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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

00:09:11

‘Harmonial Brotherhood’ free-love cult was a disaster

Offbeat Oregon History podcast ·

2024/05/16

The catastrophic failure of several of the Utopian cult's articles of faith — especially on matters of diet and health care — had doomed the community to misery and sickness before it even got a start. (Central America; 1850s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1412a.luelling-love-cult-part2.316.html)

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00:09:59

Oregon nursery industry founder’s ‘Free Love’ cult

Offbeat Oregon History podcast ·

2024/05/15

Former devout Quaker Henderson Luelling developed some odd beliefs in late middle age, founded a cult called “Harmonial Brotherhood,” and led his followers into the Central American wilderness. It did not go well. (Milwaukie, Clackamas County; 1840s, 1850s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1411e.315.luelling-love-cult-part1.html)

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00:07:06

‘Miner 29ers’ beat the Depression with gold pan

Offbeat Oregon History podcast ·

2024/05/14

When the Great Depression hit, many Oregonians decided to head for mining claims. The life of a gold miner was rustic and tough, but in an age of bread lines and 'hoovervilles,' it beat the alternative. (Southern and Central Oregon; 1930s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1908b.gold-rush-of-1933-560.html)

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00:12:26

Life around Oswego Lake, and square dancing (WPA...

Offbeat Oregon History podcast ·

2024/05/13

WPA writer Sara B. Wrenn's oral history interview with pioneer Oswego resident C.T. Dickinson, recalling how the land was when the lake was thick with fish and ducks and people were thin on the land. Dickinson also served as a square-dance caller, so if you're yearning for some traumatic memories of elementary-school P.E. class, you won't want to miss this one. (For the transcript, see https://www.loc.gov/item/wpalh001967/ )

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00:10:01

Skill, stout shipbuilding kept wreck fatality-free

Offbeat Oregon History podcast ·

2024/05/10

Really, the only reason the U.S.S. Peacock didn’t break into pieces and drown all hands within hours of slamming into the sand was that it was a United States Navy ship. That meant it was crewed by some of the best-trained sailors in the world, and built solidly enough for iron shot to bounce off its sides. (Columbia River Bar, Clatsop County; 1840s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1911a.peacock-spit-shipwreck.html)

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00:08:41

Guild Lake was P-town’s water wonderland

Offbeat Oregon History podcast ·

2024/05/09

The hordes of awestruck visitors who admired the scenery at the 1905 Lewis and Clark Exposition would have been shocked if they'd known the beautiful little lake would be gone in 20 years — filled in for industrial lands. Not a trace remains. (Portland, Multnomah County; 1900s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1210d-guilds-lake-portlands-water-wonderland.html)

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00:09:01

Wreck of the U.S. Grant: A weird historical mystery

Offbeat Oregon History podcast ·

2024/05/08

The little riverboat came loose from its moorings during a storm and floated downriver and onto the deadly bar with the owners aboard. How could such a thing have happened? Did someone do it on purpose? (Astoria, Clatsop County; 1870s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1411c.313.us-grant-suspicious-shipwreck.html)

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00:07:42

Politicians’ plan for Army to seize gold mines foiled

Offbeat Oregon History podcast ·

2024/05/07

Some Eastern politicians had a plan for paying down Civil War debt: Send in the Army, with the aid of foreign troops, and seize all the productive gold-mining operations in the West. Luckily, a Nevada Senator had a plan to pre-empt it. (Washington, D.C.; 1860s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1908a.origins-of-american-mining-law-559.html)

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00:10:27

What riding the transcontinental railroad was like...

Offbeat Oregon History podcast ·

2024/05/06

When we get the story of early-day Oregon emigrants' journeys, usually they involve covered wagons. This is a story of a lady who came to Oregon on the newly built transcontinental railway, which she did the same year the connection was finished: 1883. This is WPA writer Sara B. Wrenn's oral history interview with Mrs. Hortense Watkins, a widow and Portland resident, in 1938 -- 50 years after her journey. (For the transcript, see https://www.loc.gov/item/wpalh001979/ )

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00:10:29

Oregon’s first murder defendant saved by wife

Offbeat Oregon History podcast ·

2024/05/03

It was the first murder trial ever held in the Oregon Territory. The prosecution alleged that Nimrod O’Kelley was a land pirate who had invented an imaginary wife in order to fraudulently claim extra land, and that he had murdered Jeremiah Mahoney to prevent losing it, and to intimidate his other neighbors so that none would challenge him. But when the 'imaginary' wife arrived, everything changed. (Marysville/Corvallis, Benton County; 1850s) (For text and pictures, see

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00:10:36

Mysterious skeletons of Oregon history: If only these...

