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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

00:10:48

Bordello madam Carrie Bradley was a real-life Brigid...

Offbeat Oregon History podcast ·

2024/04/18

The Femme Fatale, like most really satisfying tropes in fiction, is based on real life. And arguably, the closest Oregon has ever come to a real-life femme fatale worthy of Hammett’s pen was in early 1880s Portland, in what today is known as the Tenderloin — in the person of a gorgeous, hard-eyed 28-year-old brunette who called herself Carrie Bradley. (Portland, Multnomah County; 1882) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1909e.carrie-bradley-femme-fatale-1of2-567.html)

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00:09:10

Scholarly Albany flyer was the real father of Oregon...

Offbeat Oregon History podcast ·

2024/04/17

In a race with Portland neophile Henry Wemme to be the first owner of an airplane in Oregon, Cornell-educated John Burkhart was two weeks too late; but unlike Wemme, he designed, built and flew his own machine. (Albany, Linn County; 1910s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1410d.310.burkhart-aviation-pioneer.html)

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00:09:16

Was Bridge of the Gods real? Almost certainly yes

Offbeat Oregon History podcast ·

2024/04/16

The geographical evidence isn't there; but every nearby Indian community has legends about the river tunneling underground for miles, and roughly similar accounts of the tunnel's collapse. What are the odds? (Near The Dalles, Wasco County; circa 1450 A.D.) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1907c.bridge-of-the-gods-legend-and-truth.html)

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00:12:47

The maddest man in old Portland (WPA oral-history...

Offbeat Oregon History podcast ·

2024/04/15

Young Charley Imus was the son of the local undertaker, and he and a school friend were tasked with watching over a corpse while an Irish wake was going on, as the wind howled in the shingles on a stormy, spooky night. Imagine the boys' consternation when the 'corpse' ... woke up. Apparently the wake worked! (Interview conducted on Feb. 24, 1939. For the source documents, see https://www.loc.gov/item/wpalh001939/)

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00:17:16

Cressman was Oregon’s real-life Indiana Jones

Offbeat Oregon History podcast ·

2024/04/12

IN THE SUMMER of 1981 a little action-adventure movie titled Raiders of the Lost Ark came out, and fans have been speculating ever since on who the character of Indiana Jones might be based on.The most popular speculation — Vanity Fair magazine goes so far as to opine that he is “almost certainly” the basis for Jones — is Roy Chapman Andrews, a globe-trotting paleontologist and former director of the American Museum of Natural History. Well, the fact is that Jones probably wasn’t based on any

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00:10:11

A long-gone gold town’s short but colorful past

Offbeat Oregon History podcast ·

2024/04/11

This was the town where the Eastern Oregon Gold Rush of '61 got started, and it was a wild and lawless place; town ordinances did prohibit stabbing or shooting people “in public places,” but otherwise the town was mostly wide open. (Auburn, Baker County; 1860s, 1880s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1210a-auburn-wildest-mining-town-vanished.html)

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00:07:55

Ship owner’s offer of bonus led directly to shipwreck

Offbeat Oregon History podcast ·

2024/04/10

On the bright side, though, the owner of the Desdemona did get to go down in history — or, rather, geography — after the deadly sandbar that took his ship was dubbed Desdemona Sands. (Columbia River Bar, Clatsop County; 1850s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1410c.309.desdemona-shipwreck.html)

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00:10:48

How an old banana peel changed Oregon history

Offbeat Oregon History podcast ·

2024/04/09

Up-and-coming Democrat Oswald West had been sent to Portland on a last-ditch attempt to talk Harry Lane into running for governor. But Lane said no; so West decided to give it a go himself. (Salem, Marion County; 1910) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1907b.os-west-banana-peel.html)

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00:09:56

Recollections of an 1880s Astoria salmon fisherman...

Offbeat Oregon History podcast ·

2024/04/08

Fans of shanghaiing-era waterfront culture will not want to miss this WPA oral history, collected in 1938. Retired fisherman Charles deLashmutt recalls stories of gillnet salmon fishermen 'corking' each other, brawling in bars, and buying hooch from the 'whiskey scows' that anchored 30 feet off the Washington shore and served cheap booze at 'paddle-up windows' for thirsty customers. Mr. DeLashmutt was a piano player in a dance band, so he saw plenty of barroom activity. This one, collected by Sara

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00:08:49

Battleship USS Oregon was lost in Pearl Harbor attack...

Offbeat Oregon History podcast ·

2024/04/05

TIME NEVER WAS on the U.S.S. Oregon’s side. She was launched in 1896, in the middle of a remarkable period of torrid innovation and development in the history of warships, a time when ship designs were only good for about ten years before something better came along. (Portland, Multnomah County; 1940s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1910b.battleship-oregon.html)

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00:11:34

P.R. wizard Gilbert Gable managed Jefferson...

