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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

00:08:21

Dispute over 'McQuinn Strip' lasted more than a...

Offbeat Oregon History podcast ·

2026/01/30

The dispute over the McQuinn Strip was no simple neighborhood kerfuffle. The amount of land in dispute was roughly 80,000 acres — close to 10 percent of the whole Warm Springs Indian Reservation. And the dispute burned hot for 101 years.Not until 1972 did Congress finally do the right thing and pass legislation giving it back. And even then, there were still people in the government (notably the Forest Service) who didn’t want to do it. (For text and pictures, see

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00:06:56

Dispute over Indians’ land lasted for 101 years (Part...

Offbeat Oregon History podcast ·

2026/01/29

IF THERE IS an entry in the Guinness Book of World Records for the longest active land dispute, it has to belong to the Confederated Tribes of Warm Springs Indians in central Oregon. But maybe it wouldn’t count for the record, as the land was only in dispute for the first 16 of those years. The whole rest of the time was taken up trying to get the government to follow the law and give the stolen land back. (For text and pictures, see

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00:11:18

Bungling ex-crimps book-ended shanghaiing era

Offbeat Oregon History podcast ·

2026/01/28

Bunco Kelley was out of prison, Mysterious Billy Smith was at loose ends, and Jumbo Riley was looking for something to do ... somehow, they ended up at a table at Erickson's Saloon with the Jost brothers, talking about getting back into the shanghaiing business. Alas, it was not to be ... (Portland, Multnomah County; 1907) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1906c.jost-brothers-the-last-shanghaiers-552.html)

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00:10:35

Plan to stop shanghaiing: Give Sullivan a monopoly

Offbeat Oregon History podcast ·

2026/01/27

Oregon's Sailors' Boardinghouse Commission seemed completely uninterested in any enforcement activity other than ordering Larry Sullivan's competitors to leave the business. Naturally, those competitors fought back as best they could. (Portland, Multnomah County; 1900s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1906b.mysterious-billy-part2of2-551.html)

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00:10:39

World boxing champ by day, shanghaier by night

Offbeat Oregon History podcast ·

2026/01/26

After Jim Turk's death, former pro prizefighter Larry Sullivan virtually owned the shanghaiing business in Portland ... but there was one competitor he couldn't seem to shake: 'Mysterious Billy' Smith, boxing's Welterweight Champion of the World -- whose 'day job' was crimping sailors. (East Portland, Multnomah County; 1900s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1906a.mysterious-billy-smith-shanghaier-550.html)

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00:09:31

Shanghaiing in Portland: P-town's time as shanghaiing...

Offbeat Oregon History podcast ·

2026/01/23

AS OF THE time of this writing, there is some disagreement over the status of Oregon’s largest city. It all came to a head last month when the President of the United States referred to it as “war-ravaged Portland” in a Tweet, and locals responded by going on Amazon and buying every inflatable frog costume they could get their hands on. Interesting times, indeed! A little over 100 years ago, though, you could have made the case that parts of Portland were — not war-ravaged, exactly, but probably

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00:09:03

Shanghaiing in Portland: How the 'crimping' business...

Offbeat Oregon History podcast ·

2026/01/22

Shanghaiing was the most extreme form of a practice called 'crimping,' which was basically a human-trafficking operation that ran on something like forced indebtedness. (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/2511a1006c.portland-shanghaiing-capital-of-world-710.076.html)

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00:07:54

How ‘FBI’s Most Wanted’ gangster was busted

Offbeat Oregon History podcast ·

2026/01/21

The mild-mannered drywall contractor turned out to be a notorious gangster after an article in the Morning Oregonian published his mugshots; he was wanted for the murder of three family members. (Beaverton, Washington County; 1940s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1505e.holden-fbi-most-wanted-caught-341.html)

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00:12:23

‘Hold-up session’ featured big drunken house party

Offbeat Oregon History podcast ·

2026/01/20

The fix was in -- all the legislators who needed to be bribed had been paid off -- so John Mitchell felt comfortable 'fessing up to his plans to double-cross Jonathan Bourne and his "Friends of Silver." But Bourne had a plan to turn that around ... (Salem, Marion County; 1890s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1906d.hold-up-session-1897-553.html)

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00:07:03

‘Oregon’s Outback’ a real moonshiner’s paradise

Offbeat Oregon History podcast ·

2026/01/19

Central and Eastern Oregon was “Oregon's liquor cabinet” during Prohibition; its wide open spaces and tight-knit communities made busting bootleggers uncommonly difficult there. (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1203c-moonshiners-of-oregon-outback.html)

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00:10:47

Bing cherry has its roots on the Oregon Trail

Offbeat Oregon History podcast ·

2026/01/16

WHEN CHERRY SEASON rolls around, there’s never much doubt about what varieties you’ll find in your local grocery store. They’ll usually have some white or blush cherries, typically Royal Anne or Rainier; but most of them will be Bings. Among cherry fans, the deep-red Bing is the gold standard, and has been for well over 100 years now. Rich and sweet, almost like chocolate in its intensity of flavor, the Bing dominates the supermarket and is most people’s favorite variety. And there is probably no

