s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1404c.poison-dehorn-killed-28-hobos.html)
The darksomely sinister story of the old console game, with its attendant Men In Black and swarms of zombie children, is a fun story to look back on; but its odds of being true are up there with tales of Bigfoot. (Portland, Multnomah County; 1980s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1701e.polybius-legendary-sinister-videogame-428.html)
On May 15, 1937, WPA writer Sara B. Wrenn sat down with Bert Mendenhall for an oral-history interview, touching on Mendenhall's childhood memories in 1880s Portland as well as the stories told by his father, Rush Mendenhall, who crossed the continent on the Oregon Trail in 1847. (Source on Library of Congress Website: https://www.loc.gov/item/wpalh001987/ )
On that tense late-August weekend, tens of thousands of young people enjoyed themselves at McIver Park, while the much-dreaded riots failed to materialize. Was there a connection? Many voters thought so. (McIver Park, Clackamas County; 1970s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1406c.291.vortex-the-event.html)
When McCall green-lighted the plan to distract potential street rioters with a week-long music festival, he fully expected to lose his job for it — whether it worked or not. (Salem, Marion County; 1970s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1406b.290.vortex-part2-the-family.html)
To Governor Tom McCall, it looked like Portland was about to explode, and there was nothing he could do to prevent it ... until two long-haired young people came to his chief of staff with a very unusual plan. (Portland, Multnomah County; 1970s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1406a.vortex-part1-psu-riot.html)
Astronaut Stuart Roosa had a special relationship with the U.S. Forest Service, and when it was his turn to go to the moon, he proposed a science experiment. You can see the results towering over Peavy Hall at Oregon State University today. (Cape Canaveral, Florida; 1970s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1405b.moon-trees-of-oregon.html)
In late 1937 or early 1938, writer Ardyth Gibbs (known to literary history today as Ardyth Kennely, author of several bestsellers in the 1950s) sat down with pioneer Newton McDaniel to talk about some early Willamette Valley history concerning the ghost town of Ellendale, in Polk County. (https://www.loc.gov/item/wpalh001936/)
For decades after the Tillamook Burn, classes of schoolchildren were bused out to help replant. Today, thousands of Oregonians, on trips to the beach, can point to a thriving patch of forest and say, “We planted those trees.” (Tillamook, Yamhill, Washington county; 1950s, 1960s, 1970s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1408b.schoolkids-replant-tillamook.html)
Quick action by state forester Lynn Cronemiller prevented the devastating forest fire from claiming hundreds of lives when a furnace-stoking wind blew in from Eastern Oregon, flogging the fire toward the sea. (Washington, Yamhill, Tillamook County; 1930s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1408a.tillamook-burn-pt2-the-legacy.html)
A hard-pressed crew tried to snake just a few more logs out before quitting for the day, hoping nothing would go wrong in the tinder-dry forest. Unfortunately, something did. (Forest Grove, Washington County; 1930s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1407d.tillamook-burn-1933-outbreak.html)
Tens of thousands of U.S. soldiers, shipped to the Beaver State for training, learned combat lessons that would save their lives and help them win the Second World War during the huge campaign simulation known as the Oregon Maneuver. (Statewide; 1940s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1408d.oregon-maneuver-ww2.html)
In 1851, before Oregon was a state, a young schoolteacher named Elizabeth Millar stepped off a sternwheeler in Portland for the first time. These are her memories of that time, as recounted to her daughter, Mrs. J.T. Peters, 45 years later. In those 45 years, Miss Millar (now Mrs. Wilson) went on to become a very important person in frontier Oregon, the wife of a U.S. Congressman and Postmistress at The Dalles from 1884-1886. (For more details, see https://www.loc.gov/item/wpalh001971/)
ON THE EVENING of Sept. 28, 1995, Woney and Laurie Peters, of Lava Hot Springs, Idaho, were driving back to their home behind the local elementary school when they noticed something wasn’t right.The first thing they noticed was the horses. They were confined in a corral in front of the house, next to the trampoline, which their teenage kids were playing on. The kids seemed fine — but the horses seemed terrified. They kept staring up at the hillside that ran along behind the house and the school.Inside the house, Woney got up on the balcony for a better view of what was bothering the horses. In the distance, on the hillside, he saw something — “a two-tone animal going through the trees,” he recounted, in an interview with Idaho Public Broadcasting. “And I told Laurie, I said, ‘That’s — there’s an African lion in our back yard.” (Siletz, Lincoln County; 1970s, 1980s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/23-10.oregons-tiger-king-626.html)
Two motor lifeboat crews went out on the bar to save three surviving sailors. Both boats went to the bottom of the sea — but not a man was lost on either crew, and all the survivors were rescued. (Columbia River Bar, Clatsop County; 1910s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1506d.CursedShips-RosecransRescue.html)
The big oil tanker had weathered two major catastrophes in the previous year — a stranding and a colossal fire. But for 33 doomed crew members, the third time would be the charm — or, rather, the hex. (Columbia River Bar, Clatsop County; 1910s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1506c.cursed-ships-rosecrans-344.html)
Settlers in John Day in the late 1800s learned the healer of Kam Wah Chung could cure diseases others couldn't; all his patients survived the fatal Spanish Flu epidemic in 1919. (John Day, Grant County; 1880s, 1890s, 1900s. 1910s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1406d.doc-hay-lung-on.html)
Legendary “Cayuse pony” breed gave Indians far more endurance and speed than settlers' mounts, a fact that cost gambler and horseman Joe Crabb most of his ready cash on “The Day Pendleton Went Bankrupt” (Pendleton, Umatilla County; 1870s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1404a.cayuse-tribes-legendary-ponies.html)
This is a special Weekend Update from the Offbeat Oregon News Center Situation Room O Doom! Oral history readings on Mondays starting next week; and an update on progress with Bad Ideas and Horrible People (the book). Also, Merry Christmas! (Or if you don't celebrate Christmas, have a great Dec. 25.)
IT WAS A little after 10 p.m. on a Friday evening in the summer of 1921. In their little house on Druid Street in the St. Johns neighborhood of Portland, Robert Green and his family were getting ready for bed when they heard the screams. Rushing to the front porch, they found their neighbor, Ann Louise Agee, in her nightclothes, wild-eyed and disheveled.“Help! Come quick! They’re killing Harry!” she screamed.Green looked across at the Agee home. From where he stood, by the light of streetlamps and the few lights inside the house, he could dimly see the front porch. The door was opening and a figure was staggering out of the front door, clutching at its throat. Then it collapsed on the porch.Green sprinted across and leaped onto the porch. There he found his neighbor, carpenter Harry Agee, in a pool of blood, dying. Looking up at him, Harry opened his mouth and tried to speak. Only a ghastly gurgling resulted from the effort. (St. Johns, Multnomah County; 1920s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/21-08.harry-agee-murder-mystery-600.html)
Inventor Victor Strode combined aircraft design with naval architecture to create an amazing, blinding fast speedboat that looked straight out of a Golden Age sci-fi comic ... but apparently the design didn't work as well scaled up to ambulance-boat size. (Portland Harbor, Multnomah County; 1930s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1209d-aerohydrocraft-buck-rogers-boat-looked-awesome-didnt-work-out.html)
“This is an age of do-it-first,” said Silas Christofferson, and proceeded to launch his spindly kite-like “aeroplane” from the roof of a downtown hotel — making aviation history in the heart of Oregon's biggest town. (Portland, Multnomah County; 1910s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1408e.302.silas-christofferson-portland-hero-aviator.html)
Calling himself “J. Hawker,” David Heesh dynamited several high-voltage powerline towers, then threatened to keep it up unless ransom was delivered; the FBI busted him using a CB radio trick. (Beavercreek, Clackamas County; 1970s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1404b.beavercreek-bomber-targeted-BPA.html)
The oysters belonged to the Siletz Indians and their employees, but Richard Hillyer was determined to take them anyway. We don't know much about the final battle, but we do know the outcome, and it must have been a doozie. (Newport, Lincoln County; 1860s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1405d.yaquina-oyster-pirate-wars.html)
During its glory days, the Gertrude was the fastest blockade runner in the Confederate fleet. But just 17 years later, it was just another dumpy old steamer on a lowly coastwise run, wrecked in what was probably an insurance-fraud scheme. (Coos Bay, Coos County; 1880s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1310a-gussie-telfair-shipwrecked-warrior.html)
Mayor Frank Ivancie, Pioneer Courthouse Square’s most intransigent opponent, gleefully declared the project “dead” in a 1982 speech. In doing so, he accidentally galvanized the citizen group that would prove him wrong. (Portland, Multnomah County; 1960s, 1970s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1405c.pioneer-courthouse-square.html)
Ashamed to show his face in Astoria after causing the loss of the biggest passenger liner on the West Coast, Thomas Doig slunk away to South America and remade himself as a military man. (Columbia River Bar, Clatsop County; 1870s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1408c.300.great-republic-wreck.html)
75 years ago, without realizing who he was, Wallowa County included Bruce “Blue” Evans — leader of the gang that massacred dozens of innocent Chinese miners back in 1887 — on a plaque commemorating its earliest white settlers. (Enterprise, Wallowa County; 1880s, 1930s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1204b-monument-mass-murderer-chinese-miners.html)
1860s Bannock leader disappeared as mysteriously as he appeared, leaving behind nothing but frontier folklore and a trail of 17-inch-long moccasin prints; a probably-untrue rumor claims Nampa, Idaho, was named after him. (Malheur County; 1850s, 1860s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1409b.304.chief-bigfoot-legend.html)
In his short 11-month stay on the island nation, he taught 14 Imperial diplomats to speak English, and impressed them with his gentility and respectfulness. And after a long, adventurous life in Canada, his last word was, “Sayonara.” (Nagasaki, Japan; 1840s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1409d306.ranald-macdonald-part2.html)
Young Ranald MacDonald didn't know he was the grandson of Concomly, Chief of the Chinook Tribe. But before anyone could tell him, he'd run away to sea — and in so doing, dramatically changed the destiny of three great nations.(Astoria, Clatsop County; 1820s, 1830s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1409c305.ranald-macdonald-part1.html)
Pilot boat sailed back and forth on the Columbia River Bar all day and all night before finally crashing onto the beach; when onlookers ran to rescue the sailors, they found the boat empty and deserted. (Columbia River Bar, Clatsop County; 1880s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1405a.pilot-boat-jc-cousins-crew-disappears.html)
Caught by a railroad “bull,” the thief shot his way out and ran for it. But an accurate shot by the dying guard and some persistent police work brought the bad guy to justice in a pistol-waving scene in a seedy Albina hotel room. (Albina, Multnomah County; 1920s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1205a-roaring-20s-railroad-murder-mystery-solved.html)
Pulp writer and religious figure L. Ron Hubbard figures prominently in the most spectacular story of action against “Japanese submarines” in Oregon waters. It's called, with tongue firmly in cheek, the “Battle of Cape Lookout.” (Off Cannon Beach, Clatsop County; 1940s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1407a.sunken-submarine-rumors.html)
SOMETIME IN 1943, during the Japanese occupation of the Philippines, a group of more than 40 officers of the Imperial Japanese Navy strolled into Club Tsubaki, an exclusive gentlemen’s club in the heart of downtown Manila.They were there for one last evening of fun while they were still in port. That very evening, they were scheduled to climb back into their submarines and set out on an extended cruise.The private party had been arranged by one of the subs’ commanders, who had struck up a friendship with the owner of Club Tsubaki, a gorgeous Italian-Filipina dancer named Dorothy Fuentes, a.k.a. Madame Tsubaki.For hours, as Madame Tsubaki and her sultry staff danced and sang for the officers, the men had the time of their lives. The floor show was magnificent, the women were alluring, and the alcohol was flowing freely.And, after a few more drinks, so were the details: The flotilla of subs was on its way to the Solomon Islands and would be leaving the next morning.At about the same time, across the bay, a young man named Pacio was hurrying up into the hills, making for a rendezvous with a small band of American and Filipino Army guerillas. The guerillas, under the command of a firm-faced American corporal named John Boone, had a radio set.The race was on to get the word out to Gen. Douglas MacArthur in time to arrange an ambush for the flotilla of submarines as they motored out of the harbor... (Portland, Multnomah County; 1940s, 1950s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/23-09.high-pockets-the-spymaster-625.html)
Discovered (sort of) by Oregon's first governor, the dry lakebed in south-central Oregon's Lake County is a gold mine of Ice Age fossils, from tiny rodents to wooly mammoths, saber-tooth cats and dire wolves. (Christmas Valley, Lake County; Pleistocene Age) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1010c-fossil-lake-oregons-answer-to-labrea-tar-pits.html)
When astronaut Jim Irwin came to Bend for lunar landing training in the lava rock of Oregon's 'moon country,' he made friends with a local resident — who gave him a sliver of Oregon lava to leave on the moon's surface. And so he did. (Bend, Deschutes County; 1960s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1208c-astronaut-left-oregon-lava-on-moon.html)
The Melanope's maritime career started with a witch's curse. But her most dramatic story was the torrid, doomed love affair its skipper carried on with the heiress who bought the ship so she could be with him as he sailed it. (Columbia River Bar, Clatsop County; 1900s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1506b.cursed-ships-melanope-343.html)
Fishermen working in heavy 24-foot boats at the mouth of the Columbia kept getting sucked out onto the bar and drowning in its massive breakers. Their odds of not surviving a season were as high as 1 in 15. (Astoria, Clatsop County; 1880s, 1890s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1206d-most-dangerous-catch-salmon-on-columbia-river-bar.html )
Is there any truth to the stories of shanghaiings of the cigar-store Indian and of the dozens of dead guys found in the basement of the funeral parlor next door to the “Snug Harbor Saloon”? Well ... maybe. But then again ... yeah, no. (Portland, Multnomah County; 1890s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1407c.bunco-kelley-part2-the-myths.html)
He was Portland's most notorious bad guy, with his fingers in everything from shanghaiing sailors to smuggling opium. But ironically, when he was finally sent to prison, it was for a murder he clearly didn't commit. (Portland, Multnomah County; 1890s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1407b.bunco-kelley-part1-the-facts.html)
After a beachfront landowner discovered a loophole in the law and fenced off “his” beach, other oceanfront property owners were eager to follow suit. Governor Tom McCall was determined to stop them, and this is how he did it. (Cannon Beach, Clatsop County; 1960s) (For text and pictures, see URLOFWEBPAGEURLOFWEBPAGEURLOFWEBPAGE)
Neighbors wondered if the eight-foot-tall corpse found by developer at what today is YWCA Camp Westwind was evidence that an old Native American legend of a pirate ship is true; if so, there might actually be booty buried there, some say. (Cascade Head, Lincoln County; 1930s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1204e-giant-skeleton-evidence-of-pirate-treasure-legend.html)
Historic steam schooner vanished on a calm night in 1930, leaving lifeboats and debris floating in the water — but no bodies, alive or dead. Was it a violent micro-storm? A “seaquake”? A boiler explosion? We'll never really know. (Gold Beach, Curry County; 1930s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1206b-mysterious-disappearance-of-steamer-south-coast.html.html)
Ninety-eight years ago, in a logging camp deep in the forests of British Columbia, a logger in a funny hat walked up to a big stump, an ax in his hand.Taking off the hat — it was a battered bowler, an old-fashioned dandy’s hat even in 1923 — he laid it on the stump, set a nail in it, and drove it in.Then he turned and walked away. Probably he walked straight to the logging locomotive for his last ride into town. Nailing the hat to the stump was a symbolic act — Stewart H. Holbrook was quitting the logging business forever. (Oregon timber country; 1920s, 1930s, 1940s, 1950s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/21-07.stewart-holbrook-599.html)
Oregon was once known as a place full of “great liars” — tellers of tales so tall they'd cause every pair of pants in the room to spontaneously burst into flame. Central Oregon storyteller Reub Long could hold his own with the best of them. (Fort Rock, Lake County; 1930s, 1940s, 1950s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1209a-reub-long-great-oregon-storyteller.html)
Jerry and Lu Parks envisioned a “fairy-tale history of Oregon” in the form of an amusement park. What they created was a rich cultural artifact, and a treasured childhood memory for a generation of Oregonians. (Otis and Lincoln City, Lincoln County; 1960s, 1970s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1709c.pixieland-old-oregon-cultural-artifact-461.html)
Charles “Black Bart” Bolton's neighbors in San Francisco thought his money came from ownership in gold mines. It turned out it came from furtive excursions northward to rob stagecoaches in Oregon and northern California. (Siskiyou Pass, Jackson County; 1880s, 1890s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1401d.black-bart-gentleman-stage-robber-poet.html)
Elvis himself is rumored to have played at The Cottonwoods, a jumpin' joint near Lebanon, where thousands danced to the music of many of the 20th Century's greatest musicians. Today, it's a vacant lot — piled high with memories. (Lebanon, Linn County; 1930s, 1940s, 1950s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1208a-cottonwoods-dance-hall-hosted-music-legends-maybe-even-elvis.html)
All through the summer of 1973, there was one song on the radio everywhere that you just couldn’t get away from: Jim Croce’s smash hit, “Bad, Bad Leroy Brown.”The little Cascade-foothills town of Boring once had its own Bad, Bad Leroy Brown — although when the song came out, very few people then alive were old enough to remember him. His name was Free Coldwell — or at least, that was what he called himself. Like Leroy Brown, he a proud, strutting tough guy who got a humiliating comeuppance. But his downfall didn’t come from making a pass at “the wife of a jealous man” in a Boring nightclub or bar. No; Free Coldwell was taken down by the citizens of Boring, who basically played an elaborate practical joke on him — with the help of a professional prizefighter. (Boring, Clackamas County; 1900s) (For text and pictures, see URLOFWEBPAGEURLOFWEBPAGEURLOFWEBPAGE)
The Mindora and the Merrithew had docked next to each other in San Francisco, arrived within a few days of each other, wrecked within a few hours of each other, and washed up on the beach within a few miles of each other. (Columbia River Bar, Clatsop County; 1850s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1505b.mindora-merrithew-double-shipwreck-338.html)
James Lappeus came to Portland from the gold fields of California, where he was a gambler, saloonkeeper and general mining-town rowdy. His career as a cop was dogged by rumors he'd offered to spring a murderer for a $1,000 bribe. (Portland, Multnomah County; 1850s, 1860s, 1870s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1207a-james-lappeus-crooked-gambler-police-chief-in-portland.html)
When first reported, it looked like a simple murder-suicide. But it quickly became clear that it was something far more sinister — and the motives of the killer were uglier and more sordid than anyone had thought possible. (Brownsville, Linn County; 1860s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1708d.sidney-barbara-smith-murders-458.html)
But did Lischen M. Miller create the story of Muriel Trevenard, the mysterious young woman who came to Newport in the 1870s and vanished ... or did she merely write down a story that locals whispered to each other on stormy nights? (Newport, Lincoln County; 1870s, 1890s, 1940s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1709a.muriel-trevenard-evan-macclure-yaquina-bay-lighthouse-ghosts-459.html)
He’d spent thousands of hours re-creating history’s most mysterious aircraft. Something had gone wrong, and he was about to crash it. When he did, somebody would die. Who that would be was up to him. (Cottage Grove, Lane County; 2000s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1207sp-heroic-final-flight-of-jim-wright-howard-hughes-racer-plane.html)
World's most popular cherry was bred by pioneer nurseryman who brought its progenitors in a wagon across the Oregon Trail, with Native Americans' help. (Oregon Trail; 1840s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1001b_Lewellings.htm)
The nationally notorious “Oregon Style” of newspapering involved vicious personal attacks and a take-no-prisoners style of cutting invective; but it was ink being spilled, not blood. That is, until one day in downtown Roseburg ... (Roseburg, Douglas County; 1870s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1306e-bud-thompson-gunfighting-newsman.html)
The tiny coastal town of Depoe Bay was once known for the oldest privately owned aquarium in U.S.; today it’s a popular place for stormwatchers. (Depoe Bay, Lincoln County; 1920s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1012c_depoe-bay-worlds-smallest-harbor.html)
Don't be fooled: Fern Hobbs was a secretary in the “Secretary of Defense” sense of the word. A practicing attorney, she was the highest-paid woman in public service. Copperfield's city fathers thought they could charm her ... they were wrong. (Copperfield, Baker County; 1910s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1708a.copperfield-affair-oswald-west-martial-law-455.html)
Sometime in 1915, a 40-year-old Black woman named Frankie Baker stepped off the train at Portland’s Union Station. She had come to stay; Oregon would be her home for the rest of her life.
At that time, Portland had a a reputation as a good place to hide out when you were on the lam. It was far off the beaten path; but the town had all the cultural perquisites of civilization, or most of them anyway. Plus, the people of Oregon had a reputation for minding their own business.
So a lot of people who got into trouble back east came to Portland hoping for a fresh start. And yes, Frankie was one of them.
But she wasn’t running from the law, or from an abusive spouse. She was running from a popular song.
Frankie Baker, you see, was the Frankie — of “Frankie and Johnny” fame. ... (Portland, Multnomah County; 1920s, 1930s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/21-04.frankie-baker-they-done-her-wrong-596.html)
Until the 1980s, you could ride the "Blue Goose" up the Row River past where "Stand By Me" was shot, near Cottage Grove.. Today, it's a 15.6-mile bike trail. (Near Cottage Grove, Lane County; 1900s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1003d_BlueGoose.html)
Water seems to run uphill, and people's height appears to change from one end of a plank to another. Is it a fantastic optical illusion, or a mysterious force? Opinions vary. (Gold Hill, Jackson County; 1930s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1002d_OregonVortex.html)
Legendary Crown Point Vista House looks out over the Columbia River and was the highlight of the Columbia Gorge Scenic Highway — built when roadbuilding was as much an art as a science. (Crown Point, Multnomah County; 1910s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1012b-crown-point-vista-house-marble-rest-area.html)
Stranded for the winter on Sauvie Island, the members of Nathaniel Wyeth's trading post struggled to get enough to eat. But for some of them, the greater problem was finding something to drink. (Sauvie Island, Multnomah and Columbia County; 1830s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1707d.townsend-lizard-liquor-453.html)
Two of them had movies made about their wartime exploits — “30 Seconds over Tokyo” and “The Great Escape”; a third, captured and imprisoned in the raid, returned to Japan after the war as a Christian missionary. (Pendleton, Umatilla County; 1940s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1505a.part3-doolittles-pendleton-raiders-337.html)
Robert S. Clever, Everett “Brick” Holstrom, Henry “Hank” Potter and Robert G. Emmens were four Oregon aviators who did the Beaver State proud in what seemed like a suicide mission over enemy territory. (Pendleton, Umatilla County; 1940s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1504d.part2-doolittles-pendleton-raiders-336.html)
Oregon played a vital role in America's answer to Pearl Harbor — the daring daylight airstrike on Tokyo and other Japanese cities that provided a much-needed morale boost during the dark days of 1942. (Pendleton, Umatilla County; 1940s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1504c.part1-doolittles-pendleton-raiders.335.html)
The “Genius of Corvallis” hoped his cattle-powered riverboat would give the upper-Willamette sternwheelers a run for their money; and so it did, so long as it didn't try to go upstream... (Corvallis, Benton County; 1850s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1706c.cow-powered-riverboat-hay-burner-448.html)
Original owners of the falls tried for years to log it, but the steamship and railroad moguls were making a lot of money on excursion trips, so they blocked the scheme, preserving the falls for today's park. (Columbia River Gorge, Multnomah County; 1890s, 1900s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1707e.fight-for-multnomah-falls-454.html)
BY THE TIME Walt Disney Productions released “The Rescuers” in 1977, the idea of a “Rescue Aid Society” dedicated to the eradication of kidnapping felt quaint, old-fashioned, and fun.
But not many years earlier, when memories of the Progressive Era were fresher, it would not have scanned that way. In fact, “The Rescuers” was first pitched in 1962, at which time Walt Disney himself killed it. And that was probably a good call: members of the real Aid Societies were still alive and had matured into one of the fiercest and most serious cohorts of old ladies the world had ever known. A cartoon that seemed to poke fun at the great accomplishments of their younger lives, even gentle and good-natured fun, would have brought them out of retirement ready for battle.
And Walt knew what they were capable of — he had been there in those Aid Society ladies’ heyday. And he’d been working in show business — one of the industries they regularly locked horns with.
No, “The Rescuers” would not come out in 1962. It would have to wait until every society lady who in her youth had made it her life’s work to stamp out “white slavery” was gone, along with Disney himself, before it could be safely made.
For that was what the Aid Societies were about. They weren’t dedicated to finding and rescuing little orphan kids who had been kidnapped by evil flame-haired swamp witches to steal diamonds. They were anti-human-trafficking organizations.
And one of their most prominent and effective members was a Portland woman named Lola Greene Baldwin, known to history as the first paid female police officer west of the Rockies. (Portland, Multnomah County; 1900s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/23-06.lola-baldwin-municipal-mother-622.html)
Warm Springs Indians struggled from 1871 to 1972 to get back a piece of land taken as a result of a survey everyone admitted was in error. (Warm Springs Reservation, Umatilla County; 1870s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1002c_McQuinnStrip.html)
The movie was 'The General,' starring Buster Keaton; in the scene, a real locomotive is crashed through a real burning bridge into the river, at a cost (in 2010 dollars) of more than half a million dollars. (Cottage Grove, Lane County; 1920s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1002b_TheGeneral.html)
Hopping on an old steel one-speed and pedaling 30 miles, then mowing a half-acre of lawn with a push mower, chopping down an oak tree twice, and riding 30 miles back again — it was all in a weekend's work for Gov. T.T. Geer. (Champoeg, Marion County; 1890s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1706a.governor-geer-bicycles-to-champoeg-446.html)
Twenty years ago, PT-658 was a weatherbeaten hulk, rotting away at a pier in San Francisco Bay. Today, it's a priceless piece of American history that you'll occasionally see on the waters of Portland Harbor. (Portland, Multnomah County; 1990s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1401c.pt-658-worlds-only-working-pt-boat.html)
Marooned in a frozen winter wasteland after a hostile tribe attacked and killed everyone else, she kept herself and her two children alive through the winter and then led them home to safety. (Snake River basin; 1810s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1707c.marie-dorion-oregons-revenant-part3-452.html)
Charged with blazing a trail to the West Coast, the voyageurs in the party decided to paddle down a strange river, hoping for an easy ride to the sea. Only the charity of local Native American tribes saved them all from starvation. (Snake River wilderness; 1810s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1707b.marie-dorion-astorian-party-part2-451.html)
As the Native American bride of a French-Canadian interpreter, she joined the Astorian Party on its overland voyage to Oregon to set up a trading post on the Columbia River. Did she know what they were getting into? (Snake River area, 1810s -- Part 1 of 3 parts) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1707a.marie-dorion-part1-450.html)
Until Highway 101 was built in the 1930s, the beach was Arch Cape’s only road to the outside world — a fact that was Exhibit A in Governor Oswald West’s plan to save the beaches. (Arch Cape, Clatsop County; 1910s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1011e-tiny-scary-hug-point-road-likely-saved-oregon-public-beaches.html)
As they hung in the riggings of the sailing ship Etoile du Matin waiting for death, they felt their ship start to break apart — but the piece that broke off first was the keel, enabling the ship to float upriver to safety. (Columbia River Bar, Clatsop County; 1840s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1504b.etoile-matin-miracle-shipwreck.334.html)
'Diamond Bill' Barrett earned his nickname by sweet-talking a jewelry store into letting him borrow a $55,000 diamond, which he promptly hocked. Later, he deployed that legendary charm to sweet-talk two heiresses into marrying him, then disappeared with showgirl-turned-trophy-wife Sidi Wirt Spreckels' $100,000 string of pearls. But the mystery remains: Did he really steal Sidi's pearls ... or did he fence them for her? (Hillsboro, Washington County; 1910s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1905c.diamond-bill-barrett-heiress-whisperer-548.html)
As a filming location, Oregon really started to come into its own in the 1980s, and many locals can point to key cultural touchstones that played out right in their home towns. (Deschutes, Clackamas, Lane, Clatsop, and Multnomah County) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1403e.part3.iconic-movies-shot-in-oregon.html)
By the early 1960s, word started getting out in Hollywood about Oregon's virtues as a place to shoot on location. Productions made here during these eventful years follow changes in popular culture in an almost spooky way. (Lane, Baker, Lincoln, Marion, Deschutes, and Jackson County) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1403d.part2.iconic-movies-shot-in-oregon.html)
As a place to go shoot pictures on location, Oregon has become pretty popular in the last few dozen years. But the Beaver State's contribution to early cinema, though more sparse, was surprisingly influential. (Clatsop, Lane, Deschutes, Hood River County) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1403c.iconic-movies-shot-in-oregon-part1.html)
At the critical moment, the keeper of the rescue station at Cape Arago lost his nerve and deserted his waiting crew. Eleven shipwrecked sailors drowned while he huddled behind the warm stove in his cabin. (Cape Arago, Coos County; 1880s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1905b.lighthouse-keeper-cowardice-547.html)
The fix was in -- all the legislators who needed to be bribed had been paid off -- so John Mitchell felt comfortable 'fessing up to his plans to double-cross Jonathan Bourne and his "Friends of Silver." But Bourne had a plan to turn that around ... (Salem, Marion County; 1890s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1906d.hold-up-session-1897-553.html)
State regulators didn't care, so neither did some dairy farmers, who left dead cows to rot among their dairy herds and brought milk to market in the same cans they used to slop the hogs; Portland led the nation in baby deaths as a result. (Portland, Multnomah and Columbia county; 1900s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1208b-bad-milk-was-killing-babies-in-portland.html)
Oregon’s last geothermal water-blaster, Old Perpetual, erupted for the last time sometime in the spring of 2009; a few dozen years ago, the state had two. (But now it's fixed again — see editor's note at end!) (Lakeview, Lake County; 1920s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1011c-last-geyser-in-oregon-goes-still-in-lakeview.html)
Promoter Harry Glickman was late getting to the key meeting, so Baltimore Bullets basketball team owner Abe Pollin stalled for time by waiting in the bathroom until he arrived. (Portland, Multnomah County; 1960s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1011b_trail-blazers-fate-hung-on-long-bathroom-break.html)
Although she's most remembered for being the mistress of a famous man, journalist and rodeo performer Mona Bell Hill was, on her own, one of the most interesting people ever to live in Oregon — and, to the government, one of the most vexing. (Bonneville, Multnomah County; 1910s, 1920s, 1930s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1706d.mona-bell-wild-west-bearcat-449.html)
IT WAS A TYPICAL balmy August evening at the Oregon State Penitentiary. The bell had rung for supper, so inmates were streaming out of their cells and heading toward the dining hall for the evening meal, as they always did.
