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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

00:08:35

Larry Sullivan’s notorious P-town shanghaiing cartel

Offbeat Oregon History podcast ·

2024/07/11

The legendary Portland “boarding master” sparked an international incident when he figured out how to shake the ship captains down, foiling their plan to stiff their sailors for the journey's wages. (Portland, Multnomah County; 1890s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1301a-larry-sullivans-shanghaiing-syndicate.html)

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00:08:35

Larry Sullivan: Boxer, con artist, shanghaier, baller

Offbeat Oregon History podcast ·

2024/07/10

A prizefighter with a great head for business, friends in high places and absolutely no conscience, Larry Sullivan organized Portland's shanghaiiers into a cartel — causing international notoriety for Portland. (Part 1 of 2) (Portland, Astoria; Multnomah and Clatsop county; 1890s, 1900s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1212e-larry-sullivan-shanghaiing-legend.html)

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00:11:53

Little-known resort a hit with stars, mobsters alike

Offbeat Oregon History podcast ·

2024/07/09

After making a fortune pushing patent-medicine tablets, Roy Currier cashed out and used the money to build a tidy, discreet little fishing resort on Tenmile Creek — with gourmet cuisine, great fishing, and a little illegal gambling action. (Lakeside, Coos County; 1930s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1710c.curriers-village-lakeside-movie-stars-n-mobsters-465.html)

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00:12:59

A Walking Tour of Miss Mertie's Basement Museum (WPA...

Offbeat Oregon History podcast ·

2024/07/08

WPA writer Sara B. Wrenn's oral history interview, in January 1939, with a persnickety collector/hoarder of historical artifacts named Miss Mertie Stevens, including some Oregon Trail objects dating back to 1842! As a side note, writer Sara Wrenn does not seem to have liked Miss Mertie very much. (For the transcript, see https://www.loc.gov/item/wpalh001977/ )

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00:09:11

Riverboats on Willamette towed barns, fetched fish

Offbeat Oregon History podcast ·

2024/07/05

The Willamette River was running high and wild on the morning of Feb. 5, 1890, as Alden and Arthur Graham set out from Oregon City in their sternwheel riverboat for the daily run to Portland. They arrived in Portland in what must have been record time, dodging logs and small floating buildings along the way, and promptly canceled the return trip. It was just too dangerous to even try charging into the teeth of all the fast-moving debris. But after they arrived, they learned that theirs was the

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00:11:10

For teenage sailor, visit to Portland ended in a life...

Offbeat Oregon History podcast ·

2024/07/04

Like the hero of an 1800s “cautionary tale,” 17-year-old Joseph Swards stepped off the ship, fell in with bad company, got caught up in a robbery that went horribly wrong — and in the end was lucky he wasn't hanged. (Portland, Multnomah County; 1870s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1212b-young-adventurers-visit-to-portland-ended-in-prison.html)

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00:08:22

Roseburg’s ‘Champagne Riot’ was probably not what you...

Offbeat Oregon History podcast ·

2024/07/03

The year after the Civil War ended, the partisans of North and South still clung to their resentments in Douglas County. On Christmas Day, those hard feelings broke out in a knock-down-drag-out that left two men dead. (Roseburg, Douglas County; 1860s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1412d.319.champagne-riot-civil-war-battle.html)

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00:10:52

Tall talker from The Dalles was Oregon's own...

Offbeat Oregon History podcast ·

2024/07/02

He called himself James Cook, and spoke with an English accent. But when asked about his past, he spun fanciful and ever-changing stories full of world travels, tiger hunts, shanghaiings and the like; he went to his death a total enigma. (The Dalles, Wasco County; 1870s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1710b.john-cook-international-murderer-of-mystery-464.html)

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00:23:29

Ben Holladay, Abigail Scott Duniway were old friends...

Offbeat Oregon History podcast ·

2024/07/01

WPA writer Sara B. Wrenn's oral history interview with Minerva Thessing. Ms. Thessing grew up near Milwaukie in the 1860s and was friends with some of Oregon's most famous pioneer characters, from Ben Holladay to Abigail Scott Duniway. She also seems to have had a knack for psychic matters. (For the transcript, see https://www.loc.gov/item/wpalh001996/ )

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00:08:46

West Coast was the Detroit of fishboat engines

Offbeat Oregon History podcast ·

2024/06/28

The engines that went into these old-school boats were slow, heavy, primitive, and built in one of several factories in San Francisco. In fact, until the mid-1930s San Francisco Bay was the Detroit of the marine-engine industry; the Union Gas Engine Company, est. 1885, was one of the very first manufacturers of gasoline engines of any kind in the U.S. (Astoria, Clatsop County; 1880-1920) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1912d.west-coast-fishboat-engines.html)

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00:08:38

How the Prineville Vigilantes were defeated without a...

