Offbeat Oregon History podcast

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)