But on this particular evening, four prisoners hung back from the throng, and when the last prisoner had rounded the corner out of sight, they doubled back, hurrying into the cell that had been assigned to one of their number. Working feverishly with an auger stolen somehow from the prison’s shops, they cut a hole in the roof and pulled and boosted each other up through it.
One of the most legendary jailbreaks in Oregon history had just started, and the die had been cast that would lead to the men’s doom. It was August 13, 1925; not one of the four prisoners would live to see 1929. (Salem, Marion County; 1920s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/23-05.bloody-1925-prison-break-621.html)
Bunco Kelley was out of prison, Mysterious Billy Smith was at loose ends, and Jumbo Riley was looking for something to do ... somehow, they ended up at a table at Erickson's Saloon with the Jost brothers, talking about getting back into the shanghaiing business. Alas, it was not to be ... (Portland, Multnomah County; 1907) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1906c.jost-brothers-the-last-shanghaiers-552.html)
Oregon's Sailors' Boardinghouse Commission seemed completely uninterested in any enforcement activity other than ordering Larry Sullivan's competitors to leave the business. Naturally, those competitors fought back as best they could. (Portland, Multnomah County; 1900s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1906b.mysterious-billy-part2of2-551.html)
After Jim Turk's death, former pro prizefighter Larry Sullivan virtually owned the shanghaiing business in Portland ... but there was one competitor he couldn't seem to shake: 'Mysterious Billy' Smith, boxing's Welterweight Champion of the World -- whose 'day job' was crimping sailors. (East Portland, Multnomah County; 1900s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1906a.mysterious-billy-smith-shanghaier-550.html)
Persistent legend claims the pioneer doctor and preacher, before he was killed in the 'Whitman Massacre,' foiled Britain's plans to take over by recruiting the first wave of Oregon Trail emigrants — but it's probably bunk. Here's why. (Walla Walla (Washington); 1830s, 1840s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1010a_marcus-whitman-wanted-to-save-oregon-but-not-from-british.html)
OREGON DIVORCEE AGNES Anne “Annie” LeRoi arrived in Phoenix in the first few months of 1931 with her best friend and roommate, schoolteacher Hedvig “Sammy” Samuelson. They were climate refugees: Sammy had tuberculosis, and at the time the only cure for “consumption” was a dry climate and rest.
Back then, many patients with TB waited until they were so far gone that the climate couldn’t save them; essentially, they moved to Arizona to die. Sammy wasn’t one of them; her case was mild. But, although she didn’t know it, she, too, was moving to Arizona to die. She had less than nine months to live. So did Annie.
Neither one of them would die of tuberculosis, though.... (Phoenix, Arizona; 1930s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/21-03.trunk-murders-anne-leroi-595.html)
Why is there 5,000 acres of near-wilderness at the heart of Oregon's largest city? Because nobody could develop it — although many tried. So, all the land reverted back to the city for unpaid taxes, and the city turned it into Forest Park. (Portland, Multnomah County; 1940s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1010d-family-camped-in-downtown-portland-for-4-years.html)
In the glory days of Portland shanghaiing, sailors were 'helped back aboard ship' on the city streets; there was no need for a tunnel to sneak them down to the docks. But the tunnels under the saloons and streets were useful for lots of other shanghaiing-related activities ... (Portland, Multnomah County; 1890s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1905d.shanghai-tunnels-based-on-true-story-549.html)
You can't drive on it, though, or even walk — the only way to use this officially platted city street is by riding America's one and only municipal elevator. (Oregon City, Multnomah County; 1910s, 1920s, 1950s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1010b_oregon-city-home-of-nations-steepest-street.html)
Today known properly as Yaquina Head Light, the state's tallest lighthouse is a popular tourist attraction, and until recently was the home of the nation's only wheelchair-accessible tidepools. (Yaquina Head, Lincoln County; 1860s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1706b.yaquina-head-light-should-have-been-cape-foulweather-light-447.html)
ON THE MORNING OF NOV. 5, 1915, at the back of the entrance to Coos Bay, a big steamship could be seen towering improbably over the beach, stuck fast in the sand close to shore. This was the Santa Clara, a 233-foot steamer on the Portland-San Francisco run.
The Santa Clara didn’t much look like the scene of a humanitarian disaster, jutting out of the sand nearly plumb and level and nearly high and dry; but appearances were deceiving. Sixteen people died trying to get ashore when she first struck, three days before.
Nor did the wreck scene look like a very likely place for a massive, boozy free-for-all mob rampage … but a little later on that day, after a small army of looters swarmed aboard and found certain very desirable refreshments among the ship’s cargo, things would be different.... (Coos Bay South Spit, Coos County; 1910s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/21-02.santa-clara-shipwreck-looting-party.html)
The Outlaw as Elder Statesman: In 1883, Eastern Oregon's wildest horse-rustling gunfighter gave up his stock-thieving ways (mostly) and became a wheat farmer. But to say he'd settled down wouldn't quite be accurate. (Athena and Pendleton, Umatilla County; 1880s, 1890s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1402d.hank-vaughan-part-3-farmer-hellraiser.html)
The Oregon frontier's most colorful almost-outlaw spent a dozen years dodging posses and slipping in and out of the Indian reservation with stolen horses and cattle. Some of his exploits are still being talked about today. (Pilot Rock, Umatilla County; 1870s, 1880s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1402c.hank-vaughan-rustling-years-2of3.html)
Quick to make both friends and enemies, Oregon's most famous frontier cowboy and almost-outlaw was a gifted horseman and rustler. But his hard-drinking, quick-shooting ways nearly got him lynched as a teen. (Canyon City, Grant County; 1860s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1402b.hank-vaughan-frontier-legend-1of3.html)
The most famous con artist of the Old West started in Portland, then traveled throughout the state working the “marks” with his signature swindle. Fifteen years later, an Oregonian shot him in a gun fight in Skagway. (Portland, Multnomah County; 1880s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1705d.soapy-smiths-oregon-story-445.html)
For workers in the 'bad old days' of working in the woods and in janky, underengineered sawmills, the occasional loss of a finger or two just came with the territory. (Garibaldi, Tillamook County; 1930s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1904b.loggers-were-tough-guys-543.html)
Clarence the logger was running a trapline as a side hustle. One day, he decided a passing skunk would look great on his stretching rack, and impulsively seized the skunk with his bare hands. This did not turn out to be one of Clarence's better ideas. (Garibaldi, Tillamook County; 1930s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1904a.tillamook-county-wildlife-encounters-542.html)
Dr. E.R. Huckleberry came to Tillamook County in 1923, fresh from medical school; by the time he retired, in the 1960s, he could safely say the career he'd chosen had been neither easy nor safe ... but he wouldn't have traded it for anything. (Garibaldi, Tillamook County; 1920s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1903a.country-doctors-huckleberry-537.html)
Frontier Oregon's favorite game of chance was a “banking” game that's little played today. That's because the only way to make money as a faro banker is to cheat ... and cheat they did, as young J.P. Cochran learned to his dismay back in ’92! (Portland, Multnomah County; 1880s, 1890s, 1900s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1312c-faro-crooked-gamblers-dream-game.html)
When the mercury dropped below 20 degrees for six weeks, a six-inch layer of ice formed on many Willamette Valley lakes — and locals took up ice skating. And five years earlier, it got so cold, a newly built steamship actually cracked in half. (Willamette Valley; 1940s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1705c.ice-skating-cottage-grove-lake-444.html)
IF YOU ASK most Oregonians who the first woman governor in state history was, they’ll have an immediate answer … but they’ll be wrong.
Conventional wisdom holds that the first woman to take the gubernatorial purple in the Beaver State was Barbara Roberts, who was elected to the job in 1990. In fact, that’s almost true … but, of course, “almost” doesn’t work very well as an answer to a true-or-false question.
The truth is, Barbara Roberts was the first elected woman governor in Oregon history. But the first woman to serve as governor of Oregon — or any other state, for that matter — was a remarkable woman named Caralyn B. Shelton.
It was because of Caralyn Shelton that Oregon, for one historic weekend in early 1909, became the first and only state in the nation with a female governor. This was especially ironic because it wasn’t until 1912 that women won the right to vote in Oregon. (Marion and Union county; 1900s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/23-04.caralyn-shelton-first-woman-guv-620.html)
Although Oregon turned out to be harder for the Japanese navy to reach than folks thought, historian Bill McCash estimates the civilian plane-spotting service likely saved as many as 100 American aviators from dying in plane crashes. (Oregon Coast; 1940s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1705a.aws-eyes-on-the-sky-442.html)
Hiding from the law is the sort of thing that used to be very easy to do in Oregon, which is actually the only state (so far as I have been able to learn) to have ever had one of its U.S. Senators serve under an alias which he adopted while running from law enforcement. (That would be John M. Hipple, a.k.a. John H. Mitchell — a cool, amoral Gilded Age rascal after whom the town of Mitchell is named — who in 1860 abandoned his wife and family in Connecticut, “borrowed” $4,000 from his employer, and fled with his mistress to the West Coast to start a new life under a new name.)
Hipple’s adventure is another story, although it's worth circling back to if you're not familiar with it. Today we are going to talk about two other fugitives, both of whom had the bad luck to be on the lam 90 years after Hipple’s successful scampering-off. Their luck would not be as good as his.
Like Hipple, neither was a killer. One of them was arguably not even a “real” criminal. But both of them were fugitives from justice who were caught “laying low” under aliases in little towns in Oregon, and both were caught through the media — in one case, the newspapers, and in the other, a radio show. (Washington and Clatsop County; 1940s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/21-01.cowboy-jim-and-painter-ken-FBI-most-wanted.html)
Summer Lake, Abert Lake and Goose Lake were once all part of a vast network of seas surrounded by lush vegetation. In dry years they can evaporate completely — which led to some confusion on the Applegate Trail one year. (Lake County) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1701c.alkali-abert-goose-lakes-426.html)
Back when the Mazama Club formed, with membership open only to those who had climbed old Wy’East, standing on top of the mountain meant more than it does today. Just 35 years earlier, fire had been belching out of it. (Wy'East, Hood River and Clackamas County) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1705b.mount-hood-active-volcano-443.html)
Laura Starcher and her friends were fed up with the halfhearted, desultory service they were getting from city government. So they got organized, ran for all the public offices, and won ... much to the chagrin of the defeated mayor: Starcher's husband. (Umatilla, Umatilla County; 1910s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1903d.umatilla-petticoat-revolution-540.html)
After blowing his chance at a prosperous, respectable life in the Tygh Valley, the gambler and liquor man roared through frontier life as a keeper of rowdy saloons and bawdy joints before a Temperance crusader changed his life. (Part 2 of 2) (Wasco, Baker, Multnomah County; 1850s, 1860s, 1870s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1312b-edouard-chambreau-part2-portland-years.html)
French-Canadian gambler started out as one of the most scurrilous rascals in the state, then reformed his ways and became one of its most earnest and effective reformers. This is the story of his early years. Part 1 of a 2-part series. (Lower Willamette River, Clackamas County; 1840s, 1850s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1312a-edouard-chambreau-part1-early-years.html)
Elated by a recent record-breaking run, the skipper of the full-rigged clipper ship Atalanta bet two other captains heavy money that he'd arrive in South Africa before they did -- even though they'd be clearing port weeks before he would. Hoping to make up some time and win his bet, he doubled down on his wager by taking a shortcut close by the Oregon Coast ... and lost his bet off Tillicum Beach. (Tillicum Beach, Lincoln County; 1890s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1905a.shipwreck-atalanta-wager-gone-wrong-546.html)
The construction crew had knocked off work for the night, and outside the building the blustery January weather raged. Then, over the roar of wind and surf, the crew heard a terrified voice from below shouting, “Hard aport!” (Tillamook Rock, Tillamook County; 1880s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1704b.lupatia-shipwreck-tillamook-rock-438.html)
The saloon owners won in court, but the temperance ladies absolutely destroyed them in the court of public opinion. Delighted, the preachers and patriarchs who fancied themselves their leaders geared up for victory in the upcoming election ... and seriously overplayed their hand. (Portland, Multnomah County; 1870s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1902d.temperance-wars-4of4-536.html)
Angry, surly saloonkeeper Walter Moffett attracted a large, hostile crowd with his harassment of a group of ladies holding a prayer service outside his bar. When the crowd rioted and trashed his saloon, he got the Portland police chief — also a saloon owner — to arrest them for instigating it. (Portland, Multnomah County; 1870s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1902c.temperance-wars-3of4-535.html)
Very few of Portland's saloonkeepers threw firecrackers at the ladies of the Women's Temperance Prayer League and called them 'damn whores' when they came by to hold prayer services at their bars. But, as the old song goes, there's one in every crowd ... and it's usually Walter Moffett of the Webfoot Saloon. (Portland, Multnomah County; 1870s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1902b.temperance-wars-2of4-534.html)
The city business leaders hoped the Shakespeare Festival would do OK, but just in case it tanked, they insisted that it share the stage with a series of prizefights. The boxing matches bombed badly; luckily, the Shakespeare plays did not. (Ashland, Josephine County; 1930s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1704a.shakespeare-festival-vs-boxing.html)
The sailor wanted to quit, but the captain didn't want him to; so he deposited a $60 'blood money' bonus with the British consul, as a reward if shanghaier Jim Turk could swindle him back aboard. Unfortunately, they killed him in the attempt. This kicked off a three-act courtroom drama oddly reminiscent of a Three Stooges episode. (Portland, Multnomah County; 1880s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1903e.frederick-kalashua-shanghaied-541.html)
Four states away from his family, with no living parents, young Carroll Beebe was like a walking, talking invitation to a shanghaiing. And when he checked into Bridget Grant's boardinghouse, she obliged. (Astoria, Clatsop County; 1880s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1903c.carroll-beebe-shanghaied-539.html)
Astoria shyster L.G. Carpenter coveted Darius Norris's valuable acreage on Long Beach Peninsula. So he got the police chief to arrest Norris on bogus charges, swindled him into signing over his property, and shanghaied him off out of town on a sailing ship. (Astoria, Clatsop County; 1890s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1903b.darius-norris-shanghaied-538.html)
Portland band The Kingsmen recorded the song quickly and cheaply, and the words they were singing were unintelligible. But when the song became a hit, fans started guessing at the lyrics ... and some of them had rather dirty minds. (Portland, Multnomah County; 1960s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1312d-louie-louie-kingsmen-fbi-investigation.html)
Let's face it: No one actually knows where the famous English privateer and explorer spent the summer, and his notes, upon his return, were deliberately opaque. But it's possible that his “Nova Albion” was on the Oregon Coast. (Whale Cove, Lincoln County; 1500s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1703b.francis-drake-whale-cove-nehalem-bay-nova-albion-434.html)
OCT. 1, 1880, WAS a very big day in Portland. For the first time in the history of the city or the state, a sitting President of the United States had come to visit. President Rutherford B. Hayes had arrived in Portland the night before and was staying in the Esmond Hotel, the nicest in Portland at the time, on the corner of Morrison and Front streets.Portland was, of course, very much a frontier town in 1880, still dotted with the stumps of the trees that had been cleared to make room for it. So it can’t have come as too much of a surprise to the president when, at 9:30 the next morning, a gunfight broke out directly beneath his hotel window.He was probably a little more surprised, though, when he found out who the gunfighters were: It was the president of the local synagogue — and the rabbi. (Portland, Multnomah County; 1880s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/20-12.rabbi-gunfight-rutherford-hayes-592.html)
"The “Mother of Oregon History” fell on hard times in the late 1870s. She never quit, but after she took a job writing for Hubert Howe Bancroft, he took credit for the books she wrote. (St. Helens, Columbia County; 1880s, 1890s, 1900s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1504a.frances-fuller-victor-part2.333.html)
Frances Fuller Victor became the founding mother of all Oregon history, and one of its most important writers of all time. By the time she arrived in the Beaver State, she was already a well-known writer. (St. Helens, Columbia County; 1860s, 1870s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1503e.frances-fuller-victor-part1.332.html)
The evidence against Charles Kimzey was circumstantial, but police had the goods on him for an attempted murder the year before, so he was sent up the river on a life stretch. But clearly two men had done the killing -- and no one ever really got a line on who his partner might have been. (Big Lava Lake, Deschutes County; 1920s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1904d.trapper-murders-lava-lake-part2-545.html)
Ed Nickols hadn't wanted to spend the winter by himself at the remote cabin, because he'd made a dangerous enemy in a former coworker who turned out to be an escaped convict. So Roy Wilson and Dewey Morris spent the winter there with him ... and all three disappeared halfway through it. (Lava Lake, Deschutes County; 1920s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1904c.trapper-murders-lava-lake-part1-544.html)
THE NINETEENTH CENTURY was a kind of golden age of body snatching. Digging up the freshly dead to cash the corpse in at the back door of a nearby medical school was — well, not common exactly, but far from unheard-of. So when, around the middle of May 1897, Daniel Magone and Charles Montgomery asked a 20-year-old wood hauler named William Rector to help them steal a corpse out of River View Cemetery, Rector didn’t react the way you or I would.A job was a job, and Rector needed the work, and although it was technically illegal, one couldn’t really get into too much trouble for it … provided, of course, that the corpse being snatched belonged to a poor person. Body snatching as it was practiced back then was an ancillary industry to the medical profession. Medical colleges needed a constant supply of cadavers to dissect in their labs, and there were never enough available through legitimate sources to slake the demand.Well, nature abhors a vacuum, and so does a market; so, an underground industry of body-snatchers, also called “resurrection men,” developed to meet the demand for fresh corpses, by stealing them out of cemeteries in the middle of the night.... (Portland, Multnomah County; 1890s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/23-03.body-snatchers-resurrected-william-ladd-619.html)
But in 1861, the worst floods in state history turned the Willamette Valley into one giant half-million-acre lake and swept several burgeoning towns away. And, despite our flood-control dams, someday it will probably happen again. (Willamette Valley; 1860s, 1890s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1704c.willamette-floods-1894-1861-439.html)
Last and most successful explosion, in 1909, was rumored to have been the work of students, who felt they needed a new building; others suspected to be work of a grumpy old pioneer and experienced "dynamite fisherman" who lived nearby. (Near Marcola, Lane County; 1890s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1003b_PingYang.html)
Eugene city leaders campaigned hard at the ballot box to stop South Lane County from seceding, and the plan to create a new county was defeated. A year or two later, the embittered south-county used the same ballot box to get even. (Cottage Grove, Lane County; 1910s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1704e.eugene-cottageGrove-feud-over-nesmith-county-441.html)
Is there anything to the story of the Native American man who came out of the woods every few years with a snuff can full of gold dust? Maybe. (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1001d_GoldSnuff.htm)
College professor's forensic investigation fingered the DeAutremont Brothers in the brutal robbery; after a years-long manhunt, and more than 2 million “wanted” posters, they were caught. But we still don't know the full story. (Siskiyou Pass, Jackson County; 1920s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1701b.part2-deautremont-train-rob-manhunt-425.html)
After several other attempts to get into the crime business didn't work out for them, the DeAutremont brothers came up with a plan to rob a train at the summit of the Siskiyous. It did not go well — for anyone involved. (Siskiyou Pass, Jackson County; 1920s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1701a.part1-deautremont-train-rob-robbery-424.html)
It was no 'Heaven's Gate' -- 'The Way West' was more like the 'Ishtar' of the late 1960s. It was spectacularly and expensively shot on location in Oregon, but plans to celebrate its release here foundered in a tidal wave of scathing reviews. (Lane, Deschutes and Lake counties; 1966) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1901a.way-west-movie-spectacular-flop-529.html)
Portlander Walter Waters arrived in D.C. at the head of 20,000 disciplined, well-intentioned petitioners to request that First World War vets be paid their service bonus early. Hoover refused to meet with him — a big mistake. (Portland, Multnomah County; 1930s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1704d.bonus-army-ended-hoovers-hopes-440.html)
The coroner ruled Thomas McMahon's death an accident, and everyone moved on. But the testimony of witness Eliza “Boneyard Mary” Bunets was suspicious and contradictory. Could she have gotten away with murder? (Portland, Multnomah County; 1870s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1311a-did-boneyard-mary-murder-thomas-mcmahon.html)
“Uncle Joab” was the most famous preacher in the West for a reason ... and that reason was pretty much exactly why the pioneer lawmakers found him to be such a lousy fit for the job of Chaplain of the Legislature. Suddenly they were desperate to get rid of him. But, they'd hired him before his salary was in the treasury.... (Salem, Marion County; 1850s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1901d.uncle-joab-powell-political-firsts-2of2.html)
When the Legislature of the new state of Oregon started looking for someone to serve as the state's first Chaplain of the Legislature, Uncle Joab's name naturally came readily to mind. But it wouldn't be long before they wished they'd never even heard of this plain-speaking, long-preaching circuit rider.... (Near Jefferson, Marion County; 1850s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1901c.uncle-joab-powell-part1.html)
Had James Marshall stayed in Oregon for one more month, he likely never would have left; instead, he headed south and found gold. And the discovery led more or less straight to his ruin. (American River, Calif.; 1840s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1702a.oregon-farmer-started-gold-rush-429.html)
Designed for calm inland waterways, the sidewheel steamboat Alaskan was no match for the massive late-spring gale that pounced on it off Cape Blanco one fateful night in 1889. (Cape Blanco, Curry County; 1889) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1311c-riverboat-alaskan-caught-in-offshore-hurricane.html)
East Portland's White Eagle Saloon has a colorful past. Over the years, it's been local headquarters for the Polish Resistance, a rough watering hole for sailors and dock workers, and Portland's hottest blues and rock-and-roll hot spot. (Portland, Multnomah County; 1900s, 1910s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1703c.white-eagle-shanghai-spot-435.html)
In May of 1895, on the old San Francisco waterfront, four sailors signed onto the four-masted barkentine Arago for a voyage to Valparaiso, Chile (“and thence to such other foreign ports as the master might direct, and thence to return to the United States”) via Astoria. By the time they got to Astoria, the four of them had had enough of conditions on the Arago. They stepped off the ship and essentially told the skipper, “We quit.” In doing so, they changed history — and the legal status of sailors would never be the same. (Astoria, Clatsop County; 1890s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/20-11.arago-four-sailors-slavery-591.html)
Everyone thought John Hawk was stealing cattle, and he refused to talk about it. So one night, a group of cattlemen snuck into his camp and assassinated him — and were shocked by the frontier community's response. (Joseph, Wallowa County; 1870s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1310d-john-hawk-murder-by-vigilantes.html)
Before Oregon was even a state, its territorial government outlawed all booze. Why? It all has to do with a fellow who could probably be called the true founder of the city of Portland — and his ever-bubbling moonshine still. (Champoeg, Clackamas County; 1840s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1311d-blue-ruin-whiskey-sparks-oregons-first-prohibition.html)
Joe Knowles' wilderness-survival demonstration had been a huge success, and made him famous. But he'd been dogged by rumors that he cheated. Now, a continent away, he was going to redeem his reputation with a second try ... in Oregon. (Holland, Josephine County; 1910s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1812e.joe-knowles-survival-guru-528.html)
Shorty Davis was a popular sheepman who one day in 1900 disappeared ... and no one has ever seen a sign of him since. Virtually everyone suspects foul play. (Prineville, Crook County; 1900s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1901b.shorty-davis-coldest-cold-case-mystery-530.html)
If you’d been lucky enough to live in Portland in July of 1848, you would have been able to say, literally, that your ship had come in.The ship in question was the sailing ship Honolulu. And, funny thing: she arrived in port in ballast, with her cargo holds empty.That raised some eyebrows. At the time, Oregon was not even part of the U.S.A. yet — just a vast extranational territory jointly claimed by the U.S. and Britain. There was no national government authority to issue money, nor was there any gold or silver around to make money with. Wheat was officially legal tender there; but, there wasn’t much wheat being harvested in July. All of Oregon was on a barter economy. Down in Oregon City, Provisional Governor George Abernethy was actually using specially marked pebbles, known as “Abernethy Rocks,” as fungible I.O.U.s in the Methodist mission merchantile store that he was in charge of. Presumably the captain of the Honolulu would not be interested in investing in Abernethy Rocks. So, what was he going to do in Portland with nothing to trade with?The answer wasn’t long in coming. The skipper headed straight into town almost the moment the Honolulu was at the dock. He raced from one store to another, snapping up every pick, shovel, and washpan he could get his hands on.And paying for them with gold dust. (Statewide; 1840s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/23-02.gold-rush-beaver-money.html)
Part of the problem with owning and operating the only flight school in town in the 1920s and 1930s was, every time one of your students slapped together some home-built piece of kit, you’d be expected to help fly it. And 'help fly it' usually translated into 'go first.' (BEND, DESCHUTES COUNTY; EARLY 1930s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1811b.ted-barber-diy-test-pilot-521.html)
Fresh from a 20-year stretch in the pen, the famous stagecoach robber known as 'The Gray Fox' found the world had changed and he would now have to learn to rob trains instead. His learning curve started in Portland and ended in disaster. (Troutdale, Multnomah County; 1900s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1311b-bill-miner-train-robber-in-oregon.html)
One of the 20th Century’s most influential show-biz men, the Jacksonville native was a Beaver who made it big; he worked on Disney projects and Popeye cartoons and delighted kids as the first Bozo the Clown. (Jacksonville, Jackson County; 1900s, 1910s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1310b-pinto-colvig-pioneer-animator-showbiz-legend.html)
As a historical account, the Lost Blue Bucket Mine story is, to put it mildly, questionable. But there can be no denying the impact it has had as a legend, repeated and believed by generations of Oregonians. (Auburn, Baker County; 1860s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1701d.blue-bucket-gold-mine-427.html)
When World War I broke out, Herbert Hoover was the world's most successful mining engineer. He abandoned all that to build an organization to feed the starving, first in Belgium and then throughout war-torn Europe. (London, UK; 1910s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1702c.herbert-hoover-in-belgium-431.html)
He arrived in Oregon at age 9, and people called him “Poor Little Bertie.” He left Oregon for good to go to college at Stanford when he was 17. But Herbert Clark Hoover remained a member of the Salem Quaker church until his death. (Newburg, Yamhill County; 1880s, 1890s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1702b.herbert-hoover-raised-in-oregon-430.html)
Tunnels contained entire businesses and residences, once used by Chinese residents to avoid contact with liquored-up cowboys; today they are a popular tourist attraction for the city. (Pendleton, Morrow County; 1880s, 1890s, 1900s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1001e_Pendleton.html)
Women who'd married German men suddenly learned they'd been legally (and very unconstitutionally) made stateless, and were forced to register as 'enemy aliens'; those who'd married Chinese men fared even worse. (Statewide; 1910s, 1920s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1312e-germans-in-oregon-enemy-aliens.html)
After being nearly killed in a range war, sheep baron Jack Edwards started looking for a more peaceable place to run his operation. He found it in Hay Creek Ranch, near Prineville; and soon after settling in, he proceeded to put Oregon's wool industry on the map. (Near Shaniko, Wasco County; 1890s, 1900s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1811c.sheep-king-jack-edwards-522.html)
Klan-backed politicians won a big victory that they interpreted as a mandate for ethnic and religious cleansing, then found out the hard way that they'd misjudged the voters' intentions. (Statewide; 1920s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1304d-fall-of-the-house-of-klux.html)
The secret society of anonymous xenophobic vigilantes spread through Oregon society like a virus in 1922, and by the time elections were held that year, it was ready to seize the reins of power. But it wouldn't keep them for long. (Statewide, 1920s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1304c-rise-of-the-ku-klux-klan-in-oregon.html)
How a sinister, secretive hate-group found acceptance in 1920s Oregon with its message of '100-percent Americanism' and pledges of a moral cleanup. But undertones of masked vigilantism were there from the very start. (Medford, Jackson County; 1920s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1304b-ku-klux-klowns-kome-to-oregon.html)
Smithfield rebels' gesture of defiance on the main stagecoach route caused shock and outrage, but nobody was outraged enough to risk being shot over it; so the flag waved there until federal troops arrived and confiscated it. (Franklin, Lane County; 1860s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1502a.rebel-flag-over-oregon.324.html)
Retired marshal of Tombstone, Ariz., had only visited Portland once. But his connection to his daughter, Nellie Jane Bertrand, proved to be a strong one. (Portland, Multnomah County; 1880s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1009d_virgil-earp-buried-in-portland.html)
When Salem native Alfred Carlton Gilbert, inventor of the Erector Set, learned that government officials were going to cancel Christmas with their “Buy Bonds, Not Toys” campaign, he went to Washington to change their minds. He did. (Salem, Marion County; 1910s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1702d.ac-gilbert-man-who-saved-christmas-432.html)
A.C. Gilbert was a practicing magician good enough to astonish Hermann the Great at age 7, a world-record-holding athlete at age 17, and a born salesman — in the best “win-win” sense of the word. (Salem, Marion County; 1890s, 1900s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1703d.ac-gilbert-growing-up-in-salem-436.html)
Forest Grove drugstore responded to city's ban on recreational alcohol by adopting the 'marijuana dispensary' model for medicinal booze, and opening a blind pig in the back. The city fathers were not amused, but when they tried to crack down, things did not go as they'd planned ... (Forest Grove, Washington County; 180s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1812b.drugstore-saloon-fight-forest-grove.html)
The myrtlewood "so-called dollars" are still legal tender there, and have been since they were made during the Great Depression — but not many are used today because coin collectors treasure them. (North Bend, Coos County; 1930s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1008e_north-bend-myrtlewood-money-still-legal-tender.html)
While the captain of the Emily G. Reed was sadly reporting the loss of 11 brave mariners, four of the missing were drifting northward, desperately bailing water out of a damaged and leaky lifeboat. Their journey's end: Puget Sound. (Rockaway Beach, Tillamook County; 1900s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1503a.shipwreck-emily-g-reed.328.html)
ON THE MORNING of Dec. 7, 1904, Stephen A.D. Puter had just arrived at the office of U.S. Marshal Jack Matthews. He was expecting some friends to come by … and bail him out of jail.Puter had just been convicted of masterminding a plan to swindle the U.S. government out of thousands of acres of prime timberlands. He had not yet been sentenced. Like all convicts, he had the option of either staying in jail until sentencing, or posting bail. In his case, bail was set at $4,000. He figured his friends — or, rather, unindicted co-conspirators — would be by shortly to help him raise the funds.No one came.It was starting to dawn on Puter that no one was going to come. He now realized he was to be sacrificed to appease the gods in Washington D.C. He was to be thrown under the bus, branded a “bad apple” and socially disowned in order to protect the bigger fish involved and enable them to keep the good times rolling.And how much bigger were those bigger fish? Well, several of them were out-of-state millionaires; two of them were members of the U.S. House of Representatives; and one was United States Senator John H. Mitchell. (Salem, Marion County; 1870s, 1880s, 1890s, 1900s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/23-01.land-fraud-trials-617.html)
Young cowboy David Tucker wanted a share of the loot so he could marry his sweetheart; after he got out of prison, he worked for decades to earn back the trust of both her and their community. (Joseph, Wallowa County; 1890s, 1920s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1305d-former-bank-robber-named-vp-of-bank-he-robbed.html)
Klamath County was about to move into a courthouse just outside town -- but downtown businesses, fearful they'd lose their status as county seat, fought the plan with every weapon they had ... and won. (Klamath Falls, Klamath County; 1900s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1812a.klamath-courthouse-battle.html)
A Native American story tells of a galleon coming to the bluff, just south of Astoria, and its crew burying a mysterious chest there — guarded by the body of a murdered crew member. Is it true? And has the treasure already been found? (Near Manzanita, Tillamook County; 1700s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1008d_spanish-gold-of-neahkahnie-mountain.html)