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00:09:47

Gov. T.T. Geer is Oregon’s ‘patron saint of bicyclists’

Offbeat Oregon History podcast ·

2026/01/15

Hopping on an old steel one-speed and pedaling 30 miles, then mowing a half-acre of lawn with a push mower, chopping down an oak tree twice, and riding 30 miles back again — it was all in a weekend's work for Gov. T.T. Geer. (Champoeg, Marion County; 1890s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1706a.governor-geer-bicycles-to-champoeg-446.html)

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00:06:04

For Oregon pioneer family, highway robbers were...

Offbeat Oregon History podcast ·

2026/01/14

The armed men who apparently came to rob and kill the travelers helped pull them over the summit of McKenzie pass instead - after discovering there were six children in the wagon. (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1002a_Robbers.html)

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00:13:15

‘Diamond Bill’ Barrett was a modern Mr. Wickham

Offbeat Oregon History podcast ·

2026/01/13

'Diamond Bill' Barrett earned his nickname by sweet-talking a jewelry store into letting him borrow a $55,000 diamond, which he promptly hocked. Later, he deployed that legendary charm to sweet-talk two heiresses into marrying him, then disappeared with showgirl-turned-trophy-wife Sidi Wirt Spreckels' $100,000 string of pearls. But the mystery remains: Did he really steal Sidi's pearls ... or did he fence them for her? (Hillsboro, Washington County; 1910s) (For text and pictures, see

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00:10:38

Rescue station keeper’s cowardice got 11 killed

Offbeat Oregon History podcast ·

2026/01/12

At the critical moment, the keeper of the rescue station at Cape Arago lost his nerve and deserted his waiting crew. Eleven shipwrecked sailors drowned while he huddled behind the warm stove in his cabin. (Cape Arago, Coos County; 1880s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1905b.lighthouse-keeper-cowardice-547.html)

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00:10:41

Oregon Vortex: 95 years of keeping experts guessing

Offbeat Oregon History podcast ·

2026/01/09

ABOUT 20 YEARS ago, Alex Hirsch, a student at the California Institute of the Arts in Santa Clarita, set out to make a low-budget short animated film that he hoped would become a demo reel one day. It was called “Gravity Falls” … you have perhaps heard of it, yes?Hirsch used the 11-minute reel to pitch Disney on his show, and they snapped it up. To say it was a success is to understate things quite a bit; when it debuted in 2012 the show was probably the biggest new thing on The Disney Channel

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00:09:06

The crazy story of U.S.’s first woman governor (Part...

Offbeat Oregon History podcast ·

2026/01/08

HALFWAY THROUGH HIS second term in office, Governor Chamberlain ran for a seat in the U.S. Senate, and won the election. So he resigned his office as governor in favor of his Secretary of State, Frank W. Benson, and prepared to board an eastbound train to take his new seat. There was a problem, though.... (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/23-04.caralyn-shelton-first-woman-guv-620.html)

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00:09:35

The crazy story of U.S.’s first woman governor (Part...

Offbeat Oregon History podcast ·

2026/01/07

IF YOU ASK most Oregonians who the first woman governor in state history was, they’ll have an immediate answer … but they’ll be wrong.Conventional wisdom holds that the first woman to take the gubernatorial purple in the Beaver State was Barbara Roberts, who was elected to the job in 1990. In fact, that’s almost true … but, of course, “almost” doesn’t work very well as an answer to a true-or-false question. The truth is, Barbara Roberts was the first elected woman governor in Oregon history. But

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00:08:11

Land-fraud swindlers plundered Oregon badly (Part 2...

Offbeat Oregon History podcast ·

2026/01/06

Happily ensconced in their little bubble of like-minded businessmen and politicians, the land thieves had gotten to be a bit out of touch with how their activities were playing with the public. As the new century dawned, the old “greed is good” ethos of the Gilded Age was wearing very thin. Members of the public, watching fat cats from out of state (or even out of country) take advantage of the situation to build vast absentee empires, were starting to notice, and resent. (For text and pictures, see

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00:09:17

Land-fraud swindlers plundered Oregon badly (Part 1...

Offbeat Oregon History podcast ·

2026/01/05

ON THE MORNING of Dec. 7, 1904, Stephen A.D. Puter had just arrived at the office of U.S. Marshal Jack Matthews. He was expecting some friends to come by … and bail him out of jail.Puter had just been convicted of masterminding a plan to swindle the U.S. government out of thousands of acres of prime timberlands. He had not yet been sentenced. Like all convicts, he had the option of either staying in jail until sentencing, or posting bail. In his case, bail was set at $4,000. He figured his friends

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