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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

00:20:55

Real-life femme fatale got her young lover to murder...

Offbeat Oregon History podcast ·

2025/06/27

The newlyweds, Alvin and Gladys, were on a little vacation at the Big Chief Auto Court in Truckee, Calif. — it may have been their honeymoon — when they went out together to the local cinema to see “The Postman Always Rings Twice.”It was September of 1946, so it was the old film-noir version starring Lana Turner. As you’ll surely remember if you’ve seen it (or a more recent remake of it), this is a film in which Turner’s character, Cora Smith, seduces a drifter named Frank and convinces him to

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00:09:36

AWS spotted few enemies, but saved many friends

Offbeat Oregon History podcast ·

2025/06/26

Although Oregon turned out to be harder for the Japanese navy to reach than folks thought, historian Bill McCash estimates the civilian plane-spotting service likely saved as many as 100 American aviators from dying in plane crashes. (Oregon Coast; 1940s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1705a.aws-eyes-on-the-sky-442.html)

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00:10:02

Cottage Grove’s revenge for 'Nesmith County' incident...

Offbeat Oregon History podcast ·

2025/06/25

South Lane and north Douglas counties felt their county seats neglected them and treated them as a tax-revenue milch cow. So they proposed seceding and forming a new county, Nesmith County. Eugene city leaders campaigned hard against the plan at the ballot box, and it was defeated. But a year or two later, the embittered south-county town got the opportunity to be revenged... and it was brutal. (Cottage Grove, Lane County; 1910s) (For text and pictures, see

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00:09:19

Pro-tip: Model T engines make bad airplane motors

Offbeat Oregon History podcast ·

2025/06/24

Part of the problem with owning and operating the only flight school in town in the 1920s and 1930s was, every time one of your students slapped together some home-built piece of kit, you’d be expected to help fly it. And 'help fly it' usually translated into 'go first.' (BEND, DESCHUTES COUNTY; EARLY 1930s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1811b.ted-barber-diy-test-pilot-521.html)

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00:10:03

Portland’s play to beat The Dalles literally cost a mint

Offbeat Oregon History podcast ·

2025/06/23

Gasping for hard currency to finance the Civil War, and awash in raw gold from two Eastern Oregon gold rushes, the federal government tried to build a mint in The Dalles in 1863. But the Oregon delegation, dominated by Portland interests, would not stop trying to switch its location to Portland ... finally, the gold rush petered out, and the feds said, 'Never mind!' (The Dalles, Wasco County; 1860s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1810d.the-dalles-mint-that-wasnt-519.html)

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00:22:57

Finn on KPNW's Wake Up Call: Governor's act of...

Offbeat Oregon History podcast ·

2025/06/22

A recording of an on-air conversation with Bill Lundun and Gerry Snyder of the Wake Up Call on Eugene's KPNW Radio AM 1120. Topic: Reading between the lines of the story, it’s clear that Governor Oswald West’s well-intentioned intervention in pardoning his friend City Marshal Z.H. Stroud was probably the worst thing that could have happened to Stroud, and precipitated the closest thing Oregon history has to Arizona’s famous O.K. Corral gunfight. Which, as I’m sure you’ve gathered, the lawman lost.

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00:10:58

Lewis and Clark marked their trail with laxatives

Offbeat Oregon History podcast ·

2025/06/20

AS LEWIS AND CLARK’S Corps of Discovery made its way across the continent to Oregon, the men (and woman) of the party probably weren’t thinking much about their place in history. So they weren’t taking any particular pains to document their every movement.There were, however, some particular pains they were experiencing, as a result of a relentlessly low-fiber diet: Everyone was constipated, all the time. Luckily, they had something that helped with that — a lot. The Corps of Discovery left on

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00:11:00

‘Bonus Army’ that crushed Hoover started in Portland

Offbeat Oregon History podcast ·

2025/06/19

Portlander Walter Waters arrived in D.C. at the head of 20,000 disciplined, well-intentioned petitioners to request that First World War vets be paid their service bonus early. Hoover refused to meet with him — a big mistake. (Portland, Multnomah County; 1930s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1704d.bonus-army-ended-hoovers-hopes-440.html)

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00:09:50

Letter from afar gave a “view to a shanghaiing”

Offbeat Oregon History podcast ·

2025/06/18

Four states away from his family, with no living parents, young Carroll Beebe was like a walking, talking invitation to a shanghaiing. And when he checked into Bridget Grant's boardinghouse, she obliged. (Astoria, Clatsop County; 1880s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1903c.carroll-beebe-shanghaied-539.html)

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00:12:00

Former whorehouse is a historical treasure today

Offbeat Oregon History podcast ·

2025/06/17

Once the finest residence in Oregon Territory, the John McLoughlin House also was once one of the most disreputable — so when history buffs set out to save it, they had to overcome some resistance (Oregon City, Clackamas County; 1840s, 1900s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/22-09.mcloughlin-house-613.html)

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00:15:59

The bloody manhunt for ‘king of western outlaws’