He might have accomplished it, too, but he lost friends when he tried to claim water rights to Bull Run, and when his primary investors went bankrupt in a bank panic, he was forced to give up the scheme and leave town. (Portland, Multnomah County; 1900s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1502d.lafe-pence-guild-lake-scheme.327.html)
One fine day in October of 1891, a teenage boy named Aquilla Ernest Clark left the farm in Scappoose where he’d been working, headed for Portland. He was going to see the sights and maybe show himself a good time for a few days. He wandered around the waterfront, taking drinks here and there and probably taking a hand in a card game or two; then, when it was getting close to evening, he met a pleasant fellow who happened to mention that he was staying at the sailors’ boardinghouse at Second and Glisan streets. “It’s the best place to stay in Portland,” he said. That sounded good; Aquilla needed a place to stay for the night. So he went with his new friend to the boardinghouse. It was good enough for Aquilla. He checked in. He didn't know it, but he was less than 24 hours away from a new career ... and it would be seven years before he'd see Portland again. (Portland, Multnomah County; 1891) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/20-10.aquilla-clark-shanghaied-590.html)
Had Edgar Rice Burroughs and his brothers been successful with their Snake River gold dredge, Ed likely would never have had the time or inspiration to start writing “John Carter of Mars,” “At the Earth's Core” and “Tarzan” books. (Snake River Canyon, Baker County; 1900s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1503b.edgar-rice-burroughs-in-oregon.html)
Someone killed Oliver Kermit Smith with a massive dynamite bomb planted under his car seat ... and police soon figured out who. But did Smith's wife really put the killer up to the job, like a real-life version of Nicole Kidman's character in 'To Die For'? (Portland, Multnomah County; 1950s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1811d.kermit-smith-murder-car-bomb-523.html)
Desperate for some ready cash after his steamer wrecked on the beach, the would-be magnate hastily built a “railroad to nowhere” over Santiam Pass in an attempt to swindle the federal government. It probably would have worked, but ... (Newport, Lincoln County; 1880s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1703a.hogg-railroad-yaquina-433.html)
Few people know how close Oregon came to officially becoming a British possession under the treaty that ended the War of 1812 — and the thing that "saved" the state was an expedition everyone thinks of as a disastrous failure. (Astoria, Clatsop County; 1810s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1008b_how-oregon-almost-became-part-of-canada.html)
Dreamed up by supporters of the old south, the plan envisioned an independent “Pacific Republic” as a slave state — to be stocked with slaves by a sort of bait-and-switch swindle. But the supporters misjudged public opinion badly. (Salem, Marion County; 1860s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1503d.pacific-republic-scheme-331.html)
Twenty years after he tried to light the surrounding forests on fire, Japanese pilot Nobuo Fujita returned to Brookings as an honored guest and presented the town with his family's Samurai sword. (Brookings, Curry County; 1960s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1305c-japanese-pilot-fujita-friendship-with-brookings.html)
After World War II started, submariner and pilot Nobuo Fujita hatched an idea: Use his tiny, rickety submarine-launched seaplane to attack an enemy 5,000 miles away from the nearest aircraft carrier. (Brookings, Curry County; 1940s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1305b-fujita-bombs-oregon.html)
The job got off to a bad start when the fireman escaped and sprinted for the nearby town. The main suspect in the robbery quickly left town, and a few months later was killed in a streetcar holdup in Washington. (Roseburg, Douglas County; 1890s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1502c.roseburg-train-robbery-jack-case.326.html)
The “Baritone Bandit” led a small group of desperados with a large cache of dynamite, and they got away with a good bit of loot from the Douglas County robbery. But one of the passengers saw behind the bandit's mask ... (Cow Creek Canyon, Douglas County; 1890s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1502b.cow-creek-train-robbery.325.html)
For more than 40 years, amateurs and pros alike have put forward dozens of theories, many quite plausible and backed with some evidence. But the story seems destined to remain a delicious historical mystery. (Statewide; 1970s, 1980s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1306d-db-cooper-part4-the-theories.html)
The hunt for the man who called himself Dan Cooper started just hours after he disappeared into the night sky with a bag of $20 bills tied to his waist. Did he get away? Did anyone find him? The search continues to this day. (Part 3 of 4 parts) (Portland, Multnomah County; 1970s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1306c-db-cooper-part-3-the-hunt.html)
After demanding four parachutes and a knapsack of $20 bills, the legendary anonymous skyjacker disappeared into the night sky over southwest Washington with $200,000 — touching off a massive manhunt. (Part 2 of 4 parts) (Columbia River, Multnomah County; 1970s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1306b-db-cooper-part-2-the-getaway.html)
History's only unsolved hijacking drama started at Portland International Airport when a nondescript man calling himself 'Dan Cooper' stepped aboard a Boeing 727 bound for Seattle. (Part 1 of a 4-part series) (Portland, Multnomah County; 1970s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1306a-db-cooper-part-1-the-skyjacking.html)
Most people think the first paper was the Oregon Spectator, but an irascible local political gadfly named Charles Edward “Philosopher” Pickett (writing as “The Curltail Coon”) stole a march on the bigger paper using only a pen and ink. (Oregon City, Clackamas County; 1840s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1007a_flumgudgeon.html)
NEARLY 50 YEARS ago, the Good Friday Earthquake changed Alaska forever. It killed nine people and slammed the West Coast with tsunamis that killed 122 more, including four in Oregon. It did something else, too, though: It heaved up the seafloor of the Inside Passage near the ghost town of Katalia by a good 12 feet. And in the process, it brought something up to the surface that was a very important piece of the history of Alaska … and, earlier, Oregon. It was a small wooden-hulled steamship with a screw propeller. Most of the wood had been eaten away by time and wildlife, but the steam engine and other hard parts were still there and visible. This wrecked ship turned out to be the remains of the S.S. Portland, the most famous steamer in Alaska’s history, the one that kicked off the Klondike Gold Rush when it arrived in Seattle in 1897 with the famous “ton of gold” on board. The Portland was almost like the mascot of the Klondike Gold Rush, so Alaskan history buffs were very excited about the find. But Alaska wasn’t the only state with cause for celebration. The Portland had a prominent role in Oregon’s history too. It had been as notorious in early-1890s Portland as it became famous in late-1890s Alaska. Before the ship was bought by a Seattle shipping company and renamed the S.S. Portland, its name was the S.S. Haytian Republic. It was based out of Portland, and it was probably the most notorious smuggling ship on the West Coast. It was operated by a group of smugglers whose clumsiness and ineptitude was like something out of a Keystone Cops comedy, so its name was in the newspapers a lot. Every reader in Portland knew that ship, and knew the names of its owners: Nat Blum and William Dunbar of the Merchants Steamship Company. (Portland, Multnomah County; 1890s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/22-12.blum-dunbar-opium-smugglers-616.html)
At the scene of a notorious double-murder of young lovers Larry Peyton and Beverly Allan, police paid little attention to Edward W. Edwards and soon eliminated him as a suspect. But if they'd dug a little bit deeper ... (Portland, Multnomah County; 1950s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1305a-peyton-allan-murders-manwiththehook.html)
It was known for spectacular scenery, enormous waterfalls and whitewater stretches, and phenomenal fishing; we've traded that for a placid, lake-like waterway and cheap hydroelectric power. (Celilo Village, Wasco County; 1950s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/H1009a_celilo-falls-part-of-once-wild-Columbia.html)
Riverboat-brothel operator Nancy Boggs took customers from both sides of the river, paid no liquor taxes to City Hall; in 1870s Oregon, it was the money, not the morals, that rankled. (Note: Historians differ on how much off this story is true and how much is waterfront legend. My take, if you're curious, is that it's probably about 65% truth, 35% folklore.) (Portland, Multnomah County; 1880s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/H1007d_floating-bordello-in-portland.html)
In the mid-1870s, a fast-talking East Coast hustler teamed up with a famous half-Native Indian scout to cash in on his fame with a line of dodgy faux-Indian patent remedies — and the Oregon Indian Medicine Co. was born. (Warm Springs Indian Reservation; 1880s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1812c.ka-ton-ka-donald-mckay-warm-springs-indian-medicine.html)
For anyone interested in the shanghaiing of sailors on the old Portland waterfront, the name “Larry Sullivan” needs no introduction.Smooth, polished, well-connected and ruthless, Larry Sullivan was essentially the Boss Tweed of the Portland waterfront from the early 1890s right up to the moment the music stopped. But in 1904, as the upcoming Lewis and Clark Centennial Exposition drew near, a reforming spirit was in the Portland air. Thousands of visitors were about to come to Portland and see it for the first time, and the city’s underworld was far too much on public display for that to go well if changes were not made.Larry Sullivan was the Portland underworld, and he had good enough political instincts to know when to hold ’em and when to fold ’em.Selling his stake in the Portland Club, his gambling house, to fellow underworld tycoon Nate Solomon and closing the doors on his sailors’ boardinghouse, Larry packed up and headed east, looking for fresh fields of endeavor.And, in a rip-roaring Nevada mining boomtown called Goldfield, he found what he was looking for.And it was at The Palace that Larry met one of the most colorful and rascally characters in the history of American con-artistry: George Graham Rice. (Goldfield, Nev.; 1900s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/20-09.larry-sullivan-goldfield-swindles.html)
Is there a lost crystal cave in central Oregon somewhere, lined with thousands of quartz crystals? Or is the whole thing just a legend? If it's real, maybe it would be better if we never found out .... (Deschutes and Crook counties, 1890s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1811a.central-oregon-lost-crystal-cave-520.html)
Gasping for hard currency to finance the Civil War, and awash in raw gold from two Eastern Oregon gold rushes, the federal government tried to build a mint in The Dalles in 1863. But the Oregon delegation, dominated by Portland interests, held up the plans for years trying to switch its location to Portland ... finally, the gold rush petered out, and the feds said, 'Never mind!' (The Dalles, Wasco County; 1860s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1810d.the-dalles-mint-that-wasnt-519.html)
After Bethenia Owens divorced the frontier slacker she'd married at age 14, she went on to become one of Portland's most influential and respected professionals. (Roseburg, Douglas County; 1850s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/H1008c_west-coasts-first-woman-doctor-Bethenia-Owen.html)
Litter enraged outdoor enthusiast Richard Chambers, so he launched a one-man campaign to pass a deposit bill. Then Gov. Tom McCall leaped aboard, and Oregon became the first state to ban nonreturnable bottles and cans. (Pacific City, Tillamook County; 1970s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1810c.1812.bottle-bill-tom-mccall.html)
They pedaled their bicycles from Portland to Astoria, snuck aboard a wrecked ocean liner, and spent the night marooned on board, with breakers crashing all around them. (Peacock Spit, Pacific County (Wash.); 1930s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1812d.admiral-benson-shipwreck-summer-vacation.html)
The young man was the only person to have followed the Oregon Trail while dead, and it turned out to be fortunate for his family — and the Aurora Colony — that he did. (Aurora, Clackamas County; 1850s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/H1007c_willie-keil-dead-man-led-wagon-train.html)
Extortionists, jailbreakers, safecrackers, jealous lovers and even truant students have, throughout the early years of Oregon history, found high explosives a powerful aid to their nefarious schemes. (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1501d.crime-and-dynamite.html)
Award-winning criminal mastermind/ motivational speaker Blackie DuQuesne shares a few key insights for aspiring train robbers on how to avoid “n00b mistakes” on a railroad heist. (1890s, 1900s, 1910s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1501c.how-to-rob-trains-with-blackie-duquesne.html)
Just a few dozen years ago, nearly anyone in Oregon could easily get all the high explosives he or she might want — if not by buying it, then by mixing a few common ingredients together with some old sawdust. (Statewide; 1890s, 1900s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1501b.dynamite-in-oregon-history.html)
Growing tension over rights to run livestock on Oregon's publicly owned rangeland led to the formation of the Izee Sheep Shooters, a secret society of cattlemen dedicated to the extermination of their animals' fuzzy rivals. (Grant and Crook County; 1890s, 1900s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/H1009c_oregon-cattleman-sheepman-war-had-10000-wooly-deaths.html)
Six-week-long drunken party was thrown by the notoriously rascally Jonathan Bourne Jr. to keep the state Legislature from convening, so it couldn't elect John H. Mitchell to the U.S. Senate. It worked — well, sort of. (Salem, Marion County; 1890s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1201e-bourne-40-day-party-stopped-legislature.html)
When con artist Harry Virtue learned of Dr. Richard Barber's heroic demise, he guessed no one would bother to tell medical authorities in the UK. So he went there -- and, stealing Barber's name, went into practice. (Gardiner, Coos County; 1910s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1810b.1812.fake-doctor-impersonator.html)
Fans of the tiny Lincoln City waterway and partisans of the Roe River in Great Falls, Montana, still swap good-natured gibes and call each other’s rivers ‘drainage ditches.’ But the Guinness Book seems to have given up on them both. (Devil's Lake, Lincoln County; 1980s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/H1006b_Driver.html)
The masked outlaw planned the job out carefully, and thought he was ready for anything. But he met his match in the cool-handed express man, and had to leave almost empty-handed. (Saginaw, Lane County; 1900s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1501a.saginaw-train-robbery.320.html)
If the idea of cable car service to Timberline Lodge strikes you as a not particularly bad one, you’re not alone. Over the years since the Wyler group proposed the glass-and-steel mountaintop skyscraper, several proposals have been floated for cable-car service up the mountain. So far, only one has been built, and it was an immediate and colossal failure: The Skiway Tram project. (Mount Hood, Clackamas and Hood River Counties; 1920s, 1930s, 1950s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/20-08.timberline-lodge-skiway-bus.html)
In September, deranged housewife Emma Hannah gunned down a dangerously sexy neighbor she suspected of making moves on her husband; then in November, 18-year-old Lloyd Montgomery had a temper tantrum and murdered his parents. (Jordan and Brownsville, Linn County; 1890s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1810a.1812.montgomery-murder.html)
Desperate for men, shanghai artists once tried to kidnap the local Methodist minister. He turned out not to be as soft a target as they'd anticipated. (Astoria, Clatsop County; 1890s, 1900s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1203d-astoria-once-hotbed-of-shanghaiing.html)
In the days when Portland was a rough, tough, hard-drinking, hard-punching dockside town, the city's “crimping” activity actually generated international incidents with foreign governments. (Portland, Multnomah County; 1890s, 1900s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/H1006c_ShanghaiPDX.html)
After out-of-state interests overplayed their hand and showed how little power locals had in their own state, Populists and renegade Republicans got together to do something about it. The result: The initiative-petition system. (Salem, Marion County; 1890s, 1900s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1612d.oregon-system-initiative-referendum-423.html)
IT MAY BE true that the movement of a butterfly’s wings on one side of the world can seed a tornado on the other.But whether it’s literally true or not, it certainly is figuratively true, and nowhere is it better demonstrated than in the case of 1890s businessman and opium smuggler William Dunbar of Portland, Oregon.If we could take Dunbar out of the stream of history before about 1890, we would derail events that led directly to Imperial Japan’s alliance with Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy in 1940; to Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor the following year; to the nuclear bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945; and (maybe) to the fact that the world did not end in a multi-gigaton nuclear fireball in late October of 1962.All this, because a politically well-connected drug smuggler in tiny, faraway Portland was unusually incompetent, and had taken a young Japanese boy into his household as a companion for his 14-year-old son.That little boy’s name was Yosuke “Frank” Matsuoka, the future Foreign Minister of Imperial Japan and the chief architect of the Tripartite Pact with Germany and Italy, just before the Second World War.... (Portland, Eugene; Multnomah and Lane County; 1890s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/22-11.matsuoka-imperial-japan-615.html)
Central and Eastern Oregon was “Oregon's liquor cabinet” during Prohibition; its wide open spaces and tight-knit communities made busting bootleggers uncommonly difficult there. (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1203c-moonshiners-of-oregon-outback.html)
At Jake Silverman's trial, 11 jurors wanted him to hang, but couldn't convince the lone holdout to change his vote. So voters changed the law and made Oregon the only state in the country where you could be convicted on a 10-2 vote. (Portland, Multnomah County; 1993) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1809e.1812.silverman-verdict.html)
It had been an accident, but small-time Portland crook Jimmy Walker had shot Rose City crime boss “Shy Frank” Kodat. Unfortunately for Jimmy, he picked the wrong friend to run to for help. (Portland, Scappoose; Multnomah and Columbia County; 1930s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1310c-jimmy-walker-gangland-murder.html)
Arguably, the outcome of World War II became inevitable on the day the S.S. Star of Oregon slid into the Columbia River. It was followed by a torrent of new ships — far more than the Nazis could ever hope to sink. (Vanport, Multnomah County; 1940s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1612c.portland-liberty-ships-saved-canada-422.html)
Unlikely as it sounds, law-enforcement people who worked the case think it easily could have ended in a “bloody mess” if they had had to actually invade the commune to take the Bhagwan into custody. (Antelope, Wasco County; 1980s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/H1005e_Bhagwan4of4.html)
Group's leaders planned to pack Wasco County with homeless people to facilitate a political takeover, and reduce opponents' voter turnout with a biological attack. When that didn't work, they bused all the homeless people to Madras. (Antelope, Wasco County; 1980s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/H1005d_Bhagwan3of4.html)
The Bhagwan's assistant, Ma Anand Sheela, set the tone for the commune's relations with the rest of Oregon — and that tone was not a friendly one. Soon the “Rajneeshies” were planning a political takeover ... (Antelope, Wasco County; 1980s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/H1005c_Bhagwan2of4.htm)
Bad health, a bad reputation and a big tax bill drove Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh out of India and into Central Oregon. Hilarity ensued ... hilarity, that is, in the original sense of the word. (Antelope, Wasco County; 1980s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/H1005b_Bhagwan1of4.htm)
Half a century of winning labor disputes left the waterfront employers feeling overconfident. When the Portland longshoremen walked out, they expected it would be a repeat of earlier victories for them ... it wasn't. (Portland, Multnomah County; 1930s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1304a-1934-dock-strike-paralyzed-oregon.html)
Created and priced as a luxury line to compete with coal-fired steam trains, the railroad collapsed rapidly after automobiles came on the scene. Would a cheaper, less opulent service have survived? (Willamette Valley; 1900s, 1910s, 1920s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1612b.oregon-electric-rise-and-fall-421.html)
Political boss James Lotan had landed a federal appointment that was flush with possibilities for graft and corruption. Too bad he picked such a bumbling group of criminals to partner up with. (Portland and Astoria, Multnomah and Clatsop County; 1890s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1202d-james-lotan-and-blum-dunbar-smuggling-ring.html)
Canadian bootlegger gang tried to bust three rumrunners out of Lincoln County Jail; it probably would have worked if they hadn't tried to take the confiscated whiskey too ... (Toledo, Lincoln County; 1930s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1809c.whale-cove-rumrunners-shipwreck-513.html)
In Whale Cove, Canadian rumrunners lost their boat engine at the worst possible time and ended up on shore. So they buried the booze, burned the boat, and tried to get away ... and got caught. (Depoe Bay, Lincoln County; 1930s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1809c.whale-cove-rumrunners-shipwreck-513.html)
When the sheriff arrived to enforce the law, he brought with him a pro-temperance preacher from one of the local churches — whose presence seems to have sparked a murderous response from the man he'd come to arrest. (Plainview, Linn County; 1920s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1611d.sheriff-murdered-in-liquor-raid-gone-bad-419.html)
Crusty, spluttering city leaders, full of self-righteous outrage over mixed-race dancing that was going on at “The Dude Ranch,” found an excuse to order the West Coast's hottest jazz club shut down. (Portland, Multnomah County; 1940s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1203b-dude-ranch-portland-jazz-scene.html)
Logger, watching 'timber worms' chew through a log, wondered, 'How do they do that?'' So he took some home, figured it out, and invented the modern chisel-toothed cutting chain. (Tillamook County; 1940s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1809b.joe-cox-invents-bug-inspired-chainsaw-512.html)
Joe Wolf invented it for loggers, but they wanted nothing to do with his electric saw. Luckily for Joe, the construction and shipbuilding industry loved it. (Portland, Multnomah County; 1920s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1809a.wolf-electric-chainsaw-511.html)
Dozens and dozens of mercury-laden purgative pills invented by Founding Father Benjamin Rush were an indispensible part of the Corps of Discovery's kit; the toxic-but-effective tablets helped explorers cope with a very-low-fiber diet. (Fort Clatsop, Clatsop County; 1800s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/H1006d_BiliousPills.html)
The little company town was located smack in the middle of the country's most productive tree-growing land; so, in the 1980s, the company drained its lake, bulldozed it into a pile, torched it, and replanted it with trees. (Valsetz, Polk County; 1920s, 1950s, 1980s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1611c.valsetz-company-ghost-town-418.html)
Fresh from breaking out of jail in Utah, Harry Tracy apparently came to Portland looking for a fresh start; he married, and then for three years kept his nose clean. But, it seems, the call of the outlaw trail was too much for him to resist, and he was caught and sent to prison. His prison break, and the subsequent two-month manhunt for him, became legendary. (Salem, Portland; Marion and Multnomah County; 1900s) (For text and pictures, see http://offbeatoregon.com/22-10.harry-tracy-wild-west-outlaw-jailbreak-614.html)
Willamette Valley town's mascot was the state's wealthiest housecat; he owned City Hall along with the farm it was built on, as well as an iconic red barn. Today, you can visit Kitty Kat's grave, but his barn has been moved to a new place. (Tangent, Linn County; 1980s) (For text and pictures, see http://offbeatoregon.com/1201b-kitty-kat-owner-of-city-hall-richest-cat.html)
Legendary physician Dr. Bethenia Owens-Adair was an unstoppable force battling to get a eugenic-sterilization law passed ... until she encountered the immovable object that was medical-liberty activist Lora C. Little. (Portland, Multnomah County; 1910s) (For text and pictures, see http://offbeatoregon.com/1808d.lora-little-vs-bethenia-owens-adair-eugenic-sterilization-510.html)
Bustling metropolis of 40,000 lasted just six years before being turned, by order of the U.S. Government, into a ghost town and cut up for salvage. (Adair Village, Benton County; 1940s) (For text and pictures, see http://offbeatoregon.com/H1004d_CampAdair.html)
A poorly engineered jetty was installed at the mouth of Tillamook Bay changed the ocean’s currents, and over the following three decades the sea relentlessly scoured away the town. Today, no trace remains of once-thriving Bayocean. (Bayocean Spit, Tillamook County; 1910s, 1920s, 1930s) (For text and pictures, see http://offbeatoregon.com/1611b.bayocean-town-swallowed-by-the-sea-417.html)
On December 6, 1977, a car pulled past the conspicuous “No Trespassing” and “Beware of Dog” signs at the perimeter of Arthur Allen’s oceanside ranch, about ten miles south of Bandon. Three men got out and approached the house.Allen, who had obviously been watching them approach, promptly emerged from the house and ordered them off the property.“We’re from the Bureau of Land Management,” one of them said. “We wanted to talk to you about negotiating to buy an easement across your land so visitors can access BLM property on the New River.”Allen relented and let the men approach the house, where he demanded to see their identification. Two of them promptly whipped out their wallets and showed their badges; the third, whose name was Larry Gano, said he’d left his wallet at home.It was a lucky break for Gano that Allen didn’t push it. Because he wasn’t with the BLM. He was with the United States Customs Service. And he was there because he was pretty sure Allen was running a smuggling operation.Spoiler alert: Oh yes, he was.... (Bandon, Coos County; 1970s) (For text and pictures, see http://offbeatoregon.com/20-07.new-river-drug-bust.html)
They never did see any action against the Japanese spies and commando teams they expected. But the fact that they were on the job may have had something to do with the fact that none ever tried to come ashore. (Coast, 1940s) (For text and pictures, see http://offbeatoregon.com/1503c.sand-pounders-uscg-ww2-330.html)
After the rumrunner ship Pescawah responded to an S.O.S. from a sinking steam schooner, the Coast Guard pounced, arresting the crew and rewarding their heroism with prison sentences. (Offshore, Clatsop County; 1920s) (For text and pictures, see http://offbeatoregon.com/1808c.pescawah-rumrunner-rescuers-509.html)
Tiny Willow Creek became a wall of water, swept away a third of the town and killed 247 people; one out of every 6 Heppner residents died that day. It was the worst non-dam-related flash flood in U.S. history. (Heppner, Morrow County; 1900s) (For text and pictures, see http://offbeatoregon.com/H1004c_HeppnerFlood.html)
Everybody had gold in Jacksonville, and nobody wanted to pack it around, and the bank had no access to outside markets where it could be invested. So, instead of paying interest, they charged a storage fee on all deposits. (Jacksonville, Jackson County; 1850s) (For text and pictures, see http://offbeatoregon.com/1611a.jacksonville-where-bank-robs-you-416.html)
Entrepreneurs figured out how to send power over relatively long distances for the first time in history, established DC service to Portland; later, after a flood wiped out power station, they pioneered alternating-current transmission. (Oregon City, Clackamas County; 1880s) (For text and pictures, see http://offbeatoregon.com/1201a-oregon-city-home-of-worlds-first-power-grid.html)
Lumber magnate Simon Benson needed to get logs from the Columbia to his mill in Southern California, so he designed cigar-shaped log rafts a full acre in size. They were a familiar sight until the early 1940s. (Columbia Slough, Columbia County; 1940s) (For text and pictures, see http://offbeatoregon.com/1202c-benson-log-rafts-built-city-of-san-diego.html)
Wild with grief over the death of one daughter, and convinced he had seduced her other daughter, Caroline Briggs attacked schoolteacher John Dalmater in front of his class, shouting 'Shoot the son of a bitch' -- and her son, who'd accompanied her, did so. (Kerbyville, Josephine County; 1870s) (For text and pictures, see http://offbeatoregon.com/1808b.caroline-and-david-briggs-UL-murder-508.html)
Lit up from stem to stern like a torch, the wooden steam schooner J.Marhoffer slammed into the rocks after its crew pointed it landward and abandoned ship; its rusty boiler is still visible at low tide. (Boiler Bay, Lincoln County; 1910s) (For text and pictures, see http://offbeatoregon.com/H1004b_BoilerBay.html)
Thomas Condon didn’t set out to become a geologist; he was a Congregationalist minister with a hobby of collecting fossils. And although over the years his hobby took over, he never lost touch with his ministerial kindliness. (Oregon Caves, Josephine County; 1880s) (For text and pictures, see http://offbeatoregon.com/1610e.thomas-condon-oregon-caves-415.html)
Bafflingly, the Coast Guard's biggest rescue boat on the Columbia River Bar was one that hadn't been designed to survive a rollover. So, in early 1961, it didn't — and neither did five members of its six-man crew. (Columbia River Bar, Clatsop County; 1960s) (For text and pictures, see http://offbeatoregon.com/1201d-triumph-coast-guard-disaster-2.html)
Mammoth seas on the legendary Columbia River Bar, plus the untimely removal of a vital piece of life-saving gear by short-sighted military brass, cost the lives of five Coast Guardsmen that night. (Columbia River Bar, Clatsop County; 1960s) (For text and pictures, see http://offbeatoregon.com/1201c-triumph-disaster-coast-guard-columbia-bar.html)
The Frishkorn family lived with two boarders, who paid the rent in exchange for board. Then they found out the boarders expected something else, too ... a fight broke out — and was ended by the roar of a double-barreled shotgun. (Manhattan, Clatsop County; 1880s) (For text and pictures, see http://offbeatoregon.com/1807e.girl-defended-her-family-with-a-shotgun-506.html)
The conditions were too rough even for the legendary Coast Guard 36-foot motor lifeboat to make it through the breakers, so a fisherman brought them ashore two by two in his rowboat. (Port Orford, Curry County; 1940s) (For text and pictures, see http://offbeatoregon.com/o1112d-dory-fisherman-rescues-shipwrecked-sailors.html)
For the art students and pop-culture aficionados lined up, the once-in-a-lifetime chance to see and meet the “Peter Pan of Pop Art” turned out to be merely a chance to be the butt of one of his irreverent pranks. (Lane and Yamhill County; 1960s) (For text and pictures, see http://offbeatoregon.com/1610c.andy-warhol-punks-oregon-413.html)
The faraway (from Hollywood) rustic haven provided Golden Age stars a place to get away from the pressure of fame and career, and gave famous writers a peaceful place to get work done. (Wolf Creek, Douglas County; 1920s) (For text and pictures, see http://offbeatoregon.com/H1004aa_WolfCreekTav.html)
Legendary Coast Guard lifesaver took his brand-new rescue boat dangerously close to shore to save four drowning people; hundreds of people were watching and cheering, but USCG brass wanted to bust him for risking the boat. (Newport, Lincoln County; 1950s) (For text and pictures, see http://offbeatoregon.com/1202b-mcadams-legendary-coast-guard-rescuer.html)
For centuries, mysterious chunks of beeswax have been washing up on Oregon beaches. Scholars have finally learned, with about 99 percent certainty, that the ship it's coming from was the San Cristo de Burgos, a Spanish galleon that disappeared in 1693. (Nehalem Spit, Clatsop County; 1690s) (For text and pictures, see http://offbeatoregon.com/1807d.beeswax-wreck-mystery-solved-505.html)
His teachers may not have appreciated Mel Blanc's humor and talents, but Portland radio listeners sure did — and later, so did generations of Bugs Bunny fans. (Portland, Multnomah County; 1920s, 1930s) (For text and pictures, see http://offbeatoregon.com/o1112c-voice-of-looney-toons-mel-blanc.html)
Only after the body was handed over to the undertaker did the truth come out: The roughest, toughest, most skillful “whip” on the West Coast was not what he appeared to be. (Siskiyou Pass, Jackson County; 1850s, 1860s, 1870s) (For text and pictures, see http://offbeatoregon.com/1610b.legendary-one-eyed-charley-412.html)
Once the finest residence in Oregon Territory, the John McLoughlin House also was once one of the most disreputable — so when history buffs set out to save it, they had to overcome some resistance (Oregon City, Clackamas County; 1840s, 1900s) (For text and pictures, see http://offbeatoregon.com/22-09.mcloughlin-house-613.html)
He “married” her to get title to her land claim, but then she found out he had another wife in Dufur, so she moved out. So he killed her and her mother and forged her signature on the land-claim deed. (Hood River, Hood River County; 1900s) (For text and pictures, see http://offbeatoregon.com/1202a-homesteader-murdered-wife-for-her-land.html)
Was the flying saucer photographed over the Trent farm near McMinnville real, or a clever hoax? Either way makes for a great story. (McMinnville, Yamhill County; 1950s) (For text and pictures, see http://offbeatoregon.com/1807c.mcminnville-ufo-sighting-504.html)
A handful of California newspapers started a UFO scare in 1896 with a series of stories of sightings. But were they making it all up? Oregon newspapers sure thought so. (TL;DR: Yes, they were.) (1890s) (For text and pictures, see http://offbeatoregon.com/1807a.oregon-called-bs-on-california-ufo-stories-502.html)
Fourteen thousand years ago, in a cold dry cave deep in the “Oregon Outback,” someone answered a “call of Nature” — leaving behind a hefty load that, today, is the oldest evidence of human habitation on the West Coast. (Fort Rock, Lake County; 1839s, 2000s) (For text and pictures, see http://offbeatoregon.com/1610a.prehistoric-oregon-sandals-coprolites-411.html)
Talking fast and dreaming big, M. Penn Phillips blew into Christmas Valley like a tornado. His dreams never came true, but he left an indelible impression on northern Lake County. (Christmas Valley, Lake County; 1960s) (For text and pictures, see http://offbeatoregon.com/1808a.developer-penn-phillips-christmas-valley-dream-507.html)
Every few years, in the early 1900s, burly and hard-fisted dock workers got into a battle of wills with the autocratic sea-captains who ran the shipping companies. Most of the time, the dock workers got the worst of it. (Portland, Multnomah County; 1900s, 1910s, 1920s) (For text and pictures, see http://offbeatoregon.com/1303e-union-squabbles-on-portland-waterfront.html)
While looking for a crashed plane, aviator Kenneth Arnold saw a squadron of strange shining metallic things flying by Mt. Rainier. His description of them led to the coining of the term 'Flying Saucer' by the local paper. (Pendleton, Umatilla County; 1940s) (For text and pictures, see http://offbeatoregon.com/1807b.flying-saucer-UFO-stories-started-in-pendleton-503.html)
Star performer of the Will Mastin Trio was a regular sight in Portland nightclubs during the late 1940s and early '50s; a telegram from old friend Frank Sinatra took him away to the big time. (Portland, Multnomah County; 1940s) (For text and pictures, see http://offbeatoregon.com/o1111d-sammy-davis-jr-big-break-came-in-portland.html)
There were, so far as we know, no survivors. But when the upside-down hulk drifted ashore, it was 200 miles off course — and there was no sign of the 40-pound keg of gold it had been carrying. What happened? Nobody knows. (Off Peacock Spit, Clatsop County; 1870s) (For text and pictures, see http://offbeatoregon.com/o1112a-missing-gold-makes-mystery-shipwreck-sinister.html)
So, what's the real story of Richard Brumfield? Even today, it’s a remarkably unsatisfying account. There’s plenty of evidence that Brumfield committed the murder — but there’s also a bunch of evidence that makes no sense at all in that context. Why would a murderer mail a box of sexy panties to the exact place he planned to run away to, the day before an apparently premeditated crime? Was “Mrs. Norman Whitney” a real person, and if so, who was she? Did Brumfield have a second family in Calgary? (Roseburg, Douglas County; 1920s) (For text and pictures, see http://offbeatoregon.com/20-06b.brumfield-murdering-dentist-mystery-part2of2.html)
On a warm summer’s evening in 1921, Dr. Richard Brumfield loaded about a dozen sticks of dynamite into his snazzy red convertible and left Roseburg, headed for handyman Dennis Russell’s tiny shack in the hills near Dillard.