Offbeat Oregon History podcast ·

2024/06/27

Crook County citizens finally decided they'd had enough of the secretive lynchings and killings; they banded together and defeated the gang of masked riders without a single shot being fired. (Prineville, Crook County; 1880s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1212a-prineville-vigilantes-defeated-without-a-shot.html)

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00:09:14

Lynching kicked off scary vigilante era in Prineville

Offbeat Oregon History podcast ·

2024/06/26

In Crook County, the early 1880s were like something out of a Louis L'Amour novel: Masked riders galloping around by night, dispensing what they saw as justice. It all started with the lynching of an innocent man. (Part 1 of 2) (Prineville, Crook County; 1880s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1211d-lynching-kicked-off-vigilante-rule-in-prineville.html)

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00:12:26

To return to sea, ship had to ‘sail’ through the woods

Offbeat Oregon History podcast ·

2024/06/25

After Columbia Lightship broke its lines and drifted ashore, the salvage bid was won by a house-moving company from Portland — which, rather than trying to pull the stranded ship off the beach, built a road, trucked it over the peninsula, and launched it in Baker Bay. (Columbia River Bar, Clatsop County; 1890s, 1900s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1710a.lightship-saved-by-house-movers-463.html)

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00:19:00

The fortune-telling mind reader's story (WPA...

Offbeat Oregon History podcast ·

2024/06/24

WPA writer William C. Haight's 1939 oral history interview with a fascinating fortune-teller he identified only as 'Miss Smith,' in her tea-room business in Portland's Carlton Hotel. (For the transcript, see https://www.loc.gov/item/wpalh001945/ )

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00:10:58

Storied editor lost feud with Oregon’s first woman doc

Offbeat Oregon History podcast ·

2024/06/21

On any list of Oregon “firsts,” there’s one name that almost never pops up - Dr. Adaline M. Weed.Which is understandable, because although Dr. Weed was the first female physician in the Oregon Territory, she was not a “regular” doctor – she was a hydropathist, a practitioner of “water cure.” Maybe that's why, today, when asked who the Oregon Territory’s first female physician was, most people who think they know the answer (including, until just last week, me!) will say, “Bethenia Owens-Adair, in

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00:09:15

Horrifying asylum poison mix-up left dozens dead

Offbeat Oregon History podcast ·

2024/06/20

Sent downstairs to fetch a pan of powdered milk, a kitchen assistant at the Oregon State Hospital dipped his scoop into the wrong bin — and brought back six pounds of roach poison. It was mixed into the eggs and fed to 467 people. (Salem, Marion County; 1940s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1211c-asylum-kitchen-mixup-killed-hundreds-with-scrambled-eggs.html)

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00:11:22

West Coast’s first novel was a torrid page-turner

Offbeat Oregon History podcast ·

2024/06/19

She had a record of uninhibited and acerbic writing; she was preparing what appeared to be a super-racy tell-all memoir; and she had just secured a divorce from a prominent community member about whom they’d all heard some pretty tantalizing rumors. What was not to like? (French Prairie, Marion County; 1850s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1909d.margaret-bailey-oregons-first-authoress-2of2-566.html)

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00:11:59

Oregon’s literary legacy built on “true confession”

Offbeat Oregon History podcast ·

2024/06/18

MARGARET JEWETT BAILEY WAS not only Oregon’s first author of novel-length fiction, she was also the West Coast’s first published female author, and its first female newspaper journalist. She was also one of the most colorful characters of a remarkably colorful age. She could be absolutely savage when she felt the situation called for it ... and, in fairness, it has to be admitted that her situation seemed to call for it rather a lot. (French Prairie, Marion County; 1850s) (For text and pictures,

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00:19:11

He's been workin' on the railroad, all the livelong...

Offbeat Oregon History podcast ·

2024/06/17

WPA writer William C. Haight's oral history interview with Joseph Stangler, a 62-year-old veteran of James J. Hill's railroad building workcrews who was reinventing himself as a concrete artist. This oral history is a fascinating glimpse into the life and work of one of the wandering workmen who lived a hobo-ish lifestyle, riding the rails and working odd jobs, in the last decade or two of the 19th century. (For the transcript, see https://www.loc.gov/item/wpalh001949/ )

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00:13:58

Governor’s kindness led to fatal consequences

Offbeat Oregon History podcast ·

2024/06/14

AS EVERY SENSIBLE person knows, there is pretty much no such thing as being “cruel to be kind.” Sometimes it does work the other way around, though. Every now and then you run across a story in which someone did something that was intended as a kindness, but turned out to be anything but.Such a case happened in the office of Oregon Governor Oswald West, sometime in 1912. It had to do with a little shooting scrape that Z.H. Stroud, an acquaintance of West’s, had gotten into in the little frontier

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630 results

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