Offbeat Oregon History podcast ·

2025/06/16

Fresh from breaking out of jail in Utah, Harry Tracy apparently came to Portland looking for a fresh start; he married, and then for three years kept his nose clean. But, it seems, the call of the outlaw trail was too much for him to resist, and he was caught and sent to prison. His prison break, and the subsequent two-month manhunt for him, became legendary. (Salem, Portland; Marion and Multnomah County; 1900s) (For text and pictures, see

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00:14:58

Famous captain’s heroic action saved lives in fire

Offbeat Oregon History podcast ·

2025/06/13

Back in the 1800s, a fire on a riverboat was a very serious matter, and not as rare as you might think. Riverboats were made of wood and powered by steam boilers, so there was always a fire on board. If powered by coal, there was coal dust to worry about; if, in later times, by oil, the engine room was often soaked with flammable liquids. The stories of paddlewheel riverboats on American rivers are peppered with tales of fires breaking out on them and quickly surging out of control, and nearly all

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00:11:58

Steamboat monopoly’s ‘clever coup’ turned out to be a...

Offbeat Oregon History podcast ·

2025/06/12

The executives in charge of Henry Villard’s Oregon Railway and Navigation Co. no doubt thought they’d played their cards very cleverly when they bought the little screw-driven riverboat Gold Dust in 1881. They could not have been more wrong.... (Cascade Locks, Hood River; 1880s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/2503c1110e.steamboat-wars-uriah-scott-693.145.html)

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00:15:01

They laughed at Captain Scott’s ugly boat...at first

Offbeat Oregon History podcast ·

2025/06/11

READERS OF A certain age all over North America will remember a really excellent Canadian comedy-variety show called The Red Green Show, which had a 15-year run starting in 1990, starring Steve Smith as gravel-voiced handyman Red Green.Each week, Red would preside over the “Handyman Corner” segment of the show, in which he would do something ridiculous with duct tape and, usually, one or more rusty old cars. In one memorable episode from Season 14, Red made a DIY “mid-engine sports car” by sawing

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00:11:21

Portland built nearly half of U.S. aircraft carriers...

Offbeat Oregon History podcast ·

2025/06/10

DURING THE FIRST year of the Second World War, the conflict in the Pacific was all about aircraft carriers. With a carrier, one could take the fight to the enemy. Without one, one could only huddle on an island as a passive target, waiting for an enemy carrier’s aircraft to arrive and attack. When the war broke out, the U.S. had seven of these precious warships, but only three were in the Pacific. They were the actual targets of the attack on Pearl Harbor — the Japanese knew if they could get them

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00:12:02

County wasted $3.1 mil on squabble over courthouse

Offbeat Oregon History podcast ·

2025/06/09

Klamath County was about to move into a courthouse just outside town -- but downtown businesses, fearful they'd lose their status as county seat, fought the plan with every weapon they had ... and won. (Klamath Falls, Klamath County; 1900s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1812a.klamath-courthouse-battle.html)

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00:24:21

Finn on KPNW's Wake Up Call: Oregon's own Indiana...

Offbeat Oregon History podcast ·

2025/06/08

A recording of an on-air conversation with Bill Lundun and Gerry Snyder of the Wake Up Call on Eugene's KPNW Radio AM 1120, recorded in January of last year. The topic of conversation: Luther Cressman. He was a maverick anthropologist with an unimpeachable Ivy League background, a tenured faculty member at Oregon’s flagship university, a former military man who did his fieldwork in an Army-surplus campaign hat with a big revolver on his hip in case he ran across a snake (he hated snakes) ... as far

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00:11:34

Community of Mohawk debated school policies with...

Offbeat Oregon History podcast ·

2025/06/06

AS OF THE time of this writing, it’s election season, and some of us are being asked to approve bond measures for local schools. So, most likely I don’t have to tell you that such debates can get pretty heated. We should count our blessings, though. Some Oregonians used to argue over this sort of thing with dynamite. More specifically, a few of the residents of the unincorporated hamlet of Mohawk did.... (Marcola, Lane County; 1890s, 1900s) (For text and pictures, see

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00:10:05

Is treasure of lucky beach gold miners still out there?

Offbeat Oregon History podcast ·

2025/06/05

IMAGINE YOU'RE A gold prospector from the Willamette Valley, on your way to the California gold fields in the first year of the 1848 gold rush. You’re a little late to the party, and you’ve chosen to try to reach the gold fields in a somewhat unusual way: By going over the Coast Range to the beach, and traveling south along the coast. As you make your way southward by the great ocean, you reach a broad expanse of black sand. And when the sun hits it just right, you can see it’s actually

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00:09:17

First seaworthy log raft helped build San Diego

Offbeat Oregon History podcast ·

2025/06/04

Lumber magnate Simon Benson needed to get logs from the Columbia to his mill in Southern California, so he designed cigar-shaped log rafts a full acre in size. They were a familiar sight until the early 1940s. (Clatskanie, Columbia County; 1890s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1202c-benson-log-rafts-built-city-of-san-diego.html)

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