Offbeat Oregon History podcast ·

2024/05/02

Sometimes the silent bones of the long dead almost seem to want to tell their stories ... but, of course, they can't.There are a few stories of skeletal remains found in Oregon whose secrets will probably never be known. (Scio, Ochoco National Forest, Peters Creek Sink) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1210c-mysterious-skeletons-of-oregon-history.html)

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00:09:36

Nutty 1890s governor gave state two Thanksgivings

Offbeat Oregon History podcast ·

2024/05/01

In 1893, famously irascible governor Sylvester Pennoyer made a mistake on the date of Turkey Day in a speech. But then, instead of admitting his error, he defiantly doubled down on it. (Salem, Marion County; 1890s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1411b.312.pennoyers-thanksgiving.html)

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00:09:53

Prospectors turned their backs on a fortune, twice

Offbeat Oregon History podcast ·

2024/04/30

Miner William Aldred, traveling to a rumored bonanza in Idaho with five dozen other miners, found two gold mines on the way — but couldn't get the other miners to stay with him to work them. Luckily, one of the two mines was still unclaimed on their return. (Prairie City, Grant County; 1860s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1907e.prospectors-turned-backs-on-two-fortunes-558.html)

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00:16:20

HEADLINE (WPA oral-history interview with NAMENAMENAME)

Offbeat Oregon History podcast ·

2024/04/29

WPA writer William Haight's oral history interview with Miss Etta Crawford, wealthy and cultured member of frontier Oregon's social elite and political activist, recalling her girlhood days in Portland shortly after the Civil War. (For the transcript, see https://www.loc.gov/item/wpalh001943/)

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00:09:48

Laws in old Oregon were rough, not always ready

Offbeat Oregon History podcast ·

2024/04/26

“From 1861 to 1876, every man committed to the Oregon State Penitentiary for ‘life’ either escaped or was pardoned,” writes historian and newspaper columnist Erik Bromberg, quoting from the U.S. Federal Writers Project’s “Oregon Oddities” article of 1939-1941. “Some who escaped were recaptured and then pardoned.” (Oregon Territory, 1850s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1910c.frontier-justice-jailhouses.html)

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00:10:17

Deadly weather usually catches Oregon by surprise

Offbeat Oregon History podcast ·

2024/04/25

Cyclones, tornadoes, flash floods, earthquakes and volcanoes — the Beaver State is not immune to any of these things, but they're rare enough that no one is expecting them when they appear. (Statewide) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1210b-deadly-weather-usually-catches-oregon-by-surprise.html)

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00:09:45

The short, tragic story of P-town’s municipal whale

Offbeat Oregon History podcast ·

2024/04/24

“Ethelbert” the orca somehow ended up stranded miles from the ocean in the Columbia Slough, much to the delight of most Portland residents. But it wasn't long before the city's would-be Nimrods came out and spoiled everything. (Columbia Slough, Multnomah County; 1930s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1411a.311.ethelbert-portlands-whale.html)

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00:09:48

Bootlegger ‘lobster trap’ a huge but costly success

Offbeat Oregon History podcast ·

2024/04/23

No one in Tillamook County even suspected the “Lee Film Company” was a front for government Prohibition enforcement until the trap was sprung ... but it has to have been the most expensive law enforcement operation in the county's history. (Tillamook County; 1920s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1907d.lobster-trap-for-bootleggers-557.html)

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00:13:28

The Portland mining engineer who invented fracking...

Offbeat Oregon History podcast ·

2024/04/22

WPA writer Walker Winslow's oral history interview with William Huntley Hampton, a son of Brigham Young although not a Mormon, who was probably Oregon's second most famous mining engineer around the turn of the Twentieth Century (behind Herbert Hoover). He invented the process of hydraulic fracking, worked for the Bureau of Mines for years, and was one of the preeminent authorities on gold mining. (For the transcript, see https://www.loc.gov/item/wpalh001957/)

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00:09:46

Brothel owner Carrie Carrie’s sidekicks proved bad at...

Offbeat Oregon History podcast ·

2024/04/19

On the morning of Nov. 25, 1881, two men were walking to work along the North End waterfront when they saw something incongruous in the river, just off the foot of Everett Street ... a pair of feet, sticking straight up into the air. (Portland, Multnomah County; 1990s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1910a.carrie-bradley-2of2.html)

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630 results

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