Dr. Brumfield had hired Russell to blast out some stumps from around a rural farm property he owned. At least, that’s what he’d told Russell when he hired him.
But, as it turned out, he was lying about that. What Brumfield really wanted to hire Russell for was to impersonate a corpse.
His corpse.... (Roseburg, Douglas County; 1920s) (For text and pictures, see http://offbeatoregon.com/20-06a.brumfield-murdering-dentist-mystery-part1of2.html)
Legendary riverman Uriah Scott had to choose between trying to save his steamboat and trying to save his passengers. He didn't hesitate for a second. (Columbia River, Clatsop County; 1880s) (For text and pictures, see http://offbeatoregon.com/o1111a-heroic-captain-saved-hundreds-from-fiery-death.html)
Captains are supposed to be the last to leave their sinking ships, not the first. But that required act of valor has always been easier said than done — as evidenced by the story of the 1903 wreck of the S.S. South Portland off Cape Blanco. (Off Cape Blanco, Coos and Curry County; 1900s) (For text and pictures, see http://offbeatoregon.com/1203a-steamer-captain-named-poultroon-of-the-sea.html)
Well-meaning church congregations banded together to offer 'wayward girls and fallen women' a place to get away from their profession — but it turned out most of them didn't particularly want to leave it; not yet, at least. (Portland, Multnomah County; 1890s) (For text and pictures, see http://offbeatoregon.com/1303a-open-door-for-wayward-girls-and-fallen-women.html)
Russell Hecker borrowed a friend’s car to make a quick liquor run. He brought it back 12 hours late and covered with blood — and there was no sign of the man he’d gone on the run with the previous night. (Multnomah, Clackamas, and Linn County; 1920s) (For text and pictures, see http://offbeatoregon.com/1610d.murder-of-bootlegger-frank-bowker-414.html)
Crafty county commissioners tried to rig the bidding so their favorite bid, padded to the tune of half a million 1924 dollars, would win — but they didn't move quite fast enough. Three months later, they'd all been thrown out of office. (Portland, Multnomah County; 1920s) (For text and pictures, see http://offbeatoregon.com/1303d-bridge-scandal-aroused-fury-of-1920s-portland.html)
One-term governor had a team of secret agents working for him, trying to subvert labor unions and ferret out communists; but most of their efforts seemed to end up scoring points for the “other team.” (Salem, Marion County; 1930s) (For text and pictures, see http://offbeatoregon.com/1601a.charles-martin-part3.272.html)
The retired major general campaigned as a New Deal Democrat, but dropped the mask almost immediately; seeing every hint of opposition as an existential threat to democracy, he reacted to criticism like a junta dictator. (Salem, Marion County; 1930s) (For text and pictures, see http://offbeatoregon.com/1512d.charles-martin-part2.html)
During the First World War, Martin was the central figure in one of the most shameful acts in U.S. history: the deliberate, systematic breaking of the spirits of black combat veterans to put them back “in their place.” (Portland, Multnomah County; 1890s, 1900s, 1910s) (For text and pictures, see http://offbeatoregon.com/1512c.charles-martin-fascist-dictator-part1-370.html)
Although he had done it, Return Everman stoutly denied having burgled Cyrenius Hooker’s home. Hooker just as firmly accused him of the deed, and wouldn’t stop talking about it. So Everman decided it would be best if he just went ahead and murdered him. “I would rather the news get home that I had killed a man for trying to injure my character, than for news to go home that I had stolen a watch,” he wrote later. (Dallas, Polk County; 1850s) (For text and pictures, see http://offbeatoregon.com/22-08.cyrenius-hooker-murder-612.html)
Calm seas, a hard-working crew and a cool-headed skipper helped the steamship Congress and everyone on board survive a terrifying night after a fire broke out in the cargo hold and spread throughout the ship. (Marshfield-North Bend, Coos County; 1910s) (For text and pictures, see http://offbeatoregon.com/1303c-steamer-congress-won-race-against-fiery-death.html)
A defeat in the Oregon primary, for candidate John F. Kennedy, would have sent the message that his Catholic faith was a deal-killer; a win would signify that it was not. The task of sending that signal fell to Oregon voters. (1950s, 1960s) (For text and pictures, see http://offbeatoregon.com/1806d.oregon-was-JFKs-make-or-break-election-501.html)
Lebanon man lived a quiet, respectable life after the Civil War, but back in his youth he was a member of Olney's Detachment of the Oregon Cavalry — a Union Army outfit nicknamed “Olney's Forty Thieves.” (Lebanon, Linn County; 1860s, 1950s) (For text and pictures, see http://offbeatoregon.com/o1111c-black-sheep-of-union-army-last-oregon-vet.html)
Printer George Himes saw the historical value of the everyday things around him, and although that made for some very unsuccessful publishing ventures, his collection is the heart of the Oregon Historical Society's archives today. (Portland, Multnomah County; 1890s) (For text and pictures, see http://offbeatoregon.com/1512b.george-himes-history-hoarder.html)
At a time when anarchist terrorists had Americans good and scared, a rumor got started that a cell of Polish radicals based in the White Eagle Tavern was planning to assassinate President Roosevelt ... luckily, one of the local newspaper reporters spoke Polish. (Portland, Multnomah County; 1900s) (For text and pictures, see http://offbeatoregon.com/1806b.white-eagle-anarchists-499.html)
State health officials scoffed at the idea of hydrophobia in Oregon — until people started dying. It was the start of a decade of attacks by mad coyotes, when folks carried shotguns everywhere and nature seemed to be in open revolt. (1910s) (For text and pictures, see http://offbeatoregon.com/1303b-rabies-epidemic-eastern-oregon-mad-coyotes.html)
Abigail Scott Duniway is remembered today as a journalist, a suffragist, and an intellectual powerhouse ... all of which would have surprised her: She expected to be remembered for the novels that, today, very few people realize she wrote. (Portland, Multnomah County; 1870s) (For text and pictures, see http://offbeatoregon.com/1806c.abigail-scott-duniway-noveliste-500.html)
Legendary engineer's genius was in making gorgeous architecture cost-effective; his spectacular bridges on the Oregon Coast highway are nearly tourist attractions in their own right (1920s, 1930s, 1940s) (For text and pictures, see http://offbeatoregon.com/o1111b-legendary-bridge-designer-conde-mccullough.html)
Passengers on the speeding liner said an incompetent crew and disappearing ship's officers contributed to a shocking death toll after the liner Alaska crashed onto the rocks in the fog; the captain blamed an “uncharted current.” (Portland, Multnomah County; 1920s) (For text and pictures, see http://offbeatoregon.com/1512a.alaska-shipwreck-368.html)
By 1899, when Samuel L. Simpson’s drinking problem finally got around to killing him, he was essentially Oregon’s poet laureate — the Stewart Holbrook of the 1800s.
But thirty years earlier, he was just another fresh-faced lawyer, just out of Willamette University’s law school. He’d moved to Portland to open his practice, and now he was sitting at his desk in his brand-new office in Portland, sipping a glass of rye and waiting for his first client to walk in the door.
Finally the door did open, and somebody stepped inside.... (Siskiyou Mountains, Josephine County; 1860s) (For text and pictures, see http://offbeatoregon.com/20-05.sam-simpson-lost-cabin-gold.html)
The “lost cabin gold mine” is a certifiable Western trope. If every ounce of legendary gold buried in an old log cabin became real and hit the banks at the same time, it would probably crash the international markets.
They make for fantastic stories, though. And often the gold isn’t the only thing being hidden. Plus, of course, the fact that they might — just might — be real adds a distinctive spice to them.
One of the most interesting and colorful Lost Cabin Gold Mine stories is the one that supposedly took place in the hills south of Jacksonville in 1853. In this case, it’s not a mine that’s been lost — it’s a vault: a small stone-lined crypt stuffed with millions of dollars’ worth of freshly dug gold, and guarded by whatever remains of the skeletons of two long-dead men. (Siskiyou Mountains, Josephine County; 1850s) (For text and pictures, see http://offbeatoregon.com/20-05.sam-simpson-lost-cabin-gold.html)
A cascade of bad decisions by nearly everyone involved resulted in the worst possible outcome: 23 mariners slowly dying in the surf as friends and family members watched from the beach. (Coos Bay Spit, Coos County; 1910s) (For text and pictures, see http://offbeatoregon.com/1302d-czarina-shipwreck-tragic-concert-of-incompetence.html)
Oregon's official state university got off to a rocky start, in part because in 1859 Judge Matthew Deady thought it was a bad idea to have one ... (Eugene, Lane County; 1870s) (For text and pictures, see http://offbeatoregon.com/1805d.matthew-deady-opposed-university.html)
Holed up on a nearby hillside clutching a stolen shotgun, local drunken rowdy Charlie Earhart held the whole town at bay until dawn, when he finally gave himself up; surprisingly, no one was killed. (Ione, Morrow County; 1900s) (For text and pictures, see http://offbeatoregon.com/1511d.ione-all-night-gunfight-366.html)
The miners believed Berry Way had murdered a man while robbing him. So they kidnapped the sheriff so he couldn't interfere, then empaneled their own DIY court of law, with the stated purpose of finding him guilty ... which, of course, they did. (Canyon City, Grant County; 1860s) (For text and pictures, see http://offbeatoregon.com/1806a.berry-way-perry-mason-paint-your-wagon-498.html)
Feeling lucky to be alive, the soldiers and sailors of the shipwrecked schooner Captain Lincoln got busy salvaging everything off their stranded ship. But then the Army had a problem: How were they going to retrieve it? (Coos Bay Spit, Coos County; 1850s) (For text and pictures, see http://offbeatoregon.com/1302c-shipwreck-camp-castaway-inconvenient-miracle.html)
Buying the connecting boat put a competitor out of business ... but left him free to use his boat to eat their lunch on an even more lucrative steamboat route. (Cascade Locks, Multnomah County; 1880s) (For text and pictures, see http://offbeatoregon.com/o1110e-steamboat-monopoly-clever-coup-cost-them-plenty.html)
He came to the steamboat companies asking for a job, and they laughed him off. So he built his own boat on a shoestring budget — then used it to eat their lunch on the upper Willamette run. (Oregon City, Clackamas County; 1870s) (For text and pictures, see http://offbeatoregon.com/o1110d-uriah-scott-ugly-steamboat-eats-monopolys-lunch.html)
By the 1990s, support for keeping Monmouth's ban on booze wasn't about morality; it was about the cachet that came with being the only “dry” town west of the Mississippi. But that wasn't enough to overcome the economic issues. (Monmouth, Polk County; 1850s-2000s) (For text and pictures, see http://offbeatoregon.com/1511c.thirsty-monmouth-last-prohibition-town.html)
DURING THE FIRST year of the Second World War, the conflict in the Pacific was all about aircraft carriers. With a carrier, one could take the fight to the enemy. Without one, one could only huddle on an island as a passive target, waiting for an enemy carrier’s aircraft to arrive and attack.
When the war broke out, the U.S. had seven of these precious warships, but only three were in the Pacific. They were the actual targets of the attack on Pearl Harbor — the Japanese knew if they could get them out of the way, they’d have a free hand for at least a year. It had taken an average of more than three years to build a regular full-size aircraft carrier before the war. Mobilization would cut that timeframe to under a year, but that was still a long wait.
The Japanese almost had a free hand for that year anyway. Much of their equipment was just more advanced in 1942, especially airplanes. By the end of that year the U.S. was down to one carrier. Both sides were hurriedly converting existing ships to bolster their fleets, but it certainly looked, from far away, as if the U.S. was not too far from ending up in that helpless position that the Japanese had hoped to put it in with the Pearl Harbor attack. Carriers were rare, complicated ships, hard and time-consuming to build. Japan had lost four of their best ones at Midway, but they still had at least six left.
And that’s about the point at which Henry Kaiser decided to go into the aircraft-carrier business. (Vanport, Multnomah County; 1940s) (For text and pictures, see http://offbeatoregon.com/22-07.kaiser-aircraft-carriers-611.html)
Danford Balch got drunk and shotgunned his new son-in-law on the deck of the Stark Street Ferry. His diary and official records tell part of the story. But the real questions can only be guessed at — and some of the guesses are sinister indeed. (Portland, Multnomah County; 1850s) (For text and pictures, see http://offbeatoregon.com/1302b-balch-murders-stump-on-stark-street-ferry.html)
All she wanted to do was not help finance the killing. But in the war-crazed atmosphere of Portland during World War 1, pacifism was high treason. (Portland, Multnomah County; 1910s) (For text and pictures, see http://offbeatoregon.com/1805c.traitor-louise-hunt-wouldnt-buy-war-bonds-496.html)
Ame died in 1874, more than 10 years after President Abraham Lincoln set her free. So, why does her gravestone still identify 'Ame' as a slave? (Corvallis, Benton County; 1870s) (For text and pictures, see http://offbeatoregon.com/o1110c-civil-war-didnt-end-slavery-for-oregon-woman-named-ame.html)
Western gambler and white-hat con man Deadwood Dick was the hero of dozens of dime novels in the late 1800s. But his New York author didn't really know much about the West ... and it showed! (New York City) (For text and pictures, see http://offbeatoregon.com/1805a.deadwood-dicks-danger-ducks-494.html)
Abusive husband Nathaniel Lamb probably didn't really plan to kill his wife, but when he aimed his rifle at her that morning, he clearly wanted her to think he did. That night, over supper, he learned the hard way how successful he'd been. (Oregon City, Clackamas County; 1850s) (For text and pictures, see http://offbeatoregon.com/1511e.charity-lamb-murder-367.html)
It's an event remembered with some shame in Oregon: A group of innocent, terrified men and women found themselves at the mercy of an angry mob, pawns in a power struggle between a mill owner and a group of townspeople. (Toledo, Lincoln County; 1920s) (For text and pictures, see http://offbeatoregon.com/1302a-toledo-riot-mixed-racism-and-labor-unrest.html)
HAINES, HARNEY COUNTY, 1902 — Murderer Pleasant Armstrong said he had no idea what came over him. But a strange woman claimed, in court, that he was the victim of a family of murdering hypnotists. (For text and pictures, see http://offbeatoregon.com/1805b.pleasant-armstrong-murder-495.html)
A true old Oregon character, Captain Jemmy Jones seemed to bear a charmed life. He survived five shipwrecks and was jailed several times. In 1865 he built the world's first steam schooner, then used it to run from the law. (Columbia River Bar, Clatsop County; 1860s, 1870s, 1880s) (For text and pictures, see http://offbeatoregon.com/o1110b-jemmy-jones-rascally-skipper-invented-steam-schooner.html)
In contrast to the bloodshed and madness that accompanied other attempts to form a more perfect society, the Aurora Colony lived graciously and ended gracefully. Today, it's remembered proudly and fondly by almost everyone. (Aurora, Marion County; 1850s, 1860s, 1870s) (For text and pictures, see http://offbeatoregon.com/o1110a-aurora-colony-best-of-american-utopian-movement.html)
The famous First World War aircraft were made of spruce, and one of the most important sources of the strategic wood for the Allies was the northern Oregon coast. (1910s) (For text and pictures, see http://offbeatoregon.com/1301c-great-war-planes-made-of-oregon-spruce.html)
Industrial Workers of the World union grew strong in the woods just before the First World War broke out — and the U.S. Army had to teach soldiers to cut timber to get the industry moving again. (1900s, 1910s) (For text and pictures, see http://offbeatoregon.com/1301d-wobblies-come-to-oregon-timber.html)
Tillamook Rock gets the worst weather in the state — weather that drives waves that sometimes break over the top of the lighthouse. When they do, they sometimes carry with them boulders torn off the basalt bluff below. (Tillamook Rock, Tillamook County; 1930s) (For text and pictures, see http://offbeatoregon.com/1511b.storms-on-tillamook-rock-364.html)
Locals familiar with Tillamook Rock would have nothing to do with the project, so the government had to hire suckers from distant cities to fill crews; rumor has it some were even supplied by shanghaiers. (Tillamook Rock, Tillamook County; 1870s) (For text and pictures, see http://offbeatoregon.com/1511a.building-tillamook-rock-363.html)
Somewhere in the inky blackness of his little room, a mile away from shore, James Gibbs awoke to hear stealthy footsteps, getting closer and closer. And then something brushed his throat ... (Tillamook Rock, Tillamook County; 1940s) (For text and pictures, see http://offbeatoregon.com/1510d.tillamook-rock-ghost-goose-362.html)
Off Yaquina Bay, the lumber schooner Frank W. Howe suddenly filled with water. Luckily, the cargo of railroad ties kept her afloat -- for a week-long ordeal through hurricane winds to safety on a Washington beach. (North Oregon Coast, 1900s) (For text and pictures, see http://offbeatoregon.com/1804d.frank-w-howe-lumber-schooner-shipwreck-492.html)
Corvallis/Toledo railroad tycoon T. Edgenton Hogg (pronounced “Hoag”) was always a little reticent about his past. Especially the Civil War part.
To some extent, that was understandable. “Colonel” Hogg had fought with the Confederacy in the Civil War. His side had lost, so, sure — better not to talk about it, right?
Nevertheless, the real story is so much more bonkers than that, that one wonders why the rumor-passers even bothered with making things up.
His story was unearthed somewhat painstakingly by historian Clark, a faculty member at Central Oregon College (now Central Oregon Community College) in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Clark compares the whole thing to a rip-roaring B-movie Western, and he is not even slightly wrong about that. (Toledo, Lincoln County; 1860s) (For text and pictures, see http://offbeatoregon.com/20-04.colonel-hogg-war-record-robbery-on-the-high-seas.html)
Robert Gordon Duncan was the first radio broadcaster ever to be sent to prison for cursing on the air. For the first six months of 1930, the entire city was riveted to his radio show, wondering who he'd slander next. (Portland, Multnomah County; 1930s) (For text and pictures, see http://offbeatoregon.com/1301b-oregon-wildcat-was-early-shock-jock.html)
The nearest TV station was in Seattle. But Ed Parsons figured out he could catch a very weak signal on top of a building in town. All he had to do was figure out how to boost the signal without boosting the noise as well, and ... the rest was history. (Astoria, Clatsop County; 1940s) (For text and pictures, see http://offbeatoregon.com/o1109c-astoria-man-invents-cable-tv-as-favor-for-wife.html)
The farmer was a former Union general; the pastor, an ex-Rebel soldier who once faced his forces on a battlefield. But in Corvallis, they traded enmity for friendship, and blue-vs.-gray for Beavers-vs.-Ducks. (Corvallis, Benton County; 1890s) (For text and pictures, see http://offbeatoregon.com/1510b.bell-thorp-civil-war-story.360.html)
Alfred Belding targeted his wife's family with murderous rampage, shot at his young son, and tried to claim “temporary insanity.” It didn't work ... and neither did his crackpot plan for a prison break. (Portland, Multnomah County; 1900s) (For text and pictures, see http://offbeatoregon.com/1804e.UL-alfred-belding-murderer-493.html)
Oregon's only national park is a surprisingly dangerous place, and a number of people have died there. Several of these left only bones behind to help us understand what caused their death. (Crater Lake, Klamath County; 1940s, 1970s, 1980s) (For text and pictures, see http://offbeatoregon.com/1309e-skeletons-of-crater-lake.html)
The police wouldn't return her call, and she knew the thieves would be gone by morning. So Mrs. Whitlock picked up the phone and woke up the District Attorney. And it turned out theft wasn't the only crime Jack Wade and William Dalton were guilty of ... (Portland, Multnomah County; 1900s) (For text and pictures, see http://offbeatoregon.com/1804c.dalton-wade-murderers-ratted-out-by-snoopy-landlady-491.html)
Taken to Ocean Park after being nearly killed in the wreck of the Glenmorag, William Begg was nursed back to health by Maude Taylor - who turned out to be the love of his life. (Columbia River Bar, Clatsop County; 1890s) (For text and pictures, see http://offbeatoregon.com/1804b.william-begg-lucky-shipwreck-glenmorag-490.html)
R. Thomas Dickerson, after gunning down the chief witness in his wife's upcoming suit for divorce, clearly expected the jury to buy his claim that the man was a “home-wrecker” and deserved what he got. He miscalculated. (Portland, Multnomah County; 1900s) (For text and pictures, see http://offbeatoregon.com/1510a.dickerson-UnLaw.html)
On the evening of March 23, 1964, Seaside resident Margaret Gammon hadn’t been asleep more than an hour or two when she was awakened by howling.
It was the community fire siren, blaring at full blast without stopping. She looked at the clock. It was 11:30 p.m.
“I lay in bed thinking to myself, ‘Why doesn’t that fellow at the fire station get his big thumb off the siren button so we can all go back to sleep, and let the firemen take care of the fire?’” she recalled later, in an article for Oregon Historical Quarterly. “In just a few seconds the cars started zipping up our street toward the highway like the devil himself was on their tail. I thought it must be a tremendous fire, so I figured I’d get dressed and go watch it.”
It didn’t take long for Gammon to learn that it wasn’t a fire. It was a tsunami — and it was almost upon her. (Oregon Coast; 1960s) (For text and pictures, see http://offbeatoregon.com/22-06.tsunami-1964-610.html)
One of America's first known serial killers, Earle Leonard Nelson preyed on landladies, killing them while they were showing him real estate. By the time he was hanged, he'd slain at least 21 women — including four in Portland. (Portland, Multnomah County; 1920s) (For text and pictures, see http://offbeatoregon.com/1309d-dark-strangler-earle-nelson.html)
“Professor” Ray V.B. Jackson just happened to be on hand, playing the role of helpful witness, at almost every high-profile murder scene in Lake and Harney counties. What were the odds? (Silver Lake, Lake County; 1890s, 1900s, 1910s) (For text and pictures, see http://offbeatoregon.com/o1109b-ray-jackson-central-oregons-angel-of-death.html)
It's hard to believe, but in 1902 the school district put a convicted felon, fresh from serving hard time at the state pen, in charge of its grade-school kids. But the forgery and robbery he was convicted of may have been the least of his crimes. (Silver Lake, Lake County; 1890s) (For text and pictures, see http://offbeatoregon.com/o1109a-silver-lake-schoolteacher-possible-serial-killer.html)
A Linn County case with a strong element of self-defense, and a Malheur County child-abuse travesty that ended with a shotgun blast, were called Unwritten Law triumphs in the newspapers — but there were differences. (Linn and Malheur County; 1900s) (For text and pictures, see http://offbeatoregon.com/1509d.powell-n-brown-UnLaw.html)
Of the 32 towns in Oregon offered a grant to build a library, not one failed to raise its matching money; no other state was as successful. (For text and pictures, see http://offbeatoregon.com/o1109d-carnegie-libraries-in-oregon.html)
Despite the best efforts of an overzealous federal marshal, the whole episode ended in nothing more than a stern lecture from the bench for 424 unemployed members of “Coxey's Army,” who tried to “borrow” an eastbound train. (Portland, Multnomah County; 1890s) (For text and pictures, see http://offbeatoregon.com/1309b-coxeys-armys-march-on-washington.html)
From 1901 until the First World War, Mayor George Baker's theater was the great shaper and driver of Portland's unique culture. (Portland, Multnomah County; 1910s) (For text and pictures, see http://offbeatoregon.com/1803d.baker-stock-theater-in-portland-488.html)
The “good guy” was a petty swindler. The “wronged woman” was a prostitute and bigamist. And the “innocent victim” was a serial philanderer. By the time the “bad guy” was caught, Portland just wanted to forget the whole thing. (Portland, Multnomah County; 1900s) (For text and pictures, see http://offbeatoregon.com/1509c.bradley-gittings-part2-UnLaw-357.html)
What started out looking like a clean-cut morality play, with a hero, a villain, an innocent victim and a bereaved widow, quickly turned into a tale of remarkable sordidness as the truth slowly emerged. (Portland, Multnomah County; 1900s) (For text and pictures, see http://offbeatoregon.com/1509b.bradley-gittings-part1-UnLaw-356.html)
Dead in the water and drifting toward Peacock Spit in a gale, passengers and crew of the steam schooner Washington thought they were goners. But then out of the mist and spray came Buck Bailey's tugboat ... (Columbia River Bar, Clatsop County; 1910s) (For text and pictures, see http://offbeatoregon.com/1510c.tatoosh-rescues-steam-schooner.361.html)
Fourth-grader Dorothy Anne Hobson decided her tiny timber town needed a newspaper, so she launched the Valsetz Star. Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt, Herbert Hoover and Shirley Temple were among her subscribers. (Valsetz, Polk County; 1930s) (For text and pictures, see http://offbeatoregon.com/1309a-valsetz-star-and-dorothy-hobson.html)
Portlanders tolerated three years of strident calls for revolution and regime change, but when The Firebrand started saying mean things about marriage, the gloves were off. (Portland, Multnomah County; 1890s) (For text and pictures, see http://offbeatoregon.com/1803c.firebrand-newspaper-shut-down-for-smut-487.html)
After injuries to her knee, ankle and heart, she needed to get away from show business and from an ex-boyfriend. So she retreated to the high desert near Brothers, and became a homesteader ... and, of course, looked fabulous doing it. (Brothers, Deschutes County; 1910s) (For text and pictures, see http://offbeatoregon.com/o1108b-vaudeville-legend-klondike-kate-bends-most-colorful-homesteader.html)
John Bowlsby stalked his wife's paramour from North Bend to Portland, a heavy .44 revolver in his pocket. He caught up with him on a steamboat in Astoria, stealthily shot him from the shadows, and a few months later walked free. (Astoria, Clatsop County; 1900s) (For text and pictures, see http://offbeatoregon.com/1509a.bowlsby-jennings-UnLaw-355.html)
Imagine you're a gold prospector from the Willamette Valley, on your way to the California gold fields in the first year of the 1848 gold rush.
