Offbeat Oregon History podcast

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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 https://offbeatoregon.com.

Buster Keaton brought Hollywood to Cottage Grove (Part 2 of 2)
And then there was the climactic scene, which is the main thing people talk about in South Lane County when this movie comes up.....
Buster Keaton brought Hollywood to Cottage Grove (Part 1 of 2)
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....
Prohibition sting ended with a deadly gunfight
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:
Town’s emergency wood money is still legal tender
IN EARLY FEBRUARY of 1933, the mayor and city council of North Bend had a big problem on their hands....
Bunny-massacre parties were big social events
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....
Corvallis man found cows make lousy boat engines
The “Genius of Corvallis” hoped his cattle-powered riverboat would give the upper-Willamette sternwheelers a run for their money...
Alcoholic shipmate drank snake-preserving whiskey
Stranded for the winter on Sauvie Island, the members of Nathaniel Wyeth's trading post struggled to get enough to eat....
Schemers’ plans to exploit Multnomah Falls failed
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...
Shanghai tunnels mostly a myth...or are they?
In the glory days of Portland shanghaiing, sailors were 'helped back aboard ship' on the city streets...
Tarzan fans are grateful for gold miner’s failure
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”...
Riverboat party turned out to be shanghaiing trick
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....
Skipper doubled down on a bad bet ... and lost it all
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....
Bad recording technique led to FBI investigation
Portland band The Kingsmen recorded the song quickly and cheaply, and the words they were singing were unintelligible. But...
P-town’s rabbi got in gun fight at President’s hotel
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. ...
Shipwrecked sailors had to paddle 200 miles to safety
While the captain of the Emily G. Reed was sadly reporting the loss of 11 brave mariners, four of the missing were adrift...
City-bus-powered cable car scheme was epic flop (Part 2 of 2)
IF THE IDEA of cable car service to Timberline Lodge strikes you as a not particularly bad one, you’re not alone.
Timberline could have been a gaudy skyscraper (Part 1 of 2)
HIGH UP ON the side of Mount Hood, Timberline Lodge has over the years become an Oregon icon. But ...
Outlaw Bill Miner’s first train robbery was a fiasco
Fresh from a 20-year stretch in the pen, the famous stagecoach robber known as 'The Gray Fox' found the world had changed...
Taming of the Rascal: Chambreau’s redemption (Part 2 of 2)
After blowing his chance at a prosperous, respectable life in the Tygh Valley, the gambler and liquor man roared through frontier life...
A crooked gambler’s-eye view of frontier Oregon (Part 1 of 2)
French-Canadian gambler started out as one of the most scurrilous rascals in the state, then reformed his ways...

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