Offbeat Oregon History podcast

Troutdale Airfield is just 10 miles from Portland International — and built to serve Cessnas, not Boeings. But one dark night in 1962, a jumbo-jet pilot got a little confused .... (Troutdale, Multnomah County; 1960s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1802a.massive-jet-lands-at-tiny-country-airport-by-mistake-481.html)

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/2408c-1211d.prineville-vigilantes-663.199.html)

Crook Count was formed at the height of Vigilante ascendancy, so when the governor named prominent locals to leadership positions in the new county government, he ended up stocking it with members of the gang. Their official rule would be bloody and chaotic. (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/2408c-1211d.prineville-vigilantes-663.199.html)

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 3) (Prineville, Crook County; 1880s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/2408c-1211d.prineville-vigilantes-663.199.html)

When the Oregon National Guard was called up at the start of World War II, Oregonians felt vulnerable to Japanese invasion. So they loaded their rifles and possed up ready to give 'em hell! (Tillamook County; 1940s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1802b.tillamook-guerillas-ready-to-fight-off-invasion-482.html)

It's nearly certain that Drake was guilty only of extreme naivete — and his landlord, after murdering a neighbor, knew he could pin the crime on him because Drake was Black. (Salem, Marion County; 1880s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1801d.joseph-drake-murderer-or-innocent-patsy-480.html)

It was obvious to nearly everyone that Chee Gong was innocent. But one of his tong brothers had murdered Lee Yik and disappeared, and blood had to answer for blood. (Portland, Multnomah County; 1880s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1802c.tong-war-in-portland-averted-with-hanging-483.html)

Below decks, a chemical fire burned freely through the hold of the Challenger; above deck, her crew worked desperately in a hurricane windstorm to find a port they could put into before the fire broke through the deck. (Columbia River Bar, Clatsop County; 1900s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1602a.challengers-race-with-time-and-fire-377.html)

The wreck of the steamship Czarina: A cascade of bad decisions by nearly everyone involved resulted in the worst possible outcome: 23 mariners slowly dying in the surf as friends and family members watched from the beach. (Coos Bay Spit, Coos County; 1910s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1302d-czarina-shipwreck-tragic-concert-of-incompetence.html)

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)

In the tall tales of 1840s almanacs, the “King of the Wild Frontier” had a lively interest in the Beaver State. But he did get a few of his facts wrong! (Statewide; 1840s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1801c.davy-crockett-tall-tales-about-oregon-479.html)

Native Americans told Coronado there was a fabulous gold-and-turquoise city called Quivira just to the east - or was it the north? All he found were Indian villages. But, was there a real city behind the legend? More specifically, was that city near Port Orford? (Port Orford, Curry County; 1540s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1802d.legendary-city-of-quivira-on-oregon-coast-484.html)

At great personal risk, Coast Guardsmen had to rescue the skipper twice, because he insisted on staying aboard the stranded steamship to defend its cargo from marauding salvagers. (Columbia River Bar, Clatsop County; 1920s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1601e.shipwreck-laurel-stubborn-captain-376.html)

Feeling lucky to be alive, the soldiers and sailors of the shipwrecked schooner Captain Lincoln got busy salvaging everything off their stranded ship. But then the Army had a problem: How were they going to retrieve it? (Coos Bay Spit, Coos County; 1850s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1302c-shipwreck-camp-castaway-inconvenient-miracle.html)

Crafty county commissioners tried to rig the bidding so their favorite bid, padded to the tune of half a million 1924 dollars, would win —but they didn't move quite fast enough. Three months later, they'd all been thrown out of office. (Portland, Multnomah County; 1920s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1303d-bridge-scandal-aroused-fury-of-1920s-portland.html)

When it came out just after the war, the Beechcraft Bonanza was the hottest private plane in the sky — a sleek, speedy, fuel-efficient hot rod. But it was very easy for a novice to get in deadly trouble flying one. (Rural south Lake County; 1940s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1801a.earl-snell-plane-crash-bonanza-477.html)