You’re a little late to the party, and you’ve chosen to try to reach the gold fields in a somewhat unusual way: By going over the Coast Range to the beach, and traveling south along the coast.
As you make your way southward by the great ocean, you reach a broad expanse of black sand. And when the sun hits it just right, you can see it’s actually glittering … with tiny flakes and grains of gold.
You’re all alone on the beach. There aren’t even any other footprints. Apparently nobody else was crazy enough to try to travel to the gold fields via Coos Bay. Everyone else in the area, such as there are, has decamped inland to the gold fields.
It’s just you, on the uninhabited edge of a continent, crunching a trillion dollars’ worth of gold under your feet. (Randolph, Coos County; 1840s, 1850s) (For text and pictures, see http://offbeatoregon.com/22-05.gold-on-the-beach-609.html)
These three desperados couldn't seem to catch a break. First they robbed the wrong train; then it turned out to contain a dangerously competent lawman behind a big six-shooter; and finally, someone stole their getaway car. (Meacham, Umatilla County; 1910s) (For text and pictures, see http://offbeatoregon.com/1309c-meadors-gang-train-robbery.html)
Ask anyone to name a mythical Oregon creature, and you’ll get a very predictable answer: Bigfoot, a.k.a. Sasquatch.
The stories and legends of Bigfoot, the Pacific Northwest’s reigning “hide-and-seek champion,” are vast and growing every year. Just a list of them, from 1945 to present, would be longer than this article.
But Bigfoot is neither the only Oregon cryptid, nor the most plausible. There are others.
And chief among those others is the Columbia Bar Sea Serpent. (Columbia River Bar, Clatsop County; 1930s) (For text and pictures, see http://offbeatoregon.com/20-02.columbia-river-bar-sea-serpent-colossal-claude.html)
The engines that went into these old-school boats were slow, heavy, primitive, and built in one of several factories in San Francisco. In fact, until the mid-1930s San Francisco Bay was the Detroit of the marine-engine industry; the Union Gas Engine Company, est. 1885, was one of the very first manufacturers of gasoline engines of any kind in the U.S. (Astoria, Clatsop County; 1880-1920) (For text and pictures, see http://offbeatoregon.com/1912d.west-coast-fishboat-engines.html)
Convinced his only neighbor was out to get him, solitary trapper and paranoid former prospector “Crazy Hugo” ambushed him with a rifle; the state prison became his retirement home. (Near Agness, Josephine County; 1930s) (For text and pictures, see http://offbeatoregon.com/o1105b-crazy-hugo-hermit-of-craggies.html)
They found the grizzled prospector’s body slumped over a sample of ore on the floor of the rude log cabin he’d been staying in, deep in the wilderness of southern Oregon, late in the spring of 1897. He’d apparently dropped dead one evening while assaying out the samples he’d gathered that day – probably poisoned by some of the chemicals he was using.
But this wasn’t just any random gold prospector. This badly decomposed body was all that was mortal of the most famous prospector of the American West ‑ and certainly one of the richest and most successful: Ed Schieffelin, the man who discovered and named the Tombstone mine in Arizona.
And by the time Ed’s body was securely buried under a tall miner’s cairn near Tombstone, the hills near that cabin were already alive with eager prospectors following up on the “lost gold mine” legends that sprang up following his death. At least one of those legends is still bringing hopeful prospectors out into the hills of Southern Oregon today.... (Near Jacksonville, Jackson County; 1860s) (For text and pictures, see http://offbeatoregon.com/20-03.ed-schieffelin-prospector-lost-gold-tales.html)
The little logging-company town, owned by the Shevlin-Hixon Company of Bend, was fully portable. When the timber was all gone from an area, the company simply loaded the houses on railroad flatcars and moved on. (Shevlin, Deschutes and Lake county; 1920s, 1930s, 1940s) (For text and pictures, see http://offbeatoregon.com/1308d-shevlin-oregons-wandering-timber-town.html)
A startup newspaper in Albany was determined to see Mattie Allison hanged, one way or another; and the townspeople were mostly convinced. But when her court case got started, the real story came out ... (Albany, Linn County; 1880s) (For text and pictures, see http://offbeatoregon.com/1803b.campbell-the-stalker-murdered-in-albany.486.html)
When the treacherous bar claimed a fully-loaded whaling ship, the idea was abandoned. (Astoria, Clatsop County; 1850s) (For text and pictures, see http://offbeatoregon.com/o1108a1-shipwreck-ends-astorias-bid-to-be-nantucket-of-west-coast.html)
Orlando Murray's trial had something for everyone: Sex, revenge, vigilante action, a Fallen Woman, drunkenness, hysteria, the insane asylum, and even lawyers getting in fistfights. (Unwritten Law Files, Case #1) (Portland, Multnomah County; 1900s) (For text and pictures, see http://offbeatoregon.com/1508e.orlando-murray-UnLaw-354.html)
Claude Branton and Courtland Green had left Condon with a wealthy rancher and murdered him on the way. Only then did they realize how bad it would look to show up at their destination without him ... (McKenzie Valley, Deschutes and Lane County) (For text and pictures, see http://offbeatoregon.com/1804a.branton-green-murder-john-linn-489.html)
Lulu Reynolds was having a torrid affair with her music teacher. Her husband was an ex-Cavalry scout who carried a .38 in his jacket pocket. It wasn't the kind of thing that usually ends well. And, well, it didn't. (Portland, Multnomah County; 1900s) (For text and pictures, see http://offbeatoregon.com/1308c-reynolds-love-triangle-kissing-the-corpse.html)
Charles Fiester lay there on his cot, eyes open, staring at nothing, pretending to be catatonic, for 515 days ... knowing that when his ruse was discovered, he'd be hanged. (Kerby, Josephine County; 1890s) (For text and pictures, see http://offbeatoregon.com/1803a.fiester-murderer-faked-insanity-515-days-485.html)
Few people know a small whaling venture was launched in Astoria in 1961 — seeking whale oil for the space program and whale meat to feed to hungry minks. (Hammond, Clatsop County; 1960s) (For text and pictures, see http://offbeatoregon.com/o1108a2-astoria-whaling-operation-was-helping-with-space-program.html)
For a couple decades around the turn of the last century, if a murderer could convince a jury that his victim had been a “home-wrecker,” he could expect to be not only acquitted, but lionized as a brave and noble domestic hero. (Statewide; 1890s, 1900s) (For text and pictures, see http://offbeatoregon.com/1508d.unwritten-law-353.html)
The four-masted schooner North Bend, the last sailing ship ever built in Oregon, was stranded on Peacock Spit; it worked its way through and, a little over a year later, launched itself in Baker Bay on the other side. (Columbia River Bar, Clatsop County; 1920s) (For text and pictures, see http://offbeatoregon.com/o1108d-last-sailing-ship-crossed-a-beach-relaunched.html)
In a country divided between slave states and free states just before the Civil War, Oregon was the only example of a third alternative: it was neither. (Statewide; 1850s) (For text and pictures, see http://offbeatoregon.com/1308b-exclusion-law-marred-early-oregon-history.html)
Native Americans told Coronado there was a fabulous gold-and-turquoise city called Quivira just to the east -- or was it the north? All he found were Indian villages. But, was there a real city behind the legend? More specifically, was that city near Port Orford? (Near Floras Lake, Curry County; 1500s) (For text and pictures, see http://offbeatoregon.com/1802d.legendary-city-of-quivira-on-oregon-coast-484.html)
Legendary governor, a staunch prohibitionist, had to buy a round for the house when he dropped by the town marshal's saloon in the now-ghost town of Harney; a few years later, he pardoned the marshal, who'd been busted for gunfighting. (Harney City, Harney County; 1910s) (For text and pictures, see http://offbeatoregon.com/o1107e-drinks-on-prohibitionist-governor-west-in-town-marshals-saloon.html)
When a sailing ship found itself in trouble in the legendary “graveyard of ships,” often there was nothing left to do but count the bodies. But every now and then, a vessel would slip out of the icy grip of the bar to sail on. Here are a few such stories. (Columbia River Bar, Clatsop County; 1870s, 1880s, 1900s) (For text and pictures, see http://offbeatoregon.com/1508c.escape-from-columbia-bar-352.html)
Every youth orchestra in America can trace its ancestry back to the tiny, dusty town of Burns in Eastern Oregon, and to one gifted, visionary violin teacher named Mary Dodge, founder of the Sagebrush Symphony. (Burns, Harney County; 1910s) (For text and pictures, see http://offbeatoregon.com/o1108c-sagebrush-symphony-first-youth-orchestra-in-us.html)
Oregon went 'dry' in 1914, so by the time the Volstead Act passed in 1919, Beaver State bootleggers were already seasoned professionals. So when the rest of the West Coast needed them, Oregon's 'midnight entrepreneurs' were ready to roll. (Statewide; 1920s) (For text and pictures, see http://offbeatoregon.com/1308a-rumrunners-moonshiners-and-speakeasies.html)
It was obvious to nearly everyone that Chee Gong was innocent. But one of his tong brothers had murdered Lee Yik and disappeared, and blood had to answer for blood. (Portland, Multnomah County; 1880s) (For text and pictures, see http://offbeatoregon.com/1802c.tong-war-in-portland-averted-with-hanging-483.html)
Jean-Baptiste “Pomp” Charbonneau, the baby born to Sacagawea during the Lewis and Clark expedition, is one of the most important figures in Oregon history — but we know almost nothing of his life. (Clatsop and Harney County; 1800s, 1860s) (For text and pictures, see http://offbeatoregon.com/o1107d-life-of-sacagaweas-mountain-man-son-charbonneau-tantalizing-mystery.html)
Many people today don't realize that in the 1950s, pinball had a bad reputation as a gambler's game and was as illegal as one-armed bandits. In Portland, shady underworld characters supplied Oregonians with plenty of both. (Multnomah and Clackamas county; 1940s, 1950s) (For text and pictures, see http://offbeatoregon.com/1307d-pinball-wars-elkins-vs-teamsters.html)
During the go-go years of the uranium-mining rush of the early 1950s, the character of the uranium prospector became iconic. He was basically the gold-seeking “miner 49er” updated for the atomic age: in lieu of a mule, he rode an Army-surplus Jeep; in place of pick and gold pan, he carried a Geiger counter and ultraviolet flashlight.
So it’s ironic but maybe not surprising that Oregon’s biggest uranium strike was made by an everyday rockhound - a guy who didn’t even own a Geiger counter. (Lakeview, Lake County; 1950s) (For text and pictures, see http://offbeatoregon.com/22-04.white-king-lucky-lass-uranium-mines-608.html)
As the Cold War spun up, federal government guarantees sent thousands of Geiger Counter-packing prospectors in Army surplus Jeeps scrambling across Oregon's Outback, hoping to make their fortunes mining “A-metal.” (Eastern Oregon; 1950s) (For text and pictures, see http://offbeatoregon.com/1507c.uranium-mining-gold-rush-348.html)
When the Oregon National Guard was called up, Oregonians felt vulnerable to Japanese invasion. So they loaded their rifles and possed up ready to give 'em hell! (Tillamook County; 1940s) (For text and pictures, see http://offbeatoregon.com/1802b.tillamook-guerillas-ready-to-fight-off-invasion-482.html)
The captain's desperate haste to get out to sea, combined with a terrible decision to cross the bar on the ebb, resulted in disaster — and the ship's stranded armaments resulted in a name for the town of Cannon Beach. (Columbia River Bar, Clatsop County; 1840s) (For text and pictures, see http://offbeatoregon.com/1508a.shark-shipwreck-part2.html)
As sailors melted away to take advantage of the opportunities in the new Oregon country, their captain sweated bullets; they could not be replaced. But his haste to get back out to sea while he still could set the stage for disaster. (Columbia River Bar, Clatsop County; 1840s) (For text and pictures, see http://offbeatoregon.com/1507d.shark-shipwreck-part1.html)
Troutdale Airfield is just 10 miles from Portland International — and built to serve Cessnas, not 747s. But one dark night in 1962, a DC-8 pilot got a little confused .... (Troutdale, Multnomah County; 1960s) (For text and pictures, see http://offbeatoregon.com/1802a.massive-jet-lands-at-tiny-country-airport-by-mistake-481.html)
When the steamboat Gazelle reached the dock, the man in charge of its steam boilers leaped ashore and ran like a man being chased by demons. A few seconds later, the Gazelle exploded, killing 20 people. (Canemah, Clackamas County; 1850s) (For text and pictures, see http://offbeatoregon.com/1307c-boiler-explosions-in-willamette-steamboats.html)
It's nearly certain that Drake was guilty only of extreme naivete — and his landlord, after murdering a neighbor, knew he could pin the crime on him because Drake was black. (Salem, Marion County; 1880s) (For text and pictures, see http://offbeatoregon.com/1801d.joseph-drake-murderer-or-innocent-patsy-480.html)
When the packed community center caught fire, Lucinda Schroder ran back inside and blocked the door open with her body, enabling dozens who otherwise would have been pinned and crushed against the closed door to escape. (Silver Lake, Lake County; 1890s) (For text and pictures, see http://offbeatoregon.com/o1107b-schroder-hero-of-silver-lake-fire-died-saving-lives.html)
Lunching in the woods during World War II, hundreds of miles from the sea, Elyse Mitchell and four kids from church were killed in the blast. But, hoping to deny the Japanese knowledge of their “victory,” the newspapers kept it quiet. (Bly, Klamath County; 1940s) (For text and pictures, see http://offbeatoregon.com/1508b.bly-balloon-bombing.351.html)
In his spooky nightmare, first mate of the German barque Mimi saw seaweed covering all but three shipmates; the next day, all but three drowned in one of Oregon's worst-ever salvage disasters. (Garibaldi, Tillamook County; 1910s) (For text and pictures, see http://offbeatoregon.com/o1107c-mariners-dream-eerily-predicted-shipmates-deaths.html)
As his countrymen and colleagues succumbed to the enthusiasm and propaganda for joining the conflict, only Senator Lane and a handful of other lawmakers kept their wits. But Lane paid dearly for his commitment to sanity. (Salem, Marion County; 1910s) (For text and pictures, see http://offbeatoregon.com/1307b-harry-lane-war-hero.html)
In the tall tales of 1840s almanacs, the “King of the Wild Frontier” had a lively interest in the Beaver State. But he did get a few of his facts wrong ... (Statewide; 1840s) (For text and pictures, see http://offbeatoregon.com/1801c.davy-crockett-tall-tales-about-oregon-479.html)
Windjammer still holds a world speed record for sailing ships, but by the time of her demise, had been losing money for years; the age of steam had made her obsolete. So when she sailed onto the rocks, many people smelled a rat. (Neahkahnie Mountain, Tillamook County; 1910s) (For text and pictures, see http://offbeatoregon.com/o1107a-glenesslin-wreck-insurance-fraud-or-drunken-incompetence.html)
Young Henry Miller, rejected by his illustrious father, turned to a life of crime, but he turned out not to be very good at it. For his part, the ever-classy Joaquin took to claiming Harry was not really his son. (Multnomah and Coos County; 1890s) (For text and pictures, see http://offbeatoregon.com/1507b.black-sheep-of-joaquin-miller-family.347.html)
Abraham Coryell Edmunds, throughout his several careers in Oregon and California, was almost like a cartoon — a larger-than-life loser in the vein of Wile E. Coyote, with a little Carrie Nation mixed in along with a whole lot of Don Quixote.
And his “own-goals” were hardly minor affairs. A.C. Edmunds was almost singlehandedly responsible for the demise of the early Universalist Church in California, the temporary collapse of the Universalist congregation in Portland, and for the sudden death of the temperance and women’s suffrage movements in Oregon in 1874. Before he got involved, Oregon was on track to become the first state in which women could vote. His efforts to help make that happen set the process back almost 40 years. (Multnomah and Lane County; 1860s, 1870s) (For text and pictures, see http://offbeatoregon.com/20-01.ac-edmunds-temperance-own-goalie.html)
After homesteading some of the West's best cattle country, the family could have been wealthy squires like TV's Cartwright family; instead, they gave it all up for a series of outlaw enterprises that left some broke and others dead. (Harney, Wallowa, Baker County; 1890s) (For text and pictures, see http://offbeatoregon.com/1307a-mccarty-gang-bonanza-gone-wrong.html)
It was the first news helicopter in the nation, and it gave the Oregon Journal a huge advantage. But then, one day, it went down ... and the Oregon Journal owner's sole heir died in the crash. (Portland, Multnomah County; 1940s) (For text and pictures, see http://offbeatoregon.com/1801b.sam-jackson-helicopter-crash-journal-478.html)
A Ford Trimotor crashed on takeoff in Eugene, and a twin-engined Boeing crashed into the west hills of Portland, within 11 months of each other. Miraculously, there were survivors in both events. (Lane and Multnomah County; 1930s) (For text and pictures, see http://offbeatoregon.com/1712e.1933-a-bad-year-for-plane-crashes-476.html)
Not since before the Civil War had so many mariners drowned in a shipwreck on the Columbia River bar; as hurricane-driven breakers tore the big ship to pieces, all the would-be rescuers could do was watch in horror. (Columbia River Bar, Clatsop County; 1930s) (For text and pictures, see http://offbeatoregon.com/1507a.shipwreck-iowa-worst-of-1900s-346.html)
The Willamette River was running high and wild on the morning of Feb. 5, 1890, as Alden and Arthur Graham set out from Oregon City in their sternwheel riverboat for the daily run to Portland.
They arrived in Portland in what must have been record time, dodging logs and small floating buildings along the way, and promptly canceled the return trip. It was just too dangerous to even try charging into the teeth of all the fast-moving debris.
But after they arrived, they learned that theirs was the only riverboat between Willamette Falls and the Portland bridges — and there were some things floating down the river that could potentially damage or even destroy those bridges. So, back out into the torrent they went, to the rescue. (Oregon City, Clackamas County; 1890s, 1900s) (For text and pictures, see http://offbeatoregon.com/1912e.steamboat-culture-graham-line.html)
According to legend, the Triskett Gang underestimated the citizens of Sailors' Diggins, which became a fatal error when they went on a shooting spree downtown. But the $75,000 they stole has never been recovered. (Sailors' Diggins, Josephine County; 1850s) (For text and pictures, see http://offbeatoregon.com/o1106d-gold-field-bandits-loot-has-never-been-found.html)
The legendary Portland “boarding master” sparked an international incident when he figured out how to shake the ship captains down, foiling their plan to stiff their sailors for the journey's wages. (Portland, Multnomah County; 1890s) (For text and pictures, see http://offbeatoregon.com/1301a-larry-sullivans-shanghaiing-syndicate.html)
A prizefighter with a great head for business, friends in high places and absolutely no conscience, Larry Sullivan organized Portland's shanghaiiers into a cartel — causing international notoriety for Portland. (Part 1 of 2) (Portland, Multnomah County; 1890s) (For text and pictures, see http://offbeatoregon.com/1212e-larry-sullivan-shanghaiing-legend.html)
When it came out just after the war, the Beechcraft Bonanza was the hottest private plane in the sky — a sleek, speedy, fuel-efficient hot rod. But it was very easy for a novice to get in deadly trouble flying one. (Rural South Lake County; 1940s) (For text and pictures, see http://offbeatoregon.com/1801a.earl-snell-plane-crash-bonanza-477.html)
IN THE DECADES before the First World War, an organization called Chautauqua arose that was something like a summer camp for grown-ups.
People would take vacation time and travel to the Chautauqua center and stay there in tents, either brought from home or rented on site, for a week, or two weeks, or even longer. There, they’d take classes, attend lectures, listen to band concerts, play baseball, and generally try to make up for the previous year’s intellectual deprivation.
In Chautauqua’s heyday there were a number of these centers across the country, and President Theodore Roosevelt famously declared them to be “the most American thing about America.” And the biggest one west of the Rockies was in Gladstone, Oregon. (Gladstone, Clackamas County; Ashland, Jackson County; 1890s, 1900s) (For text and pictures, see http://offbeatoregon.com/22-03.chautauqua-in-oregon-607.html)
After finding a battered lifeboat washed up on shore from a fatal shipwreck, Joel Munson made it his life's mission to use it to start a life-saving service. Today, his creation soldiers on, as part of the U.S. Coast Guard. (Columbia River Bar, Clatsop County; 1860s) (For text and pictures, see http://offbeatoregon.com/o1106c-joel-munson-founded-lifesaving-service.html)
Even today, after 135 years, the lawless era of vigilantes and rustlers and six-gun justice meted out by “Judge Lynch” is evoked by the words on an old Klamath Falls tombstone: “Murdered by Masked Assassins, June 24, 1882.” (Linkville (Klamath Falls), Klamath County; 1880s) (For text and pictures, see http://offbeatoregon.com/1609d.calavan-laws-feud-masked-assassins.410.html)
Created to stifle Indian culture, the oldest surviving Native American boarding school has done the opposite — and it's fortunate for Oregon's cultural heritage that it has. (Salem, Marion County; 1890s) (For text and pictures, see http://offbeatoregon.com/1212d-chemawa-boarding-school-cultural-treasure.html)
The pilot got so caught up in trying to figure out what was wrong with the landing gear, the plane ran out of fuel — while the flight crew bit their tongues for fear of being insubordinate. A new crew management system was the response. (Portland, Multnomah County; 1970s) (For text and pictures, see http://offbeatoregon.com/1712d.united-flight-173-almost-miracle-plane-crash-475.html)
On any list of Oregon “firsts,” there’s one name that almost never pops up - Dr. Adaline M. Weed. Which is understandable, because although Dr. Weed was the first female physician in the Oregon Territory, she was not a “regular” doctor – she was a hydropathist, a practitioner of “water cure.” Maybe that's why, today, when asked who the Oregon Territory’s first female physician was, most people who think they know the answer (including, until just last week, me!) will say, “Bethenia Owens-Adair, in 1874” — and be wrong. (Salem, Marion County; 1850s) (For text and pictures, see http://offbeatoregon.com/1912c.dr-adeline-weed.html)
Olympic gold medalist and OSU legend Robin Reed might have been the best wrestler of all time; throughout his 20-plus-year career he was never once pinned. But his plan for the "Delake Rod and Gun Club" was more than he could pull off. (Lincoln City, Lincoln County; 1930s, 1940s) (For text and pictures, see http://offbeatoregon.com/o1106b-robin-reed-delake-rod-gun-club.html)
He couldn't claim all the credit for it, although he sometimes tried; and his attitude toward Native Americans was unfortunate. But those who love Crater Lake, in large part, have William Gladstone Steel to thank for it. (Crater Lake, Klamath County; 1880s, 1900s) (For text and pictures, see http://offbeatoregon.com/1609cT.crater-lake-will-steel-409.html)
The old Portland shanghai scene's 'original gangster' was a mysterious character. Did he really inherit a huge fortune? If not, where did the money come from? Stagecoach robbery? Piracy on the high seas? Anything was possible with this guy .... (Multnomah and Clatsop County; 1870s, 1890s) (For text and pictures, see http://offbeatoregon.com/1212c-jim-turk-the-shanghaiing-millionaire.html)
West Coast Airlines Flight 956 was a brand-new DC-9; the airline literally bought it on Monday and crashed it on Saturday. It hit a mountain while flying calmly along, 5,000 feet too low. But, no one has been able to figure out why. (Welches, Clackamas County; 1960s) (For text and pictures, see http://offbeatoregon.com/1712c.oregons-worst-plane-crash-mystery-474.html)
ESPECIALLY IN THE LATE 1800s, the Oregon frontier was no stranger to acts of judicial lynching – where the local legal system was corrupted to provide cover for murder. What’s more unusual, though, was an 1852 event that amounted to judicial cattle rustling.
The cattle that the Benton County courts rustled belonged to a woman named Letitia Carson, and she was the widow of a recently naturalized Irishman named David Carson — or, rather, she would have been David’s widow, if the two of them had been allowed to marry. But they weren’t, because Letitia Carson was black, and a former slave — born in Kentucky in the late 1810s.
The other factor that makes this episode of judicial rustling unusual is that Letitia took the thieves to court — and won. Twice. (Corvallis, Benton County; 1850s, 1860s) (For text and pictures, see http://offbeatoregon.com/1912b.letitia-carson-fought-racist-neighbor-in-court.html)
Governor Charles Henry “Iron Pants” Martin may have saved the world from a Nazi nuclear holocaust by outplaying President Roosevelt, essentially forcing him to finance a hydroelectric dam that he thought was superfluous. (Bonneville, Multnomah County; 1930s) (For text and pictures, see http://offbeatoregon.com/1609a.bonneville-wins-ww2-407.html)
As the fishery collapsed, canneries on the upper river near Cascade Locks and gillnet fishermen on the lower river near Astoria blamed one another; both were right, but the biggest culprit was Grand Coulee Dam. (Clatsop, Columbia, Multnomah, Hood River, Wasco County; 1900s) (For text and pictures, see http://offbeatoregon.com/1609b.fish-wheels-and-gillnetters-408.html)
Like the hero of an 1800s “cautionary tale,” 17-year-old Joseph Swards stepped off the ship, fell in with bad company, got caught up in a robbery that went horribly wrong — and in the end was lucky he wasn't hanged. (Portland, Multnomah County; 1870s) (For text and pictures, see http://offbeatoregon.com/1212b-young-adventurers-visit-to-portland-ended-in-prison.html)
In the past 75 years, there have been only four lethal commercial-airliner crashes in Oregon. By an odd statistical fluke, two of those happened to planes flying out of the airport in Klamath Falls. (Klamath Falls, Klamath County; 1960s, 1970s) (For text and pictures, see http://offbeatoregon.com/1712b.klamath-falls-plane-crash-capitol-473.html)
The gregarious young entrepreneur usually cleared $2,500 – that’s the equivalent of $57,000 in modern currency – on each county fair. His profit margin hovered around 92 percent. How did he do it? By selling cheap cigars — wrapped in an expensive story. (Portland, Multnomah County; 1870s) (For text and pictures, see http://offbeatoregon.com/1912a.abe-tichner-frontier-portland-hustler.html)
Bride of Christ cult sought perfect righeousness, Christ-like simplicity and total humility. In practice, though, it spawned nothing but misery and madness, and a legal precedent for “honor killings.” (Waldport, Lincoln County; 1900s) (For text and pictures, see http://offbeatoregon.com/o1106a-bride-of-christ-holy-rollers-in-corvallis-ending.html)
Preacher Edmund Creffield's Bride of Christ Church broke up families, sanctioned adultery and inspired deadly violence in the early 20th Century. Ironically, its practitioners' goal was perfect holiness and godliness. (Corvallis, Benton County; 1900s) (For text and pictures, see http://offbeatoregon.com/o1105e-bride-of-christ-holy-rollers-in-corvallis-beginning.html)
The century-long quest to make the Columbia River Bar reasonably safe got off to a rough start in 1853, when the ship bringing construction materials for its first lighthouse became one of its early victims. (Columbia River Bar, Clatsop County; 1850s) (For text and pictures, see http://offbeatoregon.com/1608d.taming-the-bar.405.html)
Lessons learned in the crash ended up saving countless lives in subsequent at-sea ditchings, but those lessons came at a price: Four people died, including the co-pilot who had saved everyone's life. (Portland, Multnomah County; 1950s) (For text and pictures, see http://offbeatoregon.com/1712a.pan-am-845-ditching-off-coos-bay-472.html)
LOST OR ABANDONED cabins pop up so often in legends of missing gold mines and buried treasure that they are almost a cliché.
Most of them follow a clear pattern or formula — in fact, all lost-treasure stories do: The seeker stumbles across the treasure while doing something else; he is called away for some reason; and he can never find his way back, despite devoting years to fruitless searching.
