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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

00:08:47

Rookie robber turned out to be Joaquin Miller’s son

Offbeat Oregon History podcast ·

2024/10/08

Young Henry Miller, rejected by his illustrious father, turned to a life of crime, but he turned out not to be very good at it. For his part, the ever-classy Joaquin took to claiming Harry was not really his son. (Coquille, Coos County; 1890s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1507b.black-sheep-of-joaquin-miller-family.347.html)

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00:24:20

Crossing the Oregon Trail and teaching in a pioneer...

Offbeat Oregon History podcast ·

2024/10/07

WPA writer Sara B. Wrenn's oral history interview with Mrs. J.R. Bean, and some excerpts from the reminiscences of one of her in-laws, James Meikle Sharp, who crossed the country on an Oregon Trail wagon train and secured a teacher's certificate in his new Oregon home. (For the transcript, see https://www.loc.gov/item/wpalh001963/ )

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00:17:39

Who needed enemies with friends like AC Edmunds?

Offbeat Oregon History podcast ·

2024/10/04

Abraham Coryell Edmunds, throughout his several careers in Oregon and California, was almost like a cartoon — a larger-than-life loser in the vein of Wile E. Coyote, with a little Carrie Nation mixed in along with a whole lot of Don Quixote. Nor were his “own-goals” minor affairs. A.C. Edmunds was almost singlehandedly responsible for the demise of the early Universalist Church in California, the temporary collapse of the Universalist congregation in Portland, and for the sudden death of the

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00:10:07

Prohibition-era Oregon was a bootlegger’s paradise

Offbeat Oregon History podcast ·

2024/10/03

Oregon went 'dry' in 1914, so by the time the Volstead Act passed in 1919, Beaver State bootleggers were already seasoned professionals. So when the rest of the West Coast needed them, Oregon's 'midnight entrepreneurs' were ready to roll. (Statewide; 1910s, 1920s, 1930s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1308a-rumrunners-moonshiners-and-speakeasies.html)

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00:08:37

Crew of shipwrecked schooner rescued — by a railroad...

Offbeat Oregon History podcast ·

2024/10/02

A small construction engine was being used to build the South Jetty, to protect the mouth of the Columbia River for ships, when one off-course four-masted schooner crashed into it — so construction crews chugged to the rescue. (Hammond, Clatsop County; 1910s; Offbeat Oregon History column by Finn J.D. John, 15 May 2011) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1105c-railroad-train-rescues-shipwrecked-schooners-crew.html)

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00:09:14

Sudden storm caught big freighter ship at worst...

Offbeat Oregon History podcast ·

2024/10/01

Not since before the Civil War had so many mariners drowned in a shipwreck on the Columbia River bar; as hurricane-driven breakers tore the big ship to pieces, all the would-be rescuers could do was watch in horror. (Columbia River Bar, Clatsop County; 1930s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1507a.shipwreck-iowa-worst-of-1900s-346.html)

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00:18:50

Life in a Wild West frontier mining town (WPA...

Offbeat Oregon History podcast ·

2024/09/30

This is the third and final part of WPA writer William Haight's oral history interview with Mrs. Neil Niven (Haight doesn't give us her first name or maiden name). Mrs. Niven came to the wild Oregon hard-rock mining boomtown of Granite as a schoolteacher, later served as its newspaper's editor, and throughout her time there she was a close and occasionally sarcastic observer of its wild, violent, rootin'-tootin' culture. (For the transcript, see https://www.loc.gov/item/wpalh001942/ )

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00:08:59

Everyone had a motive to frame this innocent man (3...

Offbeat Oregon History podcast ·

2024/09/27

The railroad, the local police agencies, and the U.S. War Department all desperately wanted to prosecute somebody, anybody, just not the young Marine who almost certainly was young Martha Brinson James' actual killer. (Albany, Linn County; 1940s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1607b.war-bride-murder-3.399.html)

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00:08:59

Top suspect became star witness in ‘railroad job’ (2...

Offbeat Oregon History podcast ·

2024/09/26

Apparently desperate to avoid charging a uniformed U.S. Marine with the crime, prosecutors sought a scapegoat to pin the murder of Martha James on. They found one, and they had to work really hard to make it stick ... but they got it done. (Albany, Linn County; 1940s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1607a.war-bride-murder-2.398.html)

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00:09:49

Bloody train-car murder led to a real ‘railroad job’...

