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PODCAST

Offbeat Oregon History podcast

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

history places & travel

All Episodes

00:15:36

Stumbos ‘never gave an inch’ against Highway...

Offbeat Oregon History podcast ·

2025/04/18

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

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00:12:00

Canadians rescued crew; their reward was prison

Offbeat Oregon History podcast ·

2025/04/17

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)

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00:09:23

Teen girl ended brewing family feud with shotgun

Offbeat Oregon History podcast ·

2025/04/16

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)

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00:10:26

‘Atlantic City of the West’ was swallowed by the sea

Offbeat Oregon History podcast ·

2025/04/15

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)

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00:10:41

Murdered man turned out to have been a creepy stalker

Offbeat Oregon History podcast ·

2025/04/14

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)

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00:13:49

‘World’s Shortest River’ is long on drama and fun

Offbeat Oregon History podcast ·

2025/04/11

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,

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00:11:20

Developer’s dreamed-of high-desert paradise never...

Offbeat Oregon History podcast ·

2025/04/10

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)

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00:09:13

Abigail Scott Duniway considered herself primarily a...

Offbeat Oregon History podcast ·

2025/04/09

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)

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00:10:03

In gold-rush Jacksonville the bank ‘robbed’ you

Offbeat Oregon History podcast ·

2025/04/08

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)

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00:11:52

Col. Hogg’s war record: Marine highway robbery

Offbeat Oregon History podcast ·

2025/04/07

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

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00:12:52

Frederic Balch’s dreamy mythology came to define Oregon

Offbeat Oregon History podcast ·

2025/04/04

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

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00:10:13

In 1960 primary, Oregon was JFK’s make-or-break state

Offbeat Oregon History podcast ·

2025/04/03

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)

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00:09:09

The Berry Way 'trial' and execution: 'Perry Mason'...

Offbeat Oregon History podcast ·

2025/04/02

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)

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00:09:03

U. of O.’s founding father was once its #1 opponent

Offbeat Oregon History podcast ·

2025/04/01

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)

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00:10:20

Anarcho-communist editors jailed not for sedition,...

Offbeat Oregon History podcast ·

2025/03/31

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)

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00:11:52

World’s first gas tax made state a driver’s paradise

Offbeat Oregon History podcast ·

2025/03/28

(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

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00:10:18

‘Temporary Insanity’ plea didn’t prevent murder rap

Offbeat Oregon History podcast ·

2025/03/27

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

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00:10:01

Trove of ‘hoarder’ George Himes is now historical...

Offbeat Oregon History podcast ·

2025/03/26

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)

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00:08:34

Oregon has been peopled since at least 12,400 B.C.

Offbeat Oregon History podcast ·

2025/03/25

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)

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00:16:43

Minor political hack became opium king of West Coast

Offbeat Oregon History podcast ·

2025/03/24

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

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613 results

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