There may not be a more faithful example of that pattern than the story of the lost cabin of Steamboat Mountain.... (Applegate River, Jackson County; 1850s, 1870s) (For text and pictures, see http://offbeatoregon.com/22-02.lost-cabin-gold-stories-606.html)
The massive dirigibles were housed in the largest clear-span wood buildings in the world, near Tillamook; one burned in 1992, while the other houses the Tillamook Air Museum today. (Tillamook, Tillamook County; 1940s) (For text and pictures, see http://offbeatoregon.com/o1105d-blimp-squadron-first-defense-against-submarines-balloon-bombs.html)
Crook County citizens finally decided they'd had enough of the secretive lynchings and killings; they banded together and defeated the gang of masked riders without a single shot being fired. (Prineville, Crook County; 1880s) (For text and pictures, see http://offbeatoregon.com/1212a-prineville-vigilantes-defeated-without-a-shot.html)
In Crook County, the early 1880s were like something out of a Louis L'Amour novel: Masked riders galloping around by night, dispensing what they saw as justice. It all started with the lynching of an innocent man. (Part 1 of 2) (Prineville, Crook County; 1880s) (For text and pictures, see http://offbeatoregon.com/1211d-lynching-kicked-off-vigilante-rule-in-prineville.html)
Jack Graham had planned for the airliner to explode over the Wyoming mountains; but the plane got out late, and the bomb went off a few minutes after takeoff — while he sat with his wife and son in an airport cafe. (Portland, Multnomah County; 1950s) (For text and pictures, see http://offbeatoregon.com/1711d.united-629-dynamited-on-flight-to-pdx-471.html)
The highway engineer in charge of getting rid of a big stinky dead whale on the beach miscalculated the amount of dynamite he would need. The result was a spectacular event that has become a true Oregon legend. (Florence, Lane County; 1970s) (For text and pictures, see http://offbeatoregon.com/1608bT.exploding-whale.404.html)
A small construction engine was being used to build the South Jetty, to protect the mouth of the Columbia River for ships, when one off-course sailing ship crashed into it — so construction crews chugged to the rescue. (Columbia River Bar, Clatsop County; 1910s) (For text and pictures, see http://offbeatoregon.com/o1105c-railroad-train-rescues-shipwrecked-schooners-crew.html)
Loaded with ordinance and launched by the thousands on the jet-stream currents, the weapons were a much bigger threat to American citizens than most now realize — and one of them probably started the 1945 Tillamook Burn. (Salmonberry River, Tillamook County; 1940s) (For text and pictures, see http://offbeatoregon.com/1608cT.balloon-bombs.405.html)
Sent downstairs to fetch a pan of powdered milk, a kitchen assistant at the Oregon State Hospital dipped his scoop into the wrong bin — and brought back six pounds of roach poison. It was mixed into the eggs and fed to 467 people. (Salem, Marion County; 1940s) (For text and pictures, see http://offbeatoregon.com/1211c-asylum-kitchen-mixup-killed-hundreds-with-scrambled-eggs.html)
Although nearly everyone agreed the Mache family had had it coming, evidence at the scene convinced the sheriff that Kelsay Porter had ambushed them in cold blood, and the jury sentenced him to swing for it. But the neighbors characterized the whole affair as a railroad job. (Pine Valley, Union and Baker counties; 1890s) (For text and pictures, see http://offbeatoregon.com/1711c.kelsey-porter-vigilante-killings-470.html)
The history of Portland mayors in the 20th century largely comes down to the story of the struggle of progressive reformers against various forms of corruption and vice. Put that way, it sounds like a clean morality play: good vs. evil. But it’s a bit more complicated than that. (Portland, Multnomah County; 1940s, 1950s, 1960s, 1970s) (For text and pictures, see http://offbeatoregon.com/1911d.portland-mayors-part3of3.html)
When Dr. James Chapman was elected mayor of Portland in 1882, it was his third non-consecutive stint as P-town’s top executive. His previous two mayorships had been relatively unremarkable. This one, his third and final stint, would be different. Things started out reasonably well, although a careful newspaper reader at the time might have detected some odd occurrences as Chapman began his term of office. (Portland, Multnomah County; 1880s, 1890s, 1900s) (For text and pictures, see http://offbeatoregon.com/1911c.portland-mayors-part2of3.html)
Over the years, the city of Portland has had its share of controversy and drama in the Mayor’s office. At times, the political tableaux in the top job in Oregon’s biggest town have ripened into scenes that wouldn’t be out of place in a Vaudeville act. (Portland, Multnomah County; 1860s, 1870s, 1880s, 1890s) (For text and pictures, see http://offbeatoregon.com/1911b.portland-mayors-part1of3.html)
The grand monument to the Gilded Age was a municipal architectural treasure and hosted U.S. presidents, but was razed in the 1950s to make way for a parking garage; all that remains is a wrought-iron rail. (Portland, Multnomah County; 1880s, 1890s) (For text and pictures, see http://offbeatoregon.com/1211b-pioneer-courthouse-square-once-palatial-hotel.html)
An East German man, running from the law in a stolen Volvo full of guns and fake IDs, apparently dropped the hand grenade he was preparing to throw at the pursuing officer and was unable to retrieve it in time. (Crater Lake, Klamath County; 1980s) (For text and pictures, see http://offbeatoregon.com/1711b.merzejuskis-blows-self-up-at-crater-lake-469.html)
Very few people outside Coos County, and probably not that many inside it, know what a big deal Coos Bay is.
It’s the biggest deepwater harbor on the Northwest coast — that is, between San Francisco and Puget Sound. And it’s far safer than Portland or Astoria, tucked as they are behind the “Graveyard of the Pacific” at the mouth of the Columbia.
So, one has to wonder why it had no railroad connection to the outside world until 1916 — more than 30 years after Portland got one.
There have to have been some theories and speculations about that among the residents and business leaders in the towns of Coos Bay (then called Marshfield) and North Bend. Especially after, in the early 1900s, the Southern Pacific railroad suddenly stopped work on a feeder line that it had claimed would link to Coos Bay through Drain.
The subtext here seemed pretty obvious to Marshfield and North Bend business leaders: Business interests in Portland were eager to prevent Coos Bay from coming on line as a direct competitor. And since Portland and Salem were where most of the state’s political power was concentrated, what they wanted they generally got.
That suspicion would grow even stronger after William J. Wilsey started promoting his planned railroad line, circa 1909. But, that one would not turn out to be a bluff; and despite the best efforts of Harriman and Co., it would turn out to be a rare case in which the tiny upstart wins. (Eugene and Coos Bay, Lane and Coos County; 1910s) (For text and pictures, see http://offbeatoregon.com/22-01.coos-bay-railroad-fight-605.html)
Norwegian freighter got off course, piled onto Peacock Spit; a cutter pulled it off, and motor lifeboat crews rescued its crew, and the wallowing ship was pulled to port and repaired. A happy ending? Well, not for the Russians, it wasn't. (Columbia River Bar, Clatsop County; 1930s) (For text and pictures, see http://offbeatoregon.com/o1105a-coast-guard-rescued-future-soviet-gulag-ship.html)
Rudolph's “nose so bright” would have been the only light showing on the Oregon Coast after the Pearl Harbor attack; unable to see its position, the ship piled onto the beach at full steam. (Clatsop Spit, Clatsop County; 1940s) (For text and pictures, see http://offbeatoregon.com/1608a.christmas-shipwreck-mauna-ala.403.html)
Wall Street financial wizard Thomas Lawson happened to be in town and betting on Prineville. With Silver Lake up 9-0 halfway through, he knew just what to do: Buy the other team a round of drinks ... or two, or three .... (Prineville, Crook County; 1910s) (For text and pictures, see http://offbeatoregon.com/1211a-thomas-lawson-mccall-boozy-baseball-fixer.html)
Everyone in Ashland knew Amanda McDaniel and Lewis O'Neil were having a little affair; so, when Amanda's husband turned up murdered with O'Neil's shotgun, it seemed obvious what had happened. But ... was it? (Ashland, Jackson County; 1880s) (For text and pictures, see http://offbeatoregon.com/1711a.lewis-mcdaniel-murdered-but-by-whom-468.html)
Really, the only reason the U.S.S. Peacock didn’t break into pieces and drown all hands within hours of slamming into the sand was that it was a United States Navy ship. That meant it was crewed by some of the best-trained sailors in the world, and built solidly enough for iron shot to bounce off its sides. (Columbia River Bar, Clatsop County; 1840s) (For text and pictures, see http://offbeatoregon.com/1911a.peacock-spit-shipwreck.html)
Two liquored-up Navy deserters planned to (a) seize control of a passenger liner; (b) drive it onto the beach; and (c) steal away into the night with three tons of gold. It's probably safe to say they didn't think their plan through very well. (Offshore, near Umpqua River, Douglas County; 1910s) (For text and pictures, see http://offbeatoregon.com/o1104c-amateur-pirates-bumbling-scheme-didnt-work-out.html)
The historic structure, halfway between “dry” Silverton and “wet” Mt. Angel, became a meeting place for the thirsty — and a symbol of Oregon's strange relationship with good ol' Demon Rum. (Silverton, Marion County; 1910s, 1920s) (For text and pictures, see http://offbeatoregon.com/o1104d-gallon-house-bridge-symbol-of-oregon-battle-over-booze.html)
John Hipple dumped his family, changed his name and moved West. A dozen years and a few easy-money real-estate swindles later, he was a hugely successful railroad-and-timber lawyer and a U.S. Senator. (Portland, Multnomah County; 1880s, 1890s, 1900s) (For text and pictures, see http://offbeatoregon.com/1210e-john-mitchell-oregons-snidely-whiplash.html)
Eager to get started on Smelt Sands Park, the state forcibly vacated Lincoln County's right-of-way on its 804 Road along the beach, and beachfront property owners quickly fenced it off. It took a 10-year legal battle to fix the problem. (Also, a connection to the origin story of Offbeat Oregon History!) (Yachats, Lane County; 1970s) (For text and pictures, see http://offbeatoregon.com/1710e.yachats-804-road-offbeat-oregon-origin-story-467.html)
It was the first murder trial ever held in the Oregon Territory. The prosecution alleged that Nimrod O’Kelley was a land pirate who had invented an imaginary wife in order to fraudulently claim extra land, and that he had murdered Jeremiah Mahoney to prevent losing it, and to intimidate his other neighbors so that none would challenge him. But when the 'imaginary' wife arrived, everything changed. (Corvallis, Benton County; 1850s) (For text and pictures, see http://offbeatoregon.com/1910d.nimrod-okelly-murder.html)
Perhaps thinking the Benton County Treasurer would have treasure in his office, they blew the safe with dynamite — and were disappointed. A month later, having left pawnshop claim stubs lying around camp, they were busted. (Corvallis, Benton County; 1900s) (For text and pictures, see http://offbeatoregon.com/o1104a-bungling-burglars-skunked-in-corvallis-courthouse-job.html)
“No one seems to know how the present Kiwanda dory evolved,” wrote Portland Oregonian wildlife editor Don Helm in a 1968 article, “but it revolutionized the sport and made Pacific City the dory capital of the world.” (Pacific City, Tillamook County; 1910s-present) (For text and pictures, see http://offbeatoregon.com/1909a.cape-kiwanda-dories-563.html)
Miner William Aldred, traveling to a rumored bonanza in Idaho with five dozen other miners, found two gold mines on the way — but couldn't get the other miners to stay with him to work them. Luckily, one of the two mines was still unclaimed on their return. (Prairie City, Grant County; 1860s) (For text and pictures, see http://offbeatoregon.com/1907e.prospectors-turned-backs-on-two-fortunes-558.html)
After the Civil War, refugees from the devastated South flooded west, seeking a fresh start ... and for a few years, Oregon looked like Dixie on the Left Coast. They even went so far as to try to de-ratify the Fourteenth Amendment. (Salem, Marion County; 1860s) (For text and pictures, see http://offbeatoregon.com/1907a.ex-rebels-changed-oregon-politics-554.html)
“From 1861 to 1876, every man committed to the Oregon State Penitentiary for ‘life’ either escaped or was pardoned,” writes historian and newspaper columnist Erik Bromberg, quoting from the U.S. Federal Writers Project’s “Oregon Oddities” article of 1939-1941. “Some who escaped were recaptured and then pardoned.” (Old Oregon Territory, 1850s) (For text and pictures, see http://offbeatoregon.com/1910c.frontier-justice-jailhouses.html)
“From 1861 to 1876, every man committed to the Oregon State Penitentiary for ‘life’ either escaped or was pardoned,” writes historian and newspaper columnist Erik Bromberg, quoting from the U.S. Federal Writers Project’s “Oregon Oddities” article of 1939-1941. “Some who escaped were recaptured and then pardoned.” (Old Oregon Territory, 1850s) (For text and pictures, see http://offbeatoregon.com/1910c.frontier-justice-jailhouses.html)
But the strike enabled Oregon Journal's trustees to sell the paper, in defiance of its former owner's direct bequest, to the owners of the Oregonian; the result was an outsider-owned daily-newspaper monopoly that continues to this day. (Portland, Multnomah County; 1960s) (For text and pictures, see http://offbeatoregon.com/1607e.stereotyper-strike-part2.html)
But the strike enabled Oregon Journal's trustees to sell the paper, in defiance of its former owner's direct bequest, to the owners of the Oregonian; the result was an outsider-owned daily-newspaper monopoly that continues to this day. (Portland, Multnomah County; 1960s) (For text and pictures, see http://offbeatoregon.com/1607e.stereotyper-strike-part2.html)
Was the shooting of Donald Newhouse the action of a union thug, related to the strike at the Oregonian and Journal? Or was it a cuckolded husband taking revenge in a case of mistaken identity? Either way, it changed everything. (Portland, Multnomah County; 1960s) (For text and pictures, see http://offbeatoregon.com/1607d.stereotyper-strike-part1.html)
The hordes of awestruck visitors who admired the scenery at the 1905 Lewis and Clark Exposition would have been shocked if they'd known the beautiful little lake would be gone in 20 years — filled in for industrial lands. Not a trace remains. (Portland, Multnomah County; 1900s) (For text and pictures, see http://offbeatoregon.com/1210d-guilds-lake-portlands-water-wonderland.html)
Richard Marple likely would have been acquitted for lack of hard evidence if he'd been able to keep his mouth shut. But, maybe he figured there was nothing he could do to keep folks from eventually learning his family's dark secret. (Lafayette, Yamhill County; 1880s) (For text and pictures, see http://offbeatoregon.com/1710d.marple-the-triple-ax-murderer-466.html)
Time never was on the U.S.S. Oregon’s side. She was launched in 1896, in the middle of a remarkable period of torrid innovation and development in the history of warships, a time when ship designs were only good for about ten years before something better came along. (Portland, Multnomah County; 1940s) (For text and pictures, see http://offbeatoregon.com/1910b.battleship-oregon.html)
Edward Dickinson “Ned” Baker was a close personal friend of President Lincoln and a formidable public speaker; had he not been killed, he might well have become president. Without his influence, Oregon might have sided with the South. (Salem, Marion County; 1860s) (For text and pictures, see http://offbeatoregon.com/o1104b-edward-baker-only-sitting-senator-killed-in-action.html)
Four mariners on the sailing ship Arago, in Astoria, tried to quit and were tracked down by police and forced to return to work, like runaway slaves. When they sued, an almost-unanimous U.S. Supreme Court issued an astonishing ruling against them. (Astoria, Clatsop County; 1890s) (For text and pictures, see http://offbeatoregon.com/1607c.slavery-ok-for-sailors-says-scotus.400.html)
Sometimes the silent bones of the long dead almost seem to want to tell their stories ... but, of course, they can't.There are a few stories of skeletal remains found in Oregon whose secrets will probably never be known. (For text and pictures, see http://offbeatoregon.com/1210c-mysterious-skeletons-of-oregon-history.html)
After making a fortune pushing patent-medicine tablets, Roy Currier cashed out and used the money to build a tidy, discreet little fishing resort on Tenmile Creek — with gourmet cuisine, great fishing, and a little illegal gambling action. (Lakeside, Coos County; 1930s) (For text and pictures, see http://offbeatoregon.com/1710c.curriers-village-lakeside-movie-stars-n-mobsters-465.html)
According to legend, six soldiers scouting a road stumbled across a fabulously rich ledge of gold-threaded quartz. Is it real? Is it still out there somewhere? Well, maybe ... (Near Cow Creek, Douglas County; 1850s) (For text and pictures, see http://offbeatoregon.com/21-12.lost-soldiers-mine-coquille-604.html)
When Carrie B. Shelton took charge of the state for 48 hours, she and other Oregon women were still three years away from gaining the right to vote. (Salem, Marion County; 1910s) (For text and pictures, see http://offbeatoregon.com/o1103e-carolyn-shelton-first-female-governor-in-us-for-two-days.html)
The year after the Civil War ended, the partisans of North and South still clung to their resentments in Douglas County. On Christmas Day, those hard feelings broke out in a knock-down-drag-out that left two men dead. (Roseburg, Douglas County; 1860s) (For text and pictures, see http://offbeatoregon.com/1412d.319.champagne-riot-civil-war-battle.html)
Cyclones, tornadoes, flash floods, earthquakes and volcanoes — the Beaver State is not immune to any of these things, but they're rare enough that no one is expecting them when they appear. (For text and pictures, see http://offbeatoregon.com/1210b-deadly-weather-usually-catches-oregon-by-surprise.html)
He called himself James Cook, and spoke with an English accent. But when asked about his past, he spun fanciful and ever-changing stories full of world travels, tiger hunts, shanghaiings and the like; he went to his death a total enigma. (The Dalles, Wasco County; 1870s) (For text and pictures, see http://offbeatoregon.com/1710b.john-cook-international-murderer-of-mystery-464.html)
On the morning of Nov. 25, 1881, two men were walking to work along the North End waterfront when they saw something incongruous in the river, just off the foot of Everett Street ... two bare human legs sticking straight up out of the water. (Portland, Multnomah County; 1880s) (For text and pictures, see http://offbeatoregon.com/1910a.carrie-bradley-2of2.html)
The Femme Fatale, like most really satisfying tropes in fiction, is based on real life. And arguably, the closest Oregon has ever come to a real-life femme fatale worthy of Hammett’s pen was in early 1880s Portland, in what today is known as the Tenderloin — in the person of a gorgeous, hard-eyed 28-year-old brunette who called herself Carrie Bradley. (Portland, Multnomah County; 1880s) (For text and pictures, see http://offbeatoregon.com/1909e.carrie-bradley-femme-fatale-1of2-567.html)
The Rebel sympathizers resented the Union soldiers taking all the seats when Vaudeville star Susie Robinson of Corvallis took the stage. The soldiers wouldn't back down. Then somebody pulled a pistol ... and the battle was on. (Corvallis, Benton County; 1860s) (For text and pictures, see http://offbeatoregon.com/1603d.vaudeville-susie-riot.384.html)
This was the town where the Eastern Oregon Gold Rush of '61 got started, and it was a wild and lawless place; town ordinances did prohibit stabbing or shooting people “in public places," but otherwise the town was mostly wide open. (Auburn, Baker County; 1860s) (For text and pictures, see http://offbeatoregon.com/1210a-auburn-wildest-mining-town-vanished.html)
After Columbia Lightship broke its lines and drifted ashore, the salvage bid was won by a house-moving company from Portland — which, rather than trying to pull the stranded ship off the beach, built a road, trucked it over the peninsula, and launched it in Baker Bay. (Baker Bay, Clatsop County; 1890s, 1900s) (For text and pictures, see http://offbeatoregon.com/1710a.lightship-saved-by-house-movers-463.html)
New York schemers sought to have Joseph Lane named President. Had they succeeded, the Civil War likely would have been the North seceding from the South, and possibly an independent Pacific Republic in the West. (Salem, Marion County; 1860s) (For text and pictures, see http://offbeatoregon.com/1412c.318.president-joseph-lane.html)
Tonie Nathan, one of the founders of today's Libertarian Party, was also the party's first-ever vice-presidential candidate when she ran with John Hospers in the election that gave us "four more years" of Richard Nixon and Spiro Agnew. (Eugene, Lane County; 1970s) (For text and pictures, see http://offbeatoregon.com/o1103d-eugene-woman-first-female-vp-nominee-to-win-vote.html)
The railroad, the local police agencies, and the U.S. War Department all desperately wanted to prosecute somebody, anybody, just not the young Marine who almost certainly was young Martha Brinson James' actual killer. (Albany, Linn County; 1940s) (For text and pictures, see http://offbeatoregon.com/1607b.war-bride-murder-3.399.html)
Apparently desperate to avoid charging a uniformed U.S. Marine with the crime, prosecutors sought a scapegoat to pin the murder of Martha James on. They found one, and they had to work really hard to make it stick ... but they got it done. (Albany, Linn County; 1940s) (For text and pictures, see http://offbeatoregon.com/1607a.war-bride-murder-2.398.html)
Local authorities were stumped; the entire nation was watching, and the most likely suspect, a uniformed U.S. Marine, was already being hailed a a heroic would-be-rescuer in the press. (Near Albany, Linn County; 1940s) (For text and pictures, see http://offbeatoregon.com/1606d.war-bride-murder-1.397.html)
She had a record of uninhibited and acerbic writing; she was preparing what appeared to be a super-racy tell-all memoir; and she had just secured a divorce from a prominent community member about whom they’d all heard some pretty tantalizing rumors. What was not to like? (French Prairie, Marion County; 1850s) (For text and pictures, see http://offbeatoregon.com/1909d.margaret-bailey-oregons-first-authoress-2of2-566.html)
Margaret Jewett Bailey was not only Oregon’s first author of novel-length fiction, she was also the West Coast’s first published female author, and its first female newspaper journalist. She was also one of the most colorful characters of a remarkably colorful age. She could be absolutely savage when she felt the situation called for it ... and, in fairness, it has to be admitted that her situation seemed to call for it rather a lot. (French Prairie, Marion County; 1850s) (For text and pictures, see http://offbeatoregon.com/1909c.margaret-bailey-oregons-first-authoress-1of2-565.html)
The combination of bitter cold air and relatively warm river water acted on the S.S. Schenechtady's brittle welded-steel plates like boiling water poured into a cold Mason jar. The results were similar, but on a massive scale. (Portland, Multnomah County; 1940s) (For text and pictures, see http://offbeatoregon.com/1606c.schenectady-cracked-ship-396.html)
Whatever happened to the S.S. Drexel Victory as she steamed across the Columbia River Bar that day sent her to the bottom in little more than an hour, but everyone survived. Had it happened during a storm in mid-Pacific, though ... things would have been very different. (Columbia River Bar, Clatsop County; 1940s) (For text and pictures, see http://offbeatoregon.com/1606b.drexel-victory-lucky-sinking-395.html)
Two decades later, the cult, now named “Heaven's Gate,” would make national headlines by committing mass suicide in hopes that a UFO hiding behind Comet Hale-Bopp would carry their spirits away to Planet Heaven. (Waldport, Lincoln County; 1970s) (For text and pictures, see http://offbeatoregon.com/1606a.heavens-gate-ufo-cult-394.html)
Stories about buried treasure are very seldom completely untrue. Many of the wildest flight of golden fantasy started out, hundreds or thousands of augmented and embellished retellings ago, as true stories. Maybe that’s why people love them so much: One gets to speculating about just how much truth has survived, and if any of that fantasy gold might just be still out there waiting to be discovered.
One particular tale from the Indians of the northern Oregon coast is especially tantalizing in that way, because it’s so close to its source. The old treasure hunter who recounted it to author Ruby El Hult in 1958 had it directly from the grandson of the man who originally (according to the story) buried the loot. ... (Nehalem Bay, Tillamook County; 1840s) (For text and pictures, see http://offbeatoregon.com/21-11.portuguese-gold-legend-nehalem-603.html)
Barnstormer Ted Barber was down to his last half-cup of gasoline when Ralph Grove rescued him by lighting up a field with the headlights of his car; Ted's old Waco 9 biplane lived to fly the next day, and so did he. (Rural Harney County; 1930s) (For text and pictures, see http://offbeatoregon.com/o1103c-harney-county-rancher-saves-oregon-pioneer-aviators-life.html)
The “Jackson County Rebellion” faded away after political boss Llewellyn Banks shot a policeman with a .30-06 during an attempted warrant service. Coverage of the whole debacle won the Medford Mail-Tribune a Pulitzer Prize. (Medford, Jackson County; 1930s) (For text and pictures, see http://offbeatoregon.com/1605d.jackson-co-rebellion-part3-392.html)
For leaders of the “Good Government Congress,” the Great Depression was a golden opportunity to crystallize popular bewilderment into hatred that could be used to grab for power. And it worked ... too well, as it turned out. (Medford, Jackson County; 1930s) (For text and pictures, see http://offbeatoregon.com/1605c.jackson-county-rebellion-part2-391.html)
An autocratic populist from southern California, arriving in Medford in a flashy Cadillac, managed to position himself as a leader of the poor and disenfranchised. The results would rock the county, and the state, to the core. (Medford, Jackson County; 1930s) (For text and pictures, see http://offbeatoregon.com/1605b.llewellyn-banks-murder-boss-390.html)
There's not a whole lot going on these days in the Eastern Oregon community of Jordan Valley (pop. 181). But 100 years ago, this tiny, remote hamlet was home to a racetrack that may have been the fastest in the Northwest. (Jordan Valley, Malheur County; 1890s, 1900s, 1910s) (For text and pictures, see http://offbeatoregon.com/1909b.horse-racing-jordan-valley-homer-davenport-564.html)
In Gold Rush-era Oregon, the most skilled miners were probably the Chinese — but they were in constant danger. To avoid being robbed, they entrusted their gold to professional couriers who masqueraded as penniless vagabonds. This is a story from the life of one of them, a man we know only as 'Cheng.' (Southern Oregon gold fields; 1850s) (For text and pictures, see http://offbeatoregon.com/o1103a-secret-chinese-courier-saved-woman-and-baby-then-vanished.html)
The Reverend preached the funeral service to an empty church, while the deceased's friends and colleagues fought in the parking lot over who got to ride in the taxicabs. But the hostilities were forgotten when they arrived at a roadhouse. (Tacoma, Washington Territory; 1880s) (For text and pictures, see http://offbeatoregon.com/1603c.circuit-preachers-longshoreman-funeral.html)
When trying to minister to the spiritual needs of a crowd of hard-sinning miners and sailors, it was sometimes necessary to resort to unorthodox tactics — tactics not often seen among men of the cloth in more civilized times. (Old Oregon Territory; 1840s, 1850s) (For text and pictures, see http://offbeatoregon.com/1603b.circuit-preachers-shanghai-flock-382.html)
Eagerly, the Reverend leaped into the waiting bathtub, positioned at the top of the stairs in the chilly foyer of the frontier hotel. And then, to his horror, he realized it was sliding toward the top of the staircase on a sheet of ice ... (Weston, Umatilla County; 1860s, 1870s) (For text and pictures, see http://offbeatoregon.com/1603a.circuit-preachers-wells-wild-ride-381.html)
It was a notoriously difficult climb, especially on the descent; but the "idiots climbing Haystack Rock" dynamic didn't become a serious issue until after the helicopter was invented, and climbers started demanding that they be rescued. When they were, the propwash blew all the baby birds out of their nests and into the sea ... something had to be done — so, something was. (Cannon Beach, Clatsop County; 1950s, 1960s) (For text and pictures, see http://offbeatoregon.com/1908d.haystack-rock-climbers-required-constant-rescue-562.html)
After the only skipper willing to brave their fearsome river bar died, the only way to get wheat and cheese to market was to build their own trading ship — which they did. (Tillamook Bay, Tillamook County; 1850s) (For text and pictures, see http://offbeatoregon.com/o1102d-tillamook-tiny-schooner.html)
The catastrophic failure of several of the Utopian cult's articles of faith — especially on matters of diet and health care — had doomed the community to misery and sickness before it even got a start. (Tiger Island, Honduras; 1850s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1412a.luelling-love-cult-part2.316.html)
Former devout Quaker Henderson Luelling developed some odd beliefs in late middle age, founded a cult called “Harmonial Brotherhood,” and led his followers into the Central American wilderness. It did not go well. (Milwaukie, Clackamas County; 1840s, 1850s) (For text and pictures, see http://offbeatoregon.com/1411e.315.luelling-love-cult-part1.html)
Portland native Jack Reed was the only American buried in the Kremlin wall; his enthusiasm for the Bolsheviks was cooling toward the end, but after he died they gave him a state funeral and declared him a martyr to the revolution. (Portland, Multnomah County; 1900s, 1910s) (For text and pictures, see http://offbeatoregon.com/1602d.john-reed-communism-380.html)
Columbia College, atop College Hill in Eugene, was founded just before the Civil War. It closed after pro-slavery board members took over, and its president skipped town while under indictment for attempted murder; but while it lasted, it gave Eugene a taste for the college-town life that led directly to the founding of the University of Oregon 15 years later. (Eugene, Lane County; 1850s, 1860s) (For text and pictures, see http://offbeatoregon.com/1908c.columbia-college-gunfighter-president-561.html)
A truck driver parked 13,000 pounds of explosives next to the hardware store downtown. That night the hardware store caught fire … and so did the dynamite, in the biggest human-caused disaster in Oregon history. (Roseburg, Douglas County; 1950s) (For text and pictures, see http://offbeatoregon.com/o1102c-roseburg-blast-looked-like-nuclear-war.html)
Legend of a monk's journey to a land called “Fusang” dates back to 499 A.D.; is it possible that Fusang was Oregon? Or was the whole thing a complete fabrication? (Oregon Coast, A.D. 490s) (For text and pictures, see http://offbeatoregon.com/o1103b-was-buddhist-monk-first-to-discover-oregon.html)
Sure, most people speak English. But there’s an older language whose roots run far deeper in Oregon’s culture and history, and it’s one that nearly every Oregonian knows a word or two of. (Statewide, 18th and 19th centuries) (For text and pictures, see http://offbeatoregon.com/1411d.314.chinook-jargon.html)
The little riverboat came loose from its moorings during a storm and floated downriver and onto the deadly bar with the owners aboard. How could such a thing have happened? Did someone do it on purpose? (Astoria, Clatsop County; 1870s) (For text and pictures, see http://offbeatoregon.com/1411c.313.us-grant-suspicious-shipwreck.html)
When the Great Depression hit, many Oregonians decided to head for mining claims. The life of a gold miner was rustic and tough, but in an age of bread lines and "hoovervilles," it beat the alternative. (Southern and Eastern Oregon; 1930s) (For text and pictures, see http://offbeatoregon.com/1908b.gold-rush-of-1933-560.html)
While they were ashore, their sailing ship sank in a storm, leaving four fur traders alone in a vast wilderness with no prospects for rescue. So they set out for Louisiana – and two years later, they arrived. (Umpqua River, Douglas County; 1800s) (For text and pictures, see http://offbeatoregon.com/o1102b-shipwrecked-fur-traders-trekked-to-Louisiana.html)
Asa Mead Simpson came out West for the Gold Rush, but he soon learned there was more money in the timber that blanketed its hills than would ever be scratched out of its rapidly dwindling gold mines. (North Bend, Coos County; 1850s, 1860s, 1870s, 1880s) (For text and pictures, see http://offbeatoregon.com/1412b.317.asa-simpsons-empire.html)
If so, the Linn County lad might have revolutionized air travel. But a launch-day disaster ruined his prototype, the Great Depression scared off all his investors, and the Hindenburg disaster ended the era of airship travel. (Linn and Benton County; 1910s, 1920s) (For text and pictures, see http://offbeatoregon.com/1602c.pt2-slate-metal-airship-inventor-379.html)
Thomas B. Slate first invented the commercial production process for making dry ice, then took his new-made fortune and used it to re-imagine airship travel in an almost unbelievably “steampunk” way. (Alsea, Benton County; 1900s, 1910s, 1920s) (For text and pictures, see http://offbeatoregon.com/1602b.slate-metal-airship-inventor-part1.378.html)
Some Eastern politicians had a plan for paying down Civil War debt: Send in the Army, with the aid of foreign troops, and seize all the productive gold-mining operations in the West. Luckily, a Nevada Senator had a plan to pre-empt it. (Statewide, 1860s) (For text and pictures, see http://offbeatoregon.com/1908a.origins-of-american-mining-law-559.html)
During the heyday of hydropathy, the remote mountainside resort was Clackamas County’s No. 1 tourist draw; its waters actually had scientifically provable therapeutic value (Molalla, Clackamas County; 1880s, 1890s, 1900s) (For text and pictures, see http://offbeatoregon.com/o1102a-little-remains-of-rural-luxury-spa-at-wilhoit-springs.html)
Talented actress could dilate a pupil at will, dislocate joints, fake broken ribs and get her gums to bleed on demand. She was so good, railroad claims agents actually formed a national association just to share info about her scams. (Albany, Linn County; 1890s, 1900s) (For text and pictures, see http://offbeatoregon.com/1605e.maud-johnson-queen-o-fakirs-393.html)
In 1893, famously irascible governor Sylvester Pennoyer made a mistake on the date of Turkey Day in a speech. But then, instead of admitting his error, he defiantly doubled down on it. (Salem, Marion County; 1890s) (For text and pictures, see http://offbeatoregon.com/1411b.312.pennoyers-thanksgiving.html)
Below decks, a chemical fire burned freely through the hold of the Challenger; above deck, her crew worked desperately in a hurricane windstorm to find a port they could put into before the fire broke through the deck. (Columbia River Bar, Clatsop County; 1900s) (For text and pictures, see http://offbeatoregon.com/1602a.challengers-race-with-time-and-fire-377.html)
THE CITY AND environs of Astoria strike most visitors as the kind of place where pirate loot might be stashed away. Certainly it seems to have struck Steven Spielberg that way, back in the early 1980s, when the legendary pirate-treasure film The Goonies was being shot.
