Offbeat Oregon History podcast

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)

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)

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)