Offbeat Oregon History podcast ·

2024/04/04

“Patriotic Jeffersonians intend to secede each Thursday until further notice,” the rebels said, and played their parts in the grand production to a nationwide audience as newsreel cameras rolled and reporters scribbled in notepads. (Port Orford, Curry County; 1940s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1410b.308.state-o-jefferson-part2.html)

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00:09:40

Jefferson ‘secession’ of ’41 a brilliant publicity...

Offbeat Oregon History podcast ·

2024/04/03

Boisterous and colorful man P.R. man Gilbert Gable, mayor of Port Orford, drew on the frustrations of the West Coast's remotest counties in an effort to get the state to invest in decent highways. (Part 1 of 2 parts on the 1941 Jefferson 'secession') (Port Orford, Curry County; 1940s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1410a.307.state-o-jefferson-part1.html)

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00:13:55

Surge of rebel refugees changed Oregon politics

Offbeat Oregon History podcast ·

2024/04/03

After the Civil War, refugees from the devastated South flooded west, seeking a fresh start ... and for a few years, Oregon looked like Dixie on the Left Coast. They even went so far as to try to de-ratify the Fourteenth Amendment. (Salem, Marion County; 1860s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1907a.ex-rebels-changed-oregon-politics-554.html)

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00:10:35

Oregon City was home of first electric power grid

Offbeat Oregon History podcast ·

2024/04/03

Entrepreneurs figured out how to send power long distances for the first time in history; later, after a flood wiped out power station, they pioneered alternating-current transmission. (Oregon City, Clackamas County; 1880s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1201a-oregon-city-home-of-worlds-first-power-grid.html)

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00:09:32

Express clerk’s silence foiled Eugene train robber

Offbeat Oregon History podcast ·

2024/04/02

(NOTE: For organizational reasons, this column is being published earlier than usual. You may already have heard this one.) The masked outlaw planned the job out carefully, and thought he was ready for anything. But he met his match in the cool-handed express man, and had to leave almost empty-handed. (Saginaw, Lane County; 1900s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1501a.saginaw-train-robbery.320.html)

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00:07:46

Recollections of an Oswego native from the days of...

Offbeat Oregon History podcast ·

2024/04/01

WPA Writer Sara B. Wrenn one day walked all the way from downtown Portland to the town of Oswego to interview a pioneer woman ... who was not at home. (Ironic, isn't it, that this article should have popped up on April Fools' Day?) Hoping to salvage something from the long walk, Ms. Wrenn asked around, and ended up interviewing Margaret Weightman, a 54-year-old Oswego native, about her pioneer parents. (Full transcripts are at the Library of Congress, https://www.loc.gov/item/wpalh001966/)

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00:08:14

Murderer avoided gallows by faking a 2-year coma

Offbeat Oregon History podcast ·

2024/03/29

Charles Fiester lay there on his cot, eyes open, staring at nothing, pretending to be catatonic, for 515 days ... knowing that when his ruse was discovered, he'd be hanged. (Kerby, Josephine County; 1890s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1803a.fiester-murderer-faked-insanity-515-days-485.html)

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00:10:10

Vaudeville Susie’s Riot; or, Oregon’s Helen of Troy

Offbeat Oregon History podcast ·

2024/03/28

The Rebel sympathizers resented the Union soldiers taking all the seats when Vaudeville star Susie Robinson of Corvallis took the stage. The soldiers wouldn't back down. Then somebody pulled a pistol ... and the battle was on. (Corvallis, Benton County; 1860s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1603d.vaudeville-susie-riot.384.html)

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00:08:44

Union squabbles were part of life on the waterfront

Offbeat Oregon History podcast ·

2024/03/27

Every few years, in the early 1900s, burly and hard-fisted dock workers got into a battle of wills with the autocratic sea-captains who ran the shipping companies. Most of the time, the dock workers got the worst of it. (Portland, Multnomah County; 1900s, 1910s, 1920s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1303e-union-squabbles-on-portland-waterfront.html)

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00:09:12

Malheur County rancher saves pioneer Oregon aviator’s...

Offbeat Oregon History podcast ·

2024/03/26

Barnstormer Ted Barber was down to his last half-cup of gasoline when Ralph Grove rescued him by lighting up a field with the headlights of his car; Ted's old Waco 9 biplane lived to fly the next day, and so did he. (Near Andrews, Malheur County; 1930s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1103c-harney-county-rancher-saves-oregon-pioneer-aviators-life.html)

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630 results

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