But the town may actually have come by this impression honestly. There are still a few stories about hidden treasure in and around Astoria -- not counting the silver-screen “Goon Docks” story of “One-Eyed Willy.” And who knows? One or two of them may actually be true. (Astoria, Clatsop County; 1890s, 1920s) (For text and pictures, see http://offbeatoregon.com/21-10.astoria-treasure-legends-602.html)
The big sub was a key part of Oregon history; it fired on Battery Russell in June 1942, tried to light a forest fire with its on-board airplane that September, and sank several merchant ships. (Offshore, Oregon Coast; 1940s) (For text and pictures, see http://offbeatoregon.com/o1101e-Japanese-submarine-blasted-its-way-into-Oregon-history.html)
Local swindler's anti-impotence scam brought him and his company to national attention; but it wasn't until he added a quack birth-control remedy to his line that he was busted and jailed for his fraud. (Albany, Linn County; 1910s) (For text and pictures, see http://offbeatoregon.com/1605a.swindlers-edward-f-lee-viagra-spammer-389.html)
“Ethelbert” the orca somehow ended up stranded miles from the ocean in the Columbia Slough, much to the delight of most Portland residents. But it wasn't long before the city's would-be Nimrods came out and spoiled everything. (Columbia Slough, Multnomah County; 1930s) (For text and pictures, see http://offbeatoregon.com/1411a.311.ethelbert-portlands-whale.html)
At great personal risk, Coast Guardsmen had to rescue the skipper twice, because he insisted on staying aboard the stranded steamship to defend its cargo from marauding salvagers. (Columbia River Bar, Clatsop County; 1920s) (For text and pictures, see http://offbeatoregon.com/1601e.shipwreck-laurel-stubborn-captain-376.html)
No one in Tillamook County even suspected the “Lee Film Company” was a front for government Prohibition enforcement until the trap was sprung ... but it has to have been the most expensive law enforcement operation in the county's history. (Tillamook, Tillamook County; 1920s) (For text and pictures, see http://offbeatoregon.com/1907d.lobster-trap-for-bootleggers-557.html)
The shoddily built Portland suburb existed for six years. In that time, it spawned Portland State University and helped bring ethnic diversity to the state. Few people realize how important the place really was. (Portland, Multnomah County; 1940s) (For text and pictures, see http://offbeatoregon.com/o1101d-floating-houses-helped-many-survive-vanport-flood.html)
The basic idea: Mix a few dramatic ingredients like whiskey, red pepper and opium; stick a label on it; hawk it on streetcorners as a universal medicine; and leave town before the suckers can get wise. (1870s, 1880s, 1890s) (For text and pictures, see http://offbeatoregon.com/1604d.swindlers-medicine-shows-388.html)
In a race with Portland neophile Henry Wemme to be the first owner of an airplane in Oregon, Cornell-educated John Burkhart was two weeks too late; but unlike Wemme, he designed, built and flew his own machine. (Albany, Linn County; 1910s) (For text and pictures, see http://offbeatoregon.com/1410d.310.burkhart-aviation-pioneer.html)
Before he made it back, Art Lacey had survived a plane crash, bribed a fire department with illegal whiskey, kited a big check and made bitter enemies in Portland City Hall. But hey, all's well that ends well, right? (Milwaukie, Clackamas County; 1940s) (For text and pictures, see http://offbeatoregon.com/1601d.bomber-gas-station-375.html)
The geographical evidence isn't there; but every nearby Indian community has legends about the river tunneling underground for miles, and roughly similar accounts of the tunnel's collapse. What are the odds? (Near The Dalles, Wasco County; 1400s) (For text and pictures, see http://offbeatoregon.com/1907c.bridge-of-the-gods-legend-and-truth.html)
Stories of lost loot and buried booty have kept treasure hunters busy digging for gold in hidden corners of Oregon for the past 150 years. (For text and pictures, see http://offbeatoregon.com/o1101c-oregon-backcountry-rich-in-legends-of-buried-treasure.html)
In the first half of the 1800s, mainstream medical doctors were not very trusted; travelers on the Oregon Trail relied more on herbal remedies or cold water. (Oregon Trail, 1840s, 1850s) (For text and pictures, see http://offbeatoregon.com/1604c.medicine-oregon-trail-387.html)
On the bright side, though, the owner of the Desdemona did get to go down in history — or, rather, geography — after the deadly sandbar that took his ship was dubbed Desdemona Sands. (Columbia River Bar, Clatsop County; 1850s) (For text and pictures, see http://offbeatoregon.com/1410c.309.desdemona-shipwreck.html)
It's probably just as well that no actual dinosaur bones were found here; the spiteful, unprofessional “cowboy paleontology” practiced by O.C. Marsh and E.D. Cope left Oregon's pioneer scientists profoundly unimpressed as it was. (John Day Fossil Beds, Wheeler and Grant County; 1870s ) (For text and pictures, see http://offbeatoregon.com/1601c.bone-wars.374.html)
Sidewheel steamer’s sinking was a major maritime disaster for Oregon; treasure hunters found the gold-laden wreck in 1993, touching off a big, undignified catfight with the state of California over salvage rights. (Offshore, Curry County; 1860s) (For text and pictures, see http://offbeatoregon.com/o1101b-shipwreck-of-brother-jonathan-ground-zero-in-fight-over-treasure.html)
Not many people know it, but Oregon had U.S. history's first female governor (in 1909), first female sworn police officer (in 1908) and first female stagecoach driver (in the 1860s). (1860s, 1870s, 1880s, 1900s) (For text and pictures, see http://offbeatoregon.com/1604b.great-women-part2-386.html)
Other pioneering Oregonians worthy of having bridges and mountains named after them include attorney Mary G. Leonard, historian Frances Fuller Victor and physician Bethenia Owens-Adair. (1870s, 1880s, 1890s) (For text and pictures, see http://offbeatoregon.com/1604a.great-women-part1.385.html)
Regular motorists would swing by streetcar stops and offer to take passengers faster and in greater comfort for the same nickel. But the competition enraged the powerful plutocrats who owned the streetcar company. (Portland, Multnomah County; 1910s) (For text and pictures, see http://offbeatoregon.com/1601b.jitneys-vs-streetcars.273.html)
This is an episode in our weekly series titled 'Primary Sources.' Each Primary Source Day we have a reading from a particularly interesting historical item. Sometimes it's a historical tidbit that wasn't quite beefy enough to make a full column out of; other times, an especially interesting old newspaper article; frequently it's a short story from one of the frontier literary magazines that thrived in Oregon at the end of the 19th century. Today it's an interview by WPA Oregon Folklore Project writer Sara B. Wrenn with retired banker and telegrapher Cyrus B. Woodworth, conducted on Dec. 29, 1938. Mr. Woodworth was born in 1861 in Portland, and had lived there for nearly 80 years when this interview was conducted. (For the transcript, see https://www.loc.gov/item/wpalh001962/ )
OCTOBER OF 1913 was a triumphant time for Professor James Dryden, the poultry specialist at Oregon State University (or Oregon Agricultural College, as it was then called). His name was in newspapers nationwide, in glowing tribute after glowing tribute to his success. One of his experiment-station hens had just shattered the world record for egg production with a stunning 303 eggs in a year.
There was, however, one exception to the “glowing tribute” pattern in newspaper coverage of Dr. Dryden’s work. That would be the weekly Cottage Grove Leader.
“In our opinion, Prof. Dryden is impracticable, out of harmony with the country’s best and most successful poultry breeders, is discouraging the great and growing poultry industry of the state and is therefore out of place at the head of the Department of Poultry Husbandry in our great educational and experimental institution, the Oregon Agricultural College,” the Leader’s editor raged, in the Oct. 28 issue. “We would suggest, in conclusion, that he tender his resignation.”
What was the Leader's objection to Prof. Dryden and his accomplishment? Not to get too clickbait-y, but seriously, it will leave you shaking your head in baffled disgust when you hear it. (Cottage Grove, Corvallis; Lane, Benton County; 1910s) (For text and pictures, see http://offbeatoregon.com/21-09.prof-dryden-and-the-chicken-war-601.html)
Lost in Illinois, the affable collie crossed the Rocky Mountains on foot in the dead of winter, making friends along the way and causing a sensation on his arrival. (Silverton, Marion County; 1920s) (For text and pictures, see http://offbeatoregon.com/o1101a-bobbie-the-wonder-dog-put-silverton-on-map.html)
“Patriotic Jeffersonians intend to secede each Thursday until further notice,” the rebels said, and played their parts in the grand production to a nationwide audience as newsreel cameras rolled and reporters scribbled in notepads. (Port Orford, Curry County; 1940s) (For text and pictures, see http://offbeatoregon.com/1410b.308.state-o-jefferson-part2.html)
Boisterous and colorful man P.R. man Gilbert Gable, mayor of Port Orford, drew on the frustrations of the West Coast's remotest counties in an effort to get the state to invest in decent highways. (Port Orford, Curry County; 1940s) (For text and pictures, see http://offbeatoregon.com/1410a.307.state-o-jefferson-part1.html)
If it's true, the 11-ton space rock is still out there — and worth over $300 million. But the guy who says he found it was in financial trouble, and many geologists today suspect he made the whole thing up. (Curry County; 1850s) (For text and pictures, see http://offbeatoregon.com/o1112b-port-orford-meteorite-hoax-or-is-it-real.html)
Up-and-coming Democrat Oswald West had been sent to Portland on a last-ditch attempt to talk Harry Lane into running for governor. But Lane said no; so West decided to give it a go himself. (Salem, Marion County; 1910s) (For text and pictures, see http://offbeatoregon.com/1907b.os-west-banana-peel.html)
The mild-mannered drywall contractor turned out to be a notorious gangster after an article in the Morning Oregonian published his mugshots; he was wanted for the murder of three family members. (Beaverton, Washington County; 1940s) (For text and pictures, see http://offbeatoregon.com/1505e.holden-fbi-most-wanted-caught-341.html)
Tens of thousands of U.S. soldiers, shipped to the Beaver State for training, learned combat lessons that would save their lives and help them win the Second World War during the huge campaign simulation known as the Oregon Maneuver. (Central Oregon counties; 1940s) (For text and pictures, see http://offbeatoregon.com/1408d.oregon-maneuver-ww2.html)
The rising waters of lakes and reservoirs have submerged many budding Oregon metropolises over the years, from tiny one-horse towns to an entire Native American homeland. (Klamath, Baker, Lake, Wasco County) (For text and pictures, see http://offbeatoregon.com/1406e.lost-cities-oregon-atlantis.html)
The darksomely sinister story of the old console game, with its attendant Men In Black and swarms of zombie children, is a fun story to look back on; but its odds of being true are up there with tales of Bigfoot. (Portland, Multnomah County; 1980s) (For text and pictures, see http://offbeatoregon.com/1701e.polybius-legendary-sinister-videogame-428.html)
On that tense late-August weekend, tens of thousands of young people enjoyed themselves at McIver Park, while the much-dreaded riots failed to materialize. Was there a connection? Many voters thought so. (McIver Park, Clackamas County; 1970s) (For text and pictures, see http://offbeatoregon.com/1406c.291.vortex-the-event.html)
When McCall green-lighted the plan to distract potential street rioters with a week-long music festival, he fully expected to lose his job for it — whether it worked or not. (Salem, Marion County; 1970s) (For text and pictures, see http://offbeatoregon.com/1406b.290.vortex-part2-the-family.html)
To Governor Tom McCall, it looked like Portland was about to explode, and there was nothing he could do to prevent it ... until two long-haired young people came to his chief of staff with a very unusual plan. (Portland, Multnomah County; 1970s) (For text and pictures, see http://offbeatoregon.com/1406a.vortex-part1-psu-riot.html)
Astronaut Stuart Roosa had a special relationship with the U.S. Forest Service, and when it was his turn to go to the moon, he proposed a science experiment. You can see the results towering over Peavy Hall at Oregon State University today. (Cape Canaveral, Florida; 1970s) (For text and pictures, see http://offbeatoregon.com/1405b.moon-trees-of-oregon.html)
“Amsterdam Jack” Murray claimed it was all a misunderstanding, but the jury obviously suspected he'd intended to murder his wife's brother all along; then the appeals court learned he was a bigamist to boot. (Portland, Multnomah County; 1880s) (For text and pictures, see http://offbeatoregon.com/1709d.john-murray-murders-brother-in-law-462.html)
For decades after the Tillamook Burn, classes of schoolchildren were bused out to help replant. Today, thousands of Oregonians, on trips to the beach, can point to a thriving patch of forest and say, “We planted those trees.” (Tillamook, Yamhill, Washington county; 1950s, 1960s, 1970s) (For text and pictures, see http://offbeatoregon.com/1408b.schoolkids-replant-tillamook.html)
(For text and pictures, see http://offbeatoregon.com/1408a.tillamook-burn-pt2-the-legacy.html)
A hard-pressed crew tried to snake just a few more logs out before quitting for the day, hoping nothing would go wrong in the tinder-dry forest. Unfortunately, something did. (Near Forest Grove, Washington County; 1930s) (For text and pictures, see http://offbeatoregon.com/1407d.tillamook-burn-1933-outbreak.html)
Settlers in John Day in the late 1800s learned the healer of Kam Wah Chung could cure diseases others couldn't; all his patients survived the fatal Spanish Flu epidemic in 1919. (John Day, Grant County; 1880s-1920s) (For text and pictures, see http://offbeatoregon.com/1406d.doc-hay-lung-on.html)
The case of John Ottoson (ne Otokichi) in 1832 illustrates what can happen: Blown off to sea by a gale, he and his comrades rode the Kuroshio Current to what's now Washington State — much to the astonishment of Dr. John McLoughlin. (Vancouver, W.T.; 1830s) (For text and pictures, see http://offbeatoregon.com/1404d.japanese-junks-blown-across-to-oregon.html)
Ashamed to show his face in Astoria after causing the loss of the biggest passenger liner on the West Coast, Thomas Doig slunk away to South America and remade himself as a military man. (Columbia River Bar, Clatsop County; 1870s) (For text and pictures, see http://offbeatoregon.com/1408c.300.great-republic-wreck.html)
Prolific Portland inventor Victor Strode designed a boat that was half airplane and all art-deco-age futurism, and early tests with a smaller model were very promising. But the larger model he built for the city was a disappointment. (Portland and Coos Bay, Multnomah and Coos County; 1930s) (For text and pictures, see http://offbeatoregon.com/1209d-aerohydrocraft-buck-rogers-boat-looked-awesome-didnt-work-out.html)
“This is an age of do-it-first,” said Silas Christofferson, and proceeded to launch his spindly kite-like “aeroplane” from the roof of a downtown hotel — making aviation history in the heart of Oregon's biggest town. (Portland, Multnomah County; 1910s) (For text and pictures, see http://offbeatoregon.com/1408e.302.silas-christofferson-portland-hero-aviator.html)
Calling himself “J. Hawker,” David Heesh dynamited several high-voltage powerline towers, then threatened to keep it up unless ransom was delivered; the FBI busted him using a CB radio trick. (Beavercreek, Clackamas County; 1970s) (For text and pictures, see http://offbeatoregon.com/1404b.beavercreek-bomber-targeted-BPA.html)
The alcoholic derelicts of on Burnside Street knew they could count on denatured alcohol for a cheap-but-nasty buzz; it might make them sick, but it wouldn't kill them. But then, one day, it did. (Portland, Multnomah County; 1930s) (For text and pictures, see http://offbeatoregon.com/1404c.poison-dehorn-killed-28-hobos.html)
IT WAS A little after 10 p.m. on a Friday evening in the summer of 1921. In their little house on Druid Street in the St. Johns neighborhood of Portland, Robert Green and his family were getting ready for bed when they heard the screams.
Rushing to the front porch, they found their neighbor, Ann Louise Agee, in her nightclothes, wild-eyed and disheveled.
“Help! Come quick! They’re killing Harry!” she screamed.
Green looked across at the Agee home. From where he stood, by the light of streetlamps and the few lights inside the house, he could dimly see the front porch. The door was opening and a figure was staggering out of the front door, clutching at its throat. Then it collapsed on the porch.
Green sprinted across and leaped onto the porch. There he found his neighbor, carpenter Harry Agee, in a pool of blood, dying.
Looking up at him, Harry opened his mouth and tried to speak. Only a ghastly gurgling resulted from the effort.
Harry’s throat had been slashed open. Whoever had done it had missed the jugular vein, but had cut through his windpipe. Harry’s lips were moving as if he were speaking, but no words were coming out. It was as if he were trying to tell Green who had attacked him, but could not.
And before he could figure out a way, he lapsed into unconsciousness from the blood loss. He died a few minutes later, on the way to the hospital.
This was the opening act in a murder drama that would hold Portland spellbound throughout the summer of 1921 — and one that would convince thousands of Portlanders to lock their doors at night. (Portland, Multnomah County; 1920s) (For text and pictures, see http://offbeatoregon.com/21-08.harry-agee-murder-mystery-600.html)
During its glory days, the Gertrude was the fastest blockade runner in the Confederate fleet. But just 17 years later, it was just another dumpy old steamer on a lowly coastwise run, wrecked in what was probably an insurance-fraud scheme. (Coos Bay, Coos County; 1880s) (For text and pictures, see http://offbeatoregon.com/1310a-gussie-telfair-shipwrecked-warrior.html)
Mayor Frank Ivancie, Pioneer Courthouse Square’s most intransigent opponent, gleefully declared the project “dead” in a 1982 speech. In doing so, he accidentally galvanized the citizen group that would prove him wrong. (Portland, Multnomah County; 1960s, 1970s, 1980s) (For text and pictures, see http://offbeatoregon.com/1405c.pioneer-courthouse-square.html)
Neighbors wondered if the eight-foot-tall corpse found by developer at what today is YWCA Camp Westwind was evidence that an old Native American legend of a pirate ship is true; if so, there might actually be booty buried there, some say. (Lincoln City, Lincoln County; 1930s) (For text and pictures, see http://offbeatoregon.com/1204e-giant-skeleton-evidence-of-pirate-treasure-legend.html)
Legendary “Cayuse pony” breed gave Indians far more endurance and speed than settlers' mounts, a fact that cost gambler and horseman Joe Crabb most of his ready cash on “The Day Pendleton Went Bankrupt” (Pendleton, Umatilla County; 1870s, 1880s, 1890s) (For text and pictures, see http://offbeatoregon.com/1404a.cayuse-tribes-legendary-ponies.html)
75 years ago, without realizing who he was, Wallowa County included Bruce “Blue” Evans — leader of the gang that massacred dozens of innocent Chinese miners back in 1887 — on a plaque commemorating its earliest white settlers. (Enterprise, Wallowa County; 1880s, 1930s) (For text and pictures, see http://offbeatoregon.com/1204b-monument-mass-murderer-chinese-miners.html)
Discovered (sort of) by Oregon's first governor, the dry lakebed in south-central Oregon's Lake County is a gold mine of Ice Age fossils, from tiny rodents to wooly mammoths, saber-tooth cats and dire wolves. (Silver Lake, Lake County; 1870s, 1880s) (For text and pictures, see http://offbeatoregon.com/H1010c-fossil-lake-oregons-answer-to-labrea-tar-pits.html)
Pilot boat sailed back and forth on the Columbia River Bar all day and all night before finally crashing onto the beach; when onlookers ran to rescue the sailors, they found the boat empty and deserted. (Columbia River Bar, Clatsop County; 1880s) (For text and pictures, see http://offbeatoregon.com/1405a.pilot-boat-jc-cousins-crew-disappears.html)
Caught by a railroad “bull,” the thief shot his way out and ran for it. But an accurate shot by the dying guard and some persistent police work brought the bad guy to justice in a pistol-waving scene in a seedy Albina hotel room. (Portland, Multnomah County; 1920s) (For text and pictures, see http://offbeatoregon.com/1205a-roaring-20s-railroad-murder-mystery-solved.html)
The oysters belonged to the Siletz Indians and their employees, but Richard Hillyer was determined to take them anyway. We don't know much about the final battle, but we do know the outcome, and it must have been a doozie. (Newport, Lincoln County; 1860s) (For text and pictures, see http://offbeatoregon.com/1405d.yaquina-oyster-pirate-wars.html)
In his short 11-month stay on the island nation, he taught 14 Imperial diplomats to speak English, and impressed them with his gentility and respectfulness. And after a long, adventurous life in Canada, his last word was, “Sayonara.” (Nagasaki, Shogunate Japan; 1840s) (For text and pictures, see http://offbeatoregon.com/1409d306.ranald-macdonald-part2.html)
Young Ranald MacDonald didn't know he was the grandson of Concomly, Chief of the Chinook Tribe. But before anyone could tell him, he'd run away to sea — and in so doing, dramatically changed the destiny of three great nations. (Astoria, Clatsop County; 1820s, 1830s, 1840s) (For text and pictures, see http://offbeatoregon.com/1409c305.ranald-macdonald-part1.html)
When astronaut Jim Irwin came to Bend for lunar landing training in the lava rock of Oregon's 'moon country,' he made friends with a local resident — who gave him a sliver of Oregon lava to leave on the moon's surface. And so he did. (Bend, Deschutes County; 1960s) (For text and pictures, see http://offbeatoregon.com/1208c-astronaut-left-oregon-lava-on-moon.html)
The Melanope's maritime career started with a witch's curse. But her most dramatic story was the torrid, doomed love affair its skipper carried on with the heiress who bought the ship so she could be with him as he sailed it. (Columbia River Bar, Clatsop County; 1900s) (For text and pictures, see http://offbeatoregon.com/1506b.cursed-ships-melanope-343.html)
1860s Bannock leader disappeared as mysteriously as he appeared, leaving behind nothing but frontier folklore and a trail of 17-inch-long moccasin prints; a probably-untrue rumor claims Nampa, Idaho, was named after him. (Malheur County; 1850s, 1860s) (For text and pictures, see http://offbeatoregon.com/1409b.304.chief-bigfoot-legend.html)
Is there any truth to the stories of shanghaiings of the cigar-store Indian and of the dozens of dead guys found in the basement of the funeral parlor next door to the “Snug Harbor Saloon”? Well ... maybe. But then again ... yeah, no. (Portland, Multnomah County; 1890s) (For text and pictures, see http://offbeatoregon.com/1407c.bunco-kelley-part2-the-myths.html)
He was Portland's most notorious bad guy, with his fingers in everything from shanghaiing sailors to smuggling opium. But ironically, when he was finally sent to prison, it was for a murder he clearly didn't commit. (Portland, Multnomah County; 1880s, 1890s) (For text and pictures, see http://offbeatoregon.com/1407b.bunco-kelley-part1-the-facts.html)
After a beachfront landowner discovered a loophole in the law and fenced off “his” beach, other oceanfront property owners were eager to follow suit. Governor Tom McCall was determined to stop them, and this is how he did it. (Cannon Beach, Clatsop County; 1960s) (For text and pictures, see http://offbeatoregon.com/1206a-how-tom-mccall-saved-public-beaches.html)
Ancient electrical wiring ignited Portland's legendary Forestry Building, a structure made of massive, flawless old-growth logs that had been built for the Lewis and Clark Exposition in 1905. (Portland, Multnomah County; 1900s, 1960s) (For text and pictures, see http://offbeatoregon.com/1206c-forestry-building-biggest-log-cabin-burned.html)
Pulp writer and religious figure L. Ron Hubbard figures prominently in the most spectacular story of action against “Japanese submarines” in Oregon waters. It's called, with tongue firmly in cheek, the “Battle of Cape Lookout. (Offshore, Tillamook County; 1940s) (For text and pictures, see http://offbeatoregon.com/1407a.sunken-submarine-rumors.html)
NINETY-EIGHT YEARS ago, in a logging camp deep in the forests of British Columbia, a logger in a funny hat walked up to a big stump, an ax in his hand.
Taking off the hat — it was a battered bowler, an old-fashioned dandy’s hat even in 1923 — he laid it on the stump, set a nail in it, and drove it in.
