Offbeat Oregon History podcast

The Portland mining engineer who invented fracking (WPA oral-history interview with William Hampton)

WPA writer Walker Winslow's oral history interview with William Huntley Hampton, a son of Brigham...

• 0
• 0
• Ayer

Brothel owner Carrie Carrie’s sidekicks proved bad at corpse disposal (Part 2 of 2)

On the morning of Nov. 25, 1881, two men were walking to work along the North End waterfront when...

• 0
• 0
• 3 días

Bordello madam Carrie Bradley was a real-life Brigid O’Shaughnessy (Part 1 of 2 parts)

The Femme Fatale, like most really satisfying tropes in fiction, is based on real life. And...

• 0
• 0
• 5 días

Scholarly Albany flyer was the real father of Oregon aviation

In a race with Portland neophile Henry Wemme to be the first owner of an airplane in Oregon,...

• 0
• 0
• 6 días

Was Bridge of the Gods real? Almost certainly yes

The geographical evidence isn't there; but every nearby Indian community has legends about the...

• 0
• 0
• 6 días

The maddest man in old Portland (WPA oral-history interview)

Young Charley Imus was the son of the local undertaker, and he and a school friend were tasked...

• 0
• 0
• 7 días

Cressman was Oregon’s real-life Indiana Jones

IN THE SUMMER of 1981 a little action-adventure movie titled Raiders of the Lost Ark came out,...

• 0
• 0
• 11 días

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

This was the town where the Eastern Oregon Gold Rush of '61 got started, and it was a wild and...

• 0
• 0
• 11 días

Ship owner’s offer of bonus led directly to shipwreck

On the bright side, though, the owner of the Desdemona did get to go down in history — or,...

• 0
• 0
• 12 días

How an old banana peel changed Oregon history

Up-and-coming Democrat Oswald West had been sent to Portland on a last-ditch attempt to talk...

• 0
• 0
• 14 días

Recollections of an 1880s Astoria salmon fisherman (WPA oral-history interview)

Fans of shanghaiing-era waterfront culture will not want to miss this WPA oral history, collected...

• 0
• 0
• 15 días

Jefferson ‘secession’ of ’41 a brilliant publicity stunt

Boisterous and colorful man P.R. man Gilbert Gable, mayor of Port Orford, drew on the...

• 0
• 0
• 17 días

Battleship USS Oregon was lost in Pearl Harbor attack — sort of

TIME NEVER WAS on the U.S.S. Oregon’s side. She was launched in 1896, in the middle of a...

• 0
• 0
• 18 días

P.R. wizard Gilbert Gable managed Jefferson ‘secession’ like a movie (Part 2 of 2)

“Patriotic Jeffersonians intend to secede each Thursday until further notice,” the rebels said,...

• 0
• 0
• 19 días

Oregon City was home of first electric power grid

Entrepreneurs figured out how to send power long distances for the first time in history; later,...

• 0
• 0
• 20 días

Surge of rebel refugees changed Oregon politics

After the Civil War, refugees from the devastated South flooded west, seeking a fresh start ......

• 0
• 0
• 20 días

Express clerk’s silence foiled Eugene train robber

(NOTE: For organizational reasons, this column is being published earlier than usual. You may...

• 0
• 0
• 21 días

Recollections of an Oswego native from the days of the Oregon Iron Company (WPA oral-history interview)

WPA Writer Sara B. Wrenn one day walked all the way from downtown Portland to the town of Oswego...

• 0
• 0
• 22 días

Murderer avoided gallows by faking a 2-year coma

Charles Fiester lay there on his cot, eyes open, staring at nothing, pretending to be catatonic,...

• 0
• 0
• 25 días

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

The Rebel sympathizers resented the Union soldiers taking all the seats when Vaudeville star...

• 0
• 0
• 26 días