WHEN RALPH GROVE heard the airplane engine droning outside, he knew exactly what that meant. It was the middle of the night, and some stormy weather was coming in. Nobody would be out flying on a night like this unless he was in serious trouble. He lit a lantern and hurried out to the shed... (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/2406d-1103c.ted-barbers-night-flight-115.655.html)

ON A GUSTY late-summer evening in 1930, well after dark, a few feet off the ground near the Oregon-Nevada border, 22-year-old Ted Barber was hurtling through the blackness, preparing to die. Barber was an aviation pioneer and an actual barnstormer — a pilot who paid the bills by making the circuit of county fairs and country dances, selling airplane rides and flying lessons and performing daring tricks like wing-walking and inverted low passes. His “ship” was a Waco 9, a primitive but rugged biplane built in the mid-1920s. This was going to be his fourth crash-landing of the weekend. And it was lookin...

Danford Balch got drunk and shotgunned his new son-in-law on the deck of the Stark Street Ferry. His diary and official records tell part of the story. But the real questions can only be guessed at — and some of the guesses are sinister indeed. (Portland, Multnomah County; 1850s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1302b-balch-murders-stump-on-stark-street-ferry.html)

Calm seas, a hard-working crew and a cool-headed skipper helped the steamship Congress and everyone on board survive a terrifying night after a fire broke out in the cargo hold and spread throughout the ship. (Coos Bay, Coos County; 1910s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1303c-steamer-congress-won-race-against-fiery-death.html)

PORTLAND, MULTNOMAH COUNTY - It was the first news helicopter in the nation, and it gave the Oregon Journal a huge advantage. But then, one day ... (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1801b.sam-jackson-helicopter-crash-journal-478.html)

Going to prison for a year or two might have saved the city marshal's life — it would have given the rivals some time to cool off, and also a sense of justice served (or retribution satisfied, depending on how you look at it). Moreover, he probably would have had to sell his saloon, so that there would have been nothing left to fight over. Instead, he was sent trotting triumphantly back to town with a pardon in his hand, ready to take things up where he’d left off.... (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/24-04a.1107e_os-w...

Reading between the lines of the story, it’s clear that the governor’s well-intentioned intervention was probably the worst thing that could have happened to Marshal Stroud of Harney City, and precipitated the closest thing Oregon history has to Arizona’s famous O.K. Corral gunfight. Which, as I’m sure you’ve gathered, the lawman lost.... (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/24-04a.1107e_os-west-pardons-gunfighter-marshal.html)

The Reverend preached the funeral service to an empty church, while the deceased's friends and colleagues fought in the parking lot over who got to ride in the taxicabs. But the hostilities were forgotten when they arrived at a roadhouse. (Tacoma, Washington Territory; 1880s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1603c.circuit-preachers-longshoreman-funeral.html)

When trying to minister to the spiritual needs of a crowd of hard-sinning miners and sailors, it was sometimes necessary to resort to unorthodox tactics — tactics not often seen among men of the cloth in more civilized times. (Old Oregon Territory; 1840s, 1850s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1603b.circuit-preachers-shanghai-flock-382.html)

Eagerly, the Reverend leaped into the waiting bathtub, positioned at the top of the stairs in the chilly foyer of the frontier hotel. And then, to his horror, he realized it was sliding toward the top of the staircase on a sheet of ice ... (Weston, Umatilla County; 1850s, 1860s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1603a.circuit-preachers-wells-wild-ride-381.html)

ON SEPT. 14, 1964, the steamship Al Kuwait was moored at the dock in Kuwait City when something terrible happened: The ship capsized and settled to the harbor floor. The solution came from a Danish engineer named Karl Kroyer. Kroyer’s plan was to rig a pipe to the ship and blast thousands and thousands of small polystyrene balls — Ping-Pong balls, basically — into the hull of the ship. Eventually, he reasoned, there would be enough balls in the ship to float it to the surface; and he could, by carefully choosing where to inject the balls, bring it back onto an even keel a...