Then he turned and walked away. Probably he walked straight to the logging locomotive for his last ride into town. Nailing the hat to the stump was a symbolic act — Stewart H. Holbrook was quitting the logging business forever. ... (Portland, Multnomah County; 1930s, 1940s, 1950s) (For text and pictures, see http://offbeatoregon.com/21-07.stewart-holbrook-599.html)
Oregon was once known as a place full of “great liars” — tellers of tales so tall they'd cause every pair of pants in the room to spontaneously burst into flame. Central Oregon storyteller Reub Long could hold his own with the best of them. (Fort Rock, Lake County; 1950s, 1960s, 1970s) (For text and pictures, see http://offbeatoregon.com/1209a-reub-long-great-oregon-storyteller.html)
Jerry and Lu Parks envisioned a “fairy-tale history of Oregon” in the form of an amusement park. What they created was a rich cultural artifact, and a treasured childhood memory for a generation of Oregonians. (Otis and Lincoln City, Lincoln County; 1960s, 1970s) (For text and pictures, see http://offbeatoregon.com/1709c.pixieland-old-oregon-cultural-artifact-461.html)
At the pay the city of Sandy was offering, Otto Austin Loel was the only man willing to take the job. He didn't turn out to be much of a bargain ... but it wouldn't be until years later that the town learned how much worse he could have been. (Sandy, Clackamas County; 1940s, 1950s) (For text and pictures, see http://offbeatoregon.com/1506a.sandy-police-chief-executed-for-murder-342.html)
Fishermen working in heavy 24-foot boats at the mouth of the Columbia kept getting sucked out onto the bar and drowning in its massive breakers. Their odds of not surviving a season were as high as 1 in 15. (Astoria, Clatsop County; 1880s, 1890s) (For text and pictures, see http://offbeatoregon.com/1206d-most-dangerous-catch-salmon-on-columbia-river-bar.html)
The motto of Kate Ann Williams' cult was “Pray and be Cured,” and adherents went on rigorous 40-day fasts that occasionally killed them. The cult disappeared after its leader starved herself to death. (Portland, Multnomah County; 1890s) (For text and pictures, see http://offbeatoregon.com/1204d-kate-williams-starvation-cult.html)
Senate committee went from a solid consensus to confirm George H. Williams, to a firm determination not to, in just one week. The cause? Most believed it was because of the arrogant attitude of Mrs. Williams toward the senators' wives. (Washington D.C.; 1870s) (For text and pictures, see http://offbeatoregon.com/1204c-williams-scotus-confirmation-scotched-by-wife.html)
(For text and pictures, see http://offbeatoregon.com/1709b.grande-ronde-valley-used-oxen-dealership-460.html)
“World's Greatest Trick Rider” sold more than 50,000 bicycles in an age when bikes were the cutting edge of transportation technology; Oregon women loved them — until they started getting mistaken for hookers on the prowl ... (Portland, Multnomah County; 1890s) (For text and pictures, see http://offbeatoregon.com/1409a.303.fred-merrill-bicycle-king.html)
Historic steam schooner vanished on a calm night in 1930, leaving lifeboats and debris floating in the water — but no bodies, alive or dead. Was it a violent micro-storm? A “seaquake”? A boiler explosion? We'll never really know. (South Coast; 1930s) (For text and pictures, see http://offbeatoregon.com/1206b-mysterious-disappearance-of-steamer-south-coast.html)
State treasurer Straub was a regular visitor to the state park through which the highway department wished to route the main Oregon Coast arterial. He took one look at the department's plans — and declared war. (Pacific City, Tillamook County; 1960s) (For text and pictures, see http://offbeatoregon.com/1708b.bob-straub-saves-nestucca-spit-456.html)
Though home to some productive mines, the Blue Mountain boomtown made much of its money working the suckers back east; then its head honcho disappeared into the night with the money, hours ahead of the law. (Bourne, Baker County; 1890s, 1900s) (For text and pictures, see http://offbeatoregon.com/H1011a-gold-mining-swindle-left-bourne-a-ghost-town.html)
Two armed men who apparently came to rob travelers helped pull them over the pass instead after discovering there were six children in the wagon (McKenzie Pass, Deschutes and Linn County; 1890s) (For text and pictures, see http://offbeatoregon.com/H1002a_Robbers.html)
Two motor lifeboat crews went out on the bar to save three surviving sailors. Both boats went to the bottom of the sea — but not a man was lost on either crew, and all the survivors were rescued. (Columbia River Bar, Clatsop County; 1910s) (For text and pictures, see http://offbeatoregon.com/1506d.CursedShips-RosecransRescue.html)
The big oil tanker had weathered two major catastrophes in the previous year — a stranding and a colossal fire. But for 33 doomed crew members, the third time would be the charm — or, rather, the hex. (Columbia River Bar, Clatsop County; 1910s) (For text and pictures, see http://offbeatoregon.com/1506c.cursed-ships-rosecrans-344.html)
George May was in an impossible situation, trapped in the upside-down hull of his ship, waiting for death. But then the ship washed ashore, the tide receded, and he lived to tell the story of the wreck of the M/V Oshkosh. (Columbia River Bar, Clatsop County; 1910s) (For text and pictures, see http://offbeatoregon.com/1204a-mariner-survives-shipwreck-by-being-trapped-inside.html)
Clackamas County man claimed his father had bought the salvage rights in 1908, setting off a huge dust-up among residents, beachgoers and politicians, who scrambled to protect the landmark wreck. He almost got away with it, too. (Warrenton, Clatsop County; 1900s, 1960s) (For text and pictures, see http://offbeatoregon.com/1208d-schemer-sought-to-sell-peter-iredale-shipwreck-for-scrap.html)
The former logger tried to cash in on his knack for boat design and total lack of normal fear by paddling over waterfalls: Willamette Falls, Celilo Falls, South Silver Falls. But although he got famous, he never managed to get rich. (Silver Falls State Park, Marion County; 1920s) (For text and pictures, see http://offbeatoregon.com/1708c.al-faussett-waterfall-running-daredevil-457.html)
Gorse reminded Irishman Lord George Bennett of home, so he planted it when he founded the Oregon seaside town of Bandon; years later, the gorse destroyed the city in a fiery cataclysm. (Bandon, Coos County; 1870s, 1930s) (For text and pictures, see http://offbeatoregon.com/H1011d-bandon-founder-favorite-plant-destroyed-his-town.html)
Named after the warden who invented it, the “Gardner Shackle” eventually caused serious musculoskeletal damage; many former inmates limped for the rest of their lives as a result of habitually wearing one. (Salem, Marion County; 1860s) (For text and pictures, see http://offbeatoregon.com/1403b.oregon-boot-cruel-unusual-punishment.html)
DAWN WAS JUST breaking, and Tom McAdams had just barely crawled into bed, when he got the alarm. A 50-foot sailboat was washing ashore near Waldport.
McAdams had been up all night escorting a leaking fishing boat into port after it got caught in a bad storm 20 miles offshore. Now it was the morning of Dec. 13, 1973, and it was his wife Joanne’s birthday. He’d planned on snatching four or five hours of sleep and then maybe doing something with Joanne.
Instead, he was sprinting across the street to Newport’s U.S. Coast Guard station, jumping a fence, and bounding into his 44-foot rescue lifeboat.
McAdams was a master chief petty officer in the U.S. Coast Guard (and still is, albeit retired; he’s now in his 80s). In 1973 he was the commander of the Newport station, and was already probably the most famous enlisted man in Coast Guard history, a title he certainly holds today. By the time he retired in 1977 he had personally rescued hundreds of people, and taught hundreds of other rescuers how it was done.
On this particular morning, though, there wouldn’t be much for McAdams to do. He raced out across the Yaquina Bay bar — which was rough, but it takes a lot to stop a 44 from crossing any river bar — and turned south. But by the time he’d gone a mile or so, the station radioed that the yacht had gone up on the beach, out of reach for a rescue boat. Other Coasties, rescue swimmers Greg Albrecht, Lewis Cavina and Bill Masten, were on their way down Highway 101 to the beach; saving the people on the boat would be up to them.
When the rescue swimmers arrived, they found a middle-aged couple struggling feebly in the icy surf in their life jackets, trying to swim to shore. The rescuers quickly got them out of the water and onto dry land.
Job done? Well, no. Because it turned out the boat's owner had his life savings, in gold, stuffed up under the cabin vent ... (Newport, Lincoln County; 1970s) (For text and pictures, see http://offbeatoregon.com/21-06.mysterious-yacht-gold-rescue-McAdams-598.html)
Adorably boisterous and hearty, Mayor George Baker was the life of every party. But if you were a supporter of organized labor or an anti-war activist, he and his “Mayor's Secret Police” goons were not your friends. (Portland, Multnomah County; 1910s, 1920s) (For text and pictures, see http://offbeatoregon.com/1401b.george-baker-portlands-vaudeville-mayor.html)
Will Daly had earned the sworn enmity of the newspaper's publisher, Henry Pittock, by exposing his plan to steal city water for his lush West Hills estate. But Pittock evened the score with a midnight visit to Daly's residence. (Portland, Multnomah County; 1910s) (For text and pictures, see http://offbeatoregon.com/1401a.will-daly-black-bag-job.html)
This is an episode in our weekly series titled 'Primary Source Tuesday.' Each Tuesday we have a reading from a particularly interesting historical item. Sometimes it's a historical tidbit that wasn't quite beefy enough to make a full column out of; other times, an especially interesting old newspaper article; frequently it's a short story from one of the frontier literary magazines that thrived in Oregon at the end of the 19th century. Today it's a 1938 interview conducted by Sara Wrenn with an 84-year-old tinsmith and horseman named J.J. Kadderly, who came to Oregon in 1878.
Sadly, this will be the last Primary Source Tuesday episode. I’ll still be reading you interesting pieces of primary-source materials that I stumble across, but they’ll be mixed with the other Offbeat Oregon articles more or less randomly and they’ll probably be less frequent. Or, I may start doing them as bonus episodes on Saturdays. The problem is, I’ve found that having another weekly deadline to find content for takes up enough space in my brain that it’s interfering with other projects and commitments. Doing primary source materials on an ad-hoc basis will eliminate the pressure to cough up something interesting in time for next Tuesday, and enable me to concentrate on stuff that people are actually depending on me to do. I’m sorry if this disappoints you.
Shortly after Charles Lyons' body was found, the owner of the "bawdy house" in which he'd been partying skipped town and was never heard from again. Could she have been his murderer? Or was she an unknown killer's second victim? (Klamath Falls, Klamath County; 1910s) (For text and pictures, see http://offbeatoregon.com/1403a.charles-lyons-murder-myster-of-klamath-falls.html)
The real Mary Leonard was probably someone who had given up “the good life” after realizing, during her time in jail, that the powerless women of her time were getting a raw deal — and determ ined to do something about it. (Portland, Multnomah County; 1890s, 1900s, 1910s) (For text and pictures, see http://offbeatoregon.com/1205d-mary-leonard-legal-mother-teresa.html)
Had Mary Leonard died in 1890, she'd be remembered as she really was — a brilliant orator and an inspiration to future Oregon women and attorneys. But fate let her live another 20 years, during which she devolved into a total nut case. (Portland, Multnomah County; 1880s, 1890s, 1900s) (For text and pictures, see http://offbeatoregon.com/1205b-mary-leonard-murder-trial-part2.html)
Many historians, eager to see in her the caricature of the nagging, garrulous fishwife and gold-digging black widow, have missed the real story of Mary Leonard — and done both her, and the historical record, a disservice. (The Dalles, Wasco County; 1870s) (For text and pictures, see http://offbeatoregon.com/1205b-mary-leonard-murder-trial-part1.html)
This is an episode in our weekly series titled 'Primary Source Tuesday.' Each Tuesday we have a reading from a particularly interesting historical item. Sometimes it's a historical tidbit that wasn't quite beefy enough to make a full column out of; other times, an especially interesting old newspaper article; frequently it's a short story from one of the frontier literary magazines that thrived in Oregon at the end of the 19th century.
Today it's a short article by legendary Oregon pop historian and raconteur Stewart Holbrook that first appeared in the October 1948 issue of The American Mercury. It’s titled “Bunco Kelley, King of the Crimps.”
When you hear local historians, especially Portland historians, talking about the unreliability of Holbrook’s historical writings, nine times out of ten they are thinking of this piece. I think it probably did more damage to Holbrook’s posthumous reputation than anything else he wrote.... The stories he tells of Bunco Kelley are mostly folklore, but, writing for a national audience, he kind of lets himself pass them off as real historical events.
(For the text of this story, see https://www.unz.com/print/AmMercury-1948oct-00488/)
Because of how it's chartered, the ghost town of Greenhorn remained an incorporated city even when its population was zero — but it couldn't defend its city hoosegow from the midnight raiders of Canyon City one summer night. (Greenhorn City, Baker County; 1960s) (For text and pictures, see http://offbeatoregon.com/1505d.greenhorn-smallest-city-jail-stolen-340.html)
Largest elephant in captivity went from “Tusko the Magnificent,” star of Lotus Isle, to “Tusko the Unwanted,” abandoned at the Oregon State Fair, with several destructive rampages along the way. But who could blame him? (Portland, Multnomah County; 1930s) (For text and pictures, see http://offbeatoregon.com/1209c-tusko-the-terrible-led-a-colorful-tragic-life.html)
The short-lived attraction on Tomahawk Island was launched in an attempt to shake down the owners of nearby Jantzen Beach; their bluff called, the backers were forced to go forward with it. (Tomahawk Island (Portland), Clackamas County; 1920s, 1930s) (For text and pictures, see http://offbeatoregon.com/1209b-lotus-isle-amusement-park-a-swindle-gone-awry.html)
Water seems to run uphill, and people's height appears to change from one end of a plank to another. Is it a fantastic optical illusion, or a mysterious force? Opinions vary (Near Gold Hill, Jackson County; 1930s) (For text and pictures, see http://offbeatoregon.com/H1002d_OregonVortex.html)
This is an episode in our weekly series titled 'Primary Source Tuesday.' Each Tuesday we have a reading from a particularly interesting historical item. Sometimes it's a historical tidbit that wasn't quite beefy enough to make a full column out of; other times, an especially interesting old newspaper article; frequently it's a short story from one of the frontier literary magazines that thrived in Oregon at the end of the 19th century. Today it's an excerpt from a short book, first printed in 1922, titled 'Sensational Escapes from the Oregon State Penitentiary,' by an inmate in the Oregon State Prison who identifies himself only as 'Prisoner No. 6435.' This is part 2 of a 2-part reading of this slim little book; we started it last Tuesday with 6435's account of the Tracy-Merrill prison breakout. In this part, 6435 finishes out his work with a collection of short tales of bustings-out and attempted bustings-out as well as some short poems written by prisoners. You can find Prisoner No. 6435's book for free on the Internet Archive at https://archive.org/details/sensationalpriso00pris .
A century ago, the drug had a dark, smoky allure for the "fast" young men and women of Oregon cities, and smuggling routes through Portland were supplying the entire West Coast with the exotic, deadly stuff. (Portland, Multnomah County; 1890s) (For text and pictures, see http://offbeatoregon.com/1402a.opium-culture-portland-urban-underworld.html)
When first reported, it looked like a simple murder-suicide. But it quickly became clear that it was something far more sinister — and the motives of the killer were uglier and more sordid than anyone had thought possible. (Brownsville, Linn County; 1860s) (For text and pictures, see http://offbeatoregon.com/1708d.sidney-barbara-smith-murders-458.html)
What looked like a rotting-away hunk of scrap steel was a rare artifact of Portland's World War II shipbuilding industry — but the discovery was made just a few days too late. (Sauvie Island, Columbia and Multnomah County; 1940s) (For text and pictures, see http://offbeatoregon.com/1207e-rusty-lifeboat-turned-out-to-be-relic-of-second-world-war.html)
By far the most embarrassing jailbreak in state history happened when a murderer simply walked out the back door of a Motel 6 during an unsupervised “date” with a woman officials thought was his fiancee. (Salem, Marion County; 1974) (For text and pictures, see http://offbeatoregon.com/1207c-carl-cletus-bowles-jailbreak-during-conjugal-visit.html)
This is an episode in our weekly series titled 'Primary Source Tuesday.' Each Tuesday we have a reading from a particularly interesting historical item. Sometimes it's a historical tidbit that wasn't quite beefy enough to make a full column out of; other times, an especially interesting old newspaper article; frequently it's a short story from one of the frontier literary magazines that thrived in Oregon at the end of the 19th century. Today it's an excerpt from a short book, first printed in 1922, titled 'Sensational Escapes from the Oregon State Penitentiary,' by an inmate in the Oregon State Prison who identifies himself only as 'Prisoner No. 6435,' telling the story of the bloody prison breakout of the outlaw Harry Tracy, along with an equally bloody weeks-long manhunt for him as he made his way up to Washington en route to Hole-in-the-Wall outlaw country. You can find Prisoner No. 6435's book for free on the Internet Archive at https://archive.org/details/sensationalpriso00pris .
Jovial and gregarious, Adelhelm Odermatt locked his sights on a vision of a hilltop monastery — and then deployed himself like a jovial, glad-handing, never-sleeping bombshell to make it happen. It was a near thing, but he pulled it off. (Mt. Angel, Marion County; 1880s, 1890s, 1900s) (For text and pictures, see http://offbeatoregon.com/1505c.adelhelm-odermatt-mt-angel-abbey-339.html)
All through the summer of 1973, there was one song on the radio everywhere that you just couldn’t get away from: Jim Croce’s smash hit, “Bad, Bad Leroy Brown.”
Come to think of it, it’s been very difficult to get away from that song ever since Croce wrote it. You probably are humming it to yourself right now: “Bad, bad Leroy Brown, baddest man in the whole damn town. Badder than old King Kong, meaner than a junkyard dog.”
The little Cascade-foothills town of Boring once had its own Bad, Bad Leroy Brown — although when the song came out, very few people then alive were old enough to remember him. His name was Free Coldwell — or at least, that was what he called himself. Like Leroy Brown, he a proud, strutting tough guy who got a humiliating comeuppance. But his downfall didn’t come from making a pass at “the wife of a jealous man” in a Boring nightclub or bar. No; Free Coldwell was taken down by the citizens of Boring, who basically played an elaborate practical joke on him — with the help of a professional prizefighter. (Boring, Clackamas County; 1900s) (For text and pictures, see http://offbeatoregon.com/21-05.bad-bad-free-coldwell-baddest-boxer-in-boring.html)
Of all the prisoners who tried to escape from Oregon's state prison, the "yeggs" were most successful — if “successful” is the right word. Their schemes for leaving the jailhouse behind included a tunneling scheme right out of “Shawshank.” (Salem, Marion County; 1890s, 1900s, 1910s) (For text and pictures, see http://offbeatoregon.com/1207d-safecrackers-were-good-at-jailbreaks.html)
Searching for a fabulous source of gold formerly belonging to a friend who'd mysteriously disappeared, miners stumbled across Crater Lake. They never found the gold, though; could it be that it's still out there somewhere? (Crater Lake, Klamath County; 1850s) (For text and pictures, see http://offbeatoregon.com/1207b-crater-lake-discovered-by-legendary-gold-mine-seekers.html)
This is an episode in our weekly series titled 'Primary Source Tuesday.' Each Tuesday we have a reading from a particularly interesting historical item. Sometimes it's a historical tidbit that wasn't quite beefy enough to make a full column out of; other times, an especially interesting old newspaper article; frequently it's a short story from one of the frontier literary magazines that thrived in Oregon at the end of the 19th century. Today it's one of the best Stewart Holbrook stories about the old days in the Pacific Northwest logging camps: "Fire in the Bush". It was first published in the September 1926 issue of The Century magazine, which you can find online at https://www.unz.com/print/Century-1926sep-00572/
Charles “Black Bart” Bolton's neighbors in San Francisco thought his money came from ownership in gold mines. It turned out it came from furtive excursions northward to rob stagecoaches in Oregon and northern California. (Siskiyou Pass, Jackson County; 1870s, 1880s) (For text and pictures, see http://offbeatoregon.com/1401d.black-bart-gentleman-stage-robber-poet.html)
The Mindora and the Merrithew had docked next to each other in San Francisco, arrived within a few days of each other, wrecked within a few hours of each other, and washed up on the beach within a few miles of each other. (Columbia River Bar, Clatsop County; 1850s) (For text and pictures, see http://offbeatoregon.com/1505b.mindora-merrithew-double-shipwreck-338.html)
James Lappeus came to Portland from the gold fields of California, where he was a gambler, saloonkeeper and general mining-town rowdy. His career as a cop was dogged by rumors he'd offered to spring a murderer for a $1,000 bribe. (Portland, Multnomah County; 1850s, 1860s, 1870s) (For text and pictures, see http://offbeatoregon.com/1207a-james-lappeus-crooked-gambler-police-chief-in-portland.html)
Until Highway 101 was built in the 1930s, the beach was Arch Cape’s only road to the outside world — a fact that was Exhibit A in Governor Oswald West’s plan to save the beaches. (Arch Cape, Clatsop County; 1910s) (For text and pictures, see http://offbeatoregon.com/H1011e-tiny-scary-hug-point-road-likely-saved-oregon-public-beaches.html)
This is an episode in our weekly series titled 'Primary Source Tuesday.' Each Tuesday we have a reading from a particularly interesting historical item. Sometimes it's a historical tidbit that wasn't quite beefy enough to make a full column out of; other times, an especially interesting old newspaper article; frequently it's a short story from one of the frontier literary magazines that thrived in Oregon at the end of the 19th century. Today it's Lischen M. Miller’s The Haunted Light at Newport-by-the-Sea. This is a short story, and one of the most famous short stories in Oregon history. Like, this story is to Oregon what “An Occurrence at the Owl Creek Bridge” by Ambrose Bierce is to the Civil War. It was first published in the August 1899 issue of Pacific Monthly magazine, one of the precursor titles later merged into Sunset; at the time of its publication, Mrs. Miller was actually the editor of Pacific Monthly. Her husband, George Miller, was a brother of Cincinnatus Miller, a.k.a. Joaquin Miller. We talked about this story, and its unusual impact on Newport history, on yesterday's podcast episode. (For text and pictures, see http://www.offbeatoregon.com/s1212w-lischen-miller-haunted-light.html)
But did Lischen M. Miller create the story of Muriel Trevenard, the mysterious young woman who came to Newport in the 1870s and vanished ... or did she merely write down a story that locals whispered to each other on stormy nights? (Newport, Lincoln County; 1890s) (For text and pictures, see http://offbeatoregon.com/1709a.muriel-trevenard-evan-macclure-yaquina-bay-lighthouse-ghosts-459.html)
State regulators didn't care, so neither did some dairy farmers, who left dead cows to rot among their dairy herds and brought milk to market in the same cans they used to slop the hogs; Portland led the nation in baby deaths as a result. (Portland, Multnomah County; 1900s) (For text and pictures, see http://offbeatoregon.com/1208b-bad-milk-was-killing-babies-in-portland.html)
The tiny coastal town of Depoe Bay was once known for the oldest privately owned aquarium in U.S.; today it’s a popular place for stormwatchers. (Depoe Bay, Lincoln County) (For text and pictures, see http://offbeatoregon.com/H1012c_depoe-bay-worlds-smallest-harbor.html)
Legendary Crown Point Vista House looks out over the Columbia River and was the highlight of the Columbia Gorge Scenic Highway — built when roadbuilding was as much an art as a science. (Corbett, Multnomah County; 1910s) (For text and pictures, see http://offbeatoregon.com/H1012b-crown-point-vista-house-marble-rest-area.html)
This is an episode in our weekly series titled 'Primary Source Tuesday.' Each Tuesday we have a reading from a particularly interesting historical item. Sometimes it's a historical tidbit that wasn't quite beefy enough to make a full column out of; other times, an especially interesting old newspaper article; frequently it's a short story from one of the frontier literary magazines that thrived in Oregon at the end of the 19th century. Today it's Today it's an interview from the WPA Writers's Project, the Oregon History and Folklore project. In it, Walker Winslow interviews Miss Nettie Spencer, a seventy-something Portland woman (she absoLUTEly deCLINED to tell him her birth date), about rural life and frontier 'hard-shell Baptist' church practices in the 1870s. The interview happened on Dec. 14, 1938. You can find more about it, and a transcript, at https://www.loc.gov/item/wpalh001960/
Don't be fooled: Fern Hobbs was a secretary in the “Secretary of Defense” sense of the word. A practicing attorney, she was the highest-paid woman in public service. Copperfield's city fathers thought they could charm her ... they were wrong. (Copperfield, Baker County; 1910s) (For text and pictures, see http://offbeatoregon.com/1708a.copperfield-affair-oswald-west-martial-law-455.html)
Elvis himself is rumored to have played at The Cottonwoods, a jumpin' joint near Lebanon, where thousands danced to the music of many of the 20th Century's greatest musicians. Today, it's a vacant lot — piled high with memories. (Between Lebanon and Albany, Linn County; 1930s, 1940s, 1950s) (For text and pictures, see http://offbeatoregon.com/1208a-cottonwoods-dance-hall-hosted-music-legends-maybe-even-elvis.html)
Warm Springs Indians struggled from 1871 to 1972 to get back a piece of land taken as a result of a survey everyone admitted was in error. (Warm Springs Indian Reservation, Jefferson County) (For text and pictures, see http://offbeatoregon.com/H1002c_McQuinnStrip.html)
The movie was 'The General,' starring Buster Keaton; in the scene, a real locomotive is crashed through a real burning bridge into the river, at a cost (in 2010 dollars) of more than half a million dollars (Near Cottage Grove, Lane County; 1920s) (For text and pictures, see http://offbeatoregon.com/H1002b_TheGeneral.html)
This is an episode in our weekly series titled 'Primary Source Tuesday.' Each Tuesday we have a reading from a particularly interesting historical item. Sometimes it's a historical tidbit that wasn't quite beefy enough to make a full column out of; other times, an especially interesting old newspaper article; frequently it's a short story from one of the frontier literary magazines that thrived in Oregon at the end of the 19th century. Today it's an interview from the WPA Writers's Project, the Oregon History and Folklore project. In it, Sara B. Wrenn interviews Mrs. Cora Jamerson, a 68-year-old Portland woman, about some of the old songs and ballads. The interview happened on Dec. 2, 1938. You can find more about it, and a transcript, at https://www.loc.gov/item/wpalh001968 .
Stranded for the winter on Sauvie Island, the members of Nathaniel Wyeth's trading post struggled to get enough to eat. But for some of them, the greater problem was finding something to drink. (Sauvie Island, Multnomah and Columbia County; 1830s) (For text and pictures, see http://offbeatoregon.com/1707d.townsend-lizard-liquor-453.html)
He’d spent thousands of hours re-creating history’s most mysterious aircraft. Something had gone wrong, and he was about to crash it. When he did, somebody would die. Who that would be was up to him. (Cottage Grove, Lane County; 2000s) (For text and pictures, see http://offbeatoregon.com/1207sp-heroic-final-flight-of-jim-wright-howard-hughes-racer-plane.html)
World's most popular cherry was bred by pioneer nurseryman who brought its progenitors in a wagon across the Oregon Trail, with Native Americans' help. (Milwaukie, Clackamas County; 1840s) (For text and pictures, see http://offbeatoregon.com/H1001b_Lewellings.htm)
The nationally notorious “Oregon Style” of newspapering involved vicious personal attacks and a take-no-prisoners style of cutting invective; but it was ink being spilled, not blood. That is, until one day in downtown Roseburg, when a hot-tempered ex-Rebel newspaper editor named Bud Thompson decided to escalate things a bit ... (Roseburg, Douglas County; 1870s) (For text and pictures, see http://offbeatoregon.com/1306e-bud-thompson-gunfighting-newsman.html)
This is an episode in our weekly series titled 'Primary Source Tuesday.' Each Tuesday we have a reading from a particularly interesting historical item. Sometimes it's a historical tidbit that wasn't quite beefy enough to make a full column out of; other times, an especially interesting old newspaper article; frequently it's a short story from one of the frontier literary magazines that thrived in Oregon at the end of the 19th century. Today it's 'The Bull Cooks: When they ring the gong, the boys have to get up.' This is actually a very historically significant piece of writing on several levels. First, it does a remarkable job of evoking the life of a 'crum-boss' in an old 1920s Oregon timber logging camp, a life and a lifestyle that are long gone today but have left a deep impress on the culture of Oregon -- most notably, in the camping and wilderness culture of the state. It's also significant because it was the story that brought legendary Oregon Country raconteur Stewart Holbrook to national attention, and made it possible for him to spend the rest of his life writing stories for a living rather than falling timber. It was published in the July 1926 issue of The Century magazine -- or, rather, that's where I found it, but it must have been a reprint because he first sold the story to the magazine in 1923. You can find and read the article, and the rest of the issue, at https://www.unz.com/print/Century-1926jul-00289/
Original owners of the falls tried for years to log it, but the steamship and railroad moguls were making a lot of money on excursion trips, so they blocked the scheme, preserving the falls for today's park. (Columbia River Gorge, Multnomah County; 1890s, 1900s, 1910s) (For text and pictures, see http://offbeatoregon.com/1707e.fight-for-multnomah-falls-454.html)
SOMETIME IN 1915, a 40-year-old Black woman named Frankie Baker stepped off the train at Portland’s Union Station. She had come to stay; Oregon would be her home for the rest of her life.
At that time, Portland had a a reputation as a good place to hide out when you were on the lam. It was far off the beaten path; but the town had all the cultural perquisites of civilization, or most of them anyway. Plus, the people of Oregon had a reputation for minding their own business.
So a lot of people who got into trouble back east came to Portland hoping for a fresh start. And yes, Frankie was one of them.
But she wasn’t running from the law, or from an abusive spouse. She was running from a popular song.
Frankie Baker, you see, was the Frankie — of “Frankie and Johnny” fame. ... (Portland, Multnomah County; 1910s, 1920s, 1930s) (For text and pictures, see http://offbeatoregon.com/21-04.frankie-baker-they-done-her-wrong-596.html)
Until the 1980s, you could ride the "Blue Goose" up the Row River past where "Stand By Me" was shot, near Cottage Grove.. Today, it's a 15.6-mile bike trail. (Culp Creek, Lane County; 1900s, 1980s) (For text and pictures, see http://offbeatoregon.com/H1003d_BlueGoose.html)
Massive 16-ton chunk of iron was found by a neighboring property owner, who dragged it half a mile in an attempt to steal it; today it's in the American Museum of Natural History in New York. (West Linn, Clackamas County; 1900s) (For text and pictures, see http://offbeatoregon.com/H1001c_WillamMeteor.htm)
This is an episode in our weekly series titled 'Primary Source Tuesday.' Each Tuesday we have a reading from a particularly interesting historical item. Sometimes it's a historical tidbit that wasn't quite beefy enough to make a full column out of; other times, an especially interesting old newspaper article; frequently it's a short story from one of the frontier literary magazines that thrived in Oregon at the end of the 19th century. Today it's a Dec. 9, 1938, interview with Mrs. Hortense Watkins, an early Eugene resident, who came to Oregon with a fairly large family in one of the railroad's 'family tourist coaches' (which were not very touristy at all) and settled down in Eugene, where she ran the St. Charles Hotel. To read the source documents from this interview, see https://www.loc.gov/item/wpalh001979/
Twenty years ago, PT-658 was a weatherbeaten hulk, rotting away at a pier in San Francisco Bay. Today, it's a priceless piece of American history that you'll occasionally see on the waters of Portland Harbor. (Portland, Multnomah County; 1990s, 2000s) (For text and pictures, see http://offbeatoregon.com/1401c.pt-658-worlds-only-working-pt-boat.html)
Two of them had movies made about their wartime exploits — “30 Seconds over Tokyo” and “The Great Escape”; a third, captured and imprisoned in the raid, returned to Japan after the war as a Christian missionary. (Pendleton, Umatilla County; 1942) (For text and pictures, see http://offbeatoregon.com/1505a.part3-doolittles-pendleton-raiders-337.html)
Robert S. Clever, Everett “Brick” Holstrom, Henry “Hank” Potter and Robert G. Emmens were four Oregon aviators who did the Beaver State proud in what seemed like a suicide mission over enemy territory. (Pendleton, Umatilla County; 1942) (For text and pictures, see http://offbeatoregon.com/1504d.part2-doolittles-pendleton-raiders-336.html)
Oregon played a vital role in America's answer to Pearl Harbor — the daring daylight airstrike on Tokyo and other Japanese cities that provided a much-needed morale boost during the dark days of 1942. (Pendleton, Umatilla County; 1942) (For text and pictures, see http://offbeatoregon.com/1504c.part1-doolittles-pendleton-raiders.335.html)
This is an episode in our weekly series titled 'Primary Source Tuesday.' Each Tuesday we have a reading from a particularly interesting historical item. Sometimes it's a historical tidbit that wasn't quite beefy enough to make a full column out of; other times, an especially interesting old newspaper article; frequently it's a short story from one of the frontier literary magazines that thrived in Oregon at the end of the 19th century. Today it's an uncannily relevant editorial written by the editors of Pacific Monthly Magazine, the Portland-based literary magazine that was one of the precursors to today's Sunset Magazine.