Episodios

  • Schemers’ plans to exploit Multnomah Falls failed

    Schemers’ plans to exploit Multnomah Falls failed
    Dec 3 2025
    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)
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    10 m
  • Shanghai tunnels mostly a myth...or are they?

    Shanghai tunnels mostly a myth...or are they?
    Dec 2 2025
    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)
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    11 m
  • Tarzan fans are grateful for gold miner’s failure

    Tarzan fans are grateful for gold miner’s failure
    Dec 1 2025
    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)
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    9 m
  • Riverboat party turned out to be shanghaiing trick

    Riverboat party turned out to be shanghaiing trick
    Nov 28 2025
    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)
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    12 m
  • Skipper doubled down on a bad bet ... and lost it all

    Skipper doubled down on a bad bet ... and lost it all
    Nov 27 2025
    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)
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    10 m
  • Bad recording technique led to FBI investigation

    Bad recording technique led to FBI investigation
    Nov 26 2025
    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)
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    11 m
  • P-town’s rabbi got in gun fight at President’s hotel

    P-town’s rabbi got in gun fight at President’s hotel
    Nov 25 2025
    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)
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    11 m
  • Shipwrecked sailors had to paddle 200 miles to safety

    Shipwrecked sailors had to paddle 200 miles to safety
    Nov 24 2025
    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)
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    9 m