SOMETIME IN APRIL of 1960, a shy, retiring, hard-of-hearing comic-book artist named Carl Barks got a letter at his quiet suburban home. When he opened it, he found that it was a letter from a stranger named John Spicer. And to his astonishment, he found that it was — a fan letter. “Believe it or not, I have been planning this letter for about four or five years,” Spicer wrote. “I have been kept from doing so for the simple reason that I knew not your name or address. I tried several times, however, but all were in vain.” Spicer’s letter was how Bark...

In Gold Rush-era Oregon, the most skilled miners were probably the Chinese — but they were in constant danger. To avoid being robbed, they entrusted their gold to professional couriers who masqueraded as penniless vagabonds. This is a story from the life of one of them, a man we know only as 'Cheng.' (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1103a-secret-chinese-courier-saved-woman-and-baby-then-vanished.html)

It's probably just as well that no actual dinosaur bones were found here; the spiteful, unprofessional “cowboy paleontology” practiced by O.C. Marsh and E.D. Cope left Oregon's pioneer scientists profoundly unimpressed as it was. (John Day Fossil Beds, Wheeler and Grant county; 1870s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1601c.bone-wars.374.html)

It's an event remembered with some shame in Oregon: A group of innocent, terrified men and women found themselves at the mercy of an angry mob, pawns in a power struggle between a mill owner and a group of townspeople. (Toledo, Lincoln County; 1920s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1302a-toledo-riot-mixed-racism-and-labor-unrest.html)

THE GREAT BREAKTHROUGH in Cressman’s fieldwork came as a direct result of his having familiarized himself with Indian basketmaking art and other distinctive Native artistic traditions. He was able to recognize the pedigree of bits of basketry that he saw sticking out of the ground in places like the Catlow Valley. ... (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/24-02.luther-cressman-oregons-indiana-jones-630.html)

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. Oregon archaeology legend Luther Cressman's claim to the title is as strong as anyone's. (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/24-02.luther-cressman-oregons-indiana-jones-630.html)

Industrial Workers of the World union grew strong in the woods just before the First World War broke out — and the U.S. Army had to teach soldiers to cut timber to get the industry moving again. (Lumber camps, 1910s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1301d-wobblies-come-to-oregon-timber.html)

While they were ashore, their sailing ship sank in a storm, leaving four fur traders alone in a vast wilderness with no prospects for rescue. So they set out for Louisiana – and two years later, they arrived. (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1102b-shipwrecked-fur-traders-trekked-to-Louisiana.html)

Regular motorists would swing by streetcar stops and offer to take passengers faster and in greater comfort for the same nickel. But the competition enraged the powerful plutocrats who owned the streetcar company. (Portland, Multnomah County; 1910s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1601b.jitneys-vs-streetcars.273.html)

THE TRAVELERS were almost to their destination in Indiana, about 2,300 miles into their road trip, when it happened: Frank was gassing up the Red Bird at a service station when a pack of local mongrels spotted Bobbie and jumped him. The last Frank saw of Bobbie that day, he was running at top speed with three snarling dogs in hot pursuit. ... (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/2406a-1101a.silverton-bobbie-the-wonder-dog-104.652.html)

BOBBIE THE WONDER Dog, a.k.a. Silverton Bobbie, is still today Silverton’s most famous celebrity. And that’s saying something; the town has been home to some very notable personalities, including Clark Gable and political-cartoon legend Homer Davenport. This picturesque little town nestled right between the east side of the Willamette and the west flank of the Cascade foothills, about 15 miles out of Salem, has gotten a lot busier in the last decade or two as visitors to Silver Falls State Park and the Oregon Gardens have noticed its particular small-town charms. But back in 1923, it was basically a qu...

The famous First World War aircraft were made of spruce, and one of the most important sources of the strategic wood for the Allies was the northern Oregon coast. (Toledo, Lincoln County; 1910s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1301c-great-war-planes-made-of-oregon-spruce.html)

Stories of lost loot and buried booty have kept treasure hunters busy digging for gold in hidden corners of Oregon for the past 150 years. Stories like the Louse Creek Stage Robbery ... the Silent Paymaster of Fort Grant ... the Inside Job at Pendleton ... and the Gold-Filled Muck Boot. (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1101c-oregon-backcountry-rich-in-legends-of-buried-treasure.html)