Offbeat Oregon History podcast ·

2024/09/25

Local authorities were stumped; the entire nation was watching, and the most likely suspect, a uniformed U.S. Marine, was already being hailed a a heroic would-be-rescuer in the press. So they went looking for a patsy to pin the crime on ....(Albany, Linn County; 1940s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1606d.war-bride-murder-1.397.html)

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00:10:41

Fatal crashes made 1933 a rough year for aviators

Offbeat Oregon History podcast ·

2024/09/24

A Ford Trimotor crashed on takeoff in Eugene, and a twin-engined Boeing crashed into the west hills of Portland, within 11 months of each other. Miraculously, there were survivors in both events. (Lane and Multnomah County; 1930s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1712e.1933-a-bad-year-for-plane-crashes-476.html)

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00:16:11

Life in a Wild West frontier mining town (WPA...

Offbeat Oregon History podcast ·

2024/09/23

This is Part Two of WPA writer William Haight's oral history interview with Mrs. Neil Niven (Haight doesn't give us her first name or maiden name). Mrs. Niven came to the wild Oregon hard-rock mining boomtown of Granite as a schoolteacher, later served as its newspaper's editor, and throughout her time there she was a close and occasionally sarcastic observer of its wild, violent, rootin'-tootin' culture. (For the transcript, see https://www.loc.gov/item/wpalh001942/ )

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00:08:56

Ship’s sinking may have saved the lives of its crew

Offbeat Oregon History podcast ·

2024/09/20

Whatever happened to the S.S. Drexel Victory as she steamed across the Columbia River Bar that day sent her to the bottom in little more than an hour, but everyone survived. Had it happened during a storm in mid-Pacific, though ... (Columbia River Bar, Clatsop County; 1940s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1606b.drexel-victory-lucky-sinking-395.html)

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00:11:18

Racketeers, corrupt union men battled over pinball

Offbeat Oregon History podcast ·

2024/09/19

Many people today don't realize that in the 1950s, pinball had a bad reputation as a gambler's game and was as illegal as one-armed bandits. In Portland, shady underworld characters supplied Oregonians with plenty of both. (Portland, Multnomah and Clackamas County; 1950s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1307d-pinball-wars-elkins-vs-teamsters.html)

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00:05:55

Prineville: The Oregon town that refused to die

Offbeat Oregon History podcast ·

2024/09/18

Many Oregon towns, when bypassed by the railroad, withered into tiny hamlets — but one of them built its own railroad instead. It's still in business today, and it's the oldest continuously operating municipal short line in the U.S. (Prineville, Crook County; 1910s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/0905b_h114.prineville-railroad.html)

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00:09:16

Lessons from Christmas crash still save lives today

Offbeat Oregon History podcast ·

2024/09/17

The pilot got so caught up in trying to figure out what was wrong with the landing gear, the plane ran out of fuel — while the flight crew bit their tongues for fear of being insubordinate. A new crew management system was the response. (Portland, Multnomah County; 1970s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1712d.united-flight-173-almost-miracle-plane-crash-475.html)

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00:13:32

Life in a Wild West frontier mining town (WPA...

Offbeat Oregon History podcast ·

2024/09/16

WPA writer William Haight's oral history interview with Mrs. Neil Niven (Haight doesn't give us her first name or maiden name). Mrs. Niven came to the wild Oregon hard-rock mining boomtown of Granite as a schoolteacher, later served as its newspaper's editor, and throughout her time there she was a close and occasionally sarcastic observer of its wild, violent, rootin'-tootin' culture. (For the transcript, see https://www.loc.gov/item/wpalh001942/ )

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00:34:31

Hathaway Jones claimed to be world’s greatest liar

Offbeat Oregon History podcast ·

2024/09/13

IN THE 1920s and 1930s, if you lived in the rocky wilderness along the upper Rogue River, or the mountainous area known as the Oregon Craggies, you lived in one of the most remote patches of the state.There were no roads, only mule paths. Most folks didn’t make it into town more than once or twice a year. It was a 40-mile hike for most of them out to Gold Beach, or inland to the railroad station at West Fork, a tiny outpost that’s now a ghost town near the forks of Cow Creek. But there was a

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00:07:18

Early Portland man’s wake worked — he woke right up

Offbeat Oregon History podcast ·

2024/09/12

Two boys, asked to watch over the deceased on a dark and windy night in the 1890s, got the fright of their young lives ... when the 'corpse' started making noises in the other room. (Portland, Multnomah County; 1890s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/0908b_h122.WakeWorks.html)

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00:05:59

Oregon marked its first 100 years with a $2.6 million...

Offbeat Oregon History podcast ·

2024/09/11

Centennial bash in 1959 was a huge event; state had been gearing up for three years. By contrast, 2009's Sesquicentennial was a mild, understated affair. By the way, this will be the last time this very-old article (first published in February 2009) is published — it has been re-written and thoroughly updated, and the new one is scheduled to appear in this podcast feed on Nov. 15. (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/0902c_h102.state-centennial.html)

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613 results

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