Offbeat Oregon History podcast

When the mercury dropped below 20 degrees for six weeks, a six-inch layer of ice formed on many Willamette Valley lakes — and locals took up ice skating. And five years earlier, it got so cold, a newly built steamship actually cracked in half. (Willamette Valley; 1940s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1705c.ice-skating-cottage-grove-lake-444.html)

Young cowboy David Tucker wanted a share of the loot so he could marry his sweetheart; after he got out of prison, he worked for decades to earn back the trust of both her and their community. (Joseph, Wallowa County; 1890s, 1920s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1305d-former-bank-robber-named-vp-of-bank-he-robbed.html)

In the mid-1870s, a fast-talking East Coast hustler teamed up with a famous half-Native Indian scout to cash in on his fame with a line of dodgy faux-Indian patent remedies — and the Oregon Indian Medicine Co. was born. (Warm Springs Indian Reservation; 1880s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1812c.ka-ton-ka-donald-mckay-warm-springs-indian-medicine.html)

Forest Grove drugstore responded to city's ban on recreational alcohol by adopting the 'marijuana dispensary' model for medicinal booze, and opening a blind pig in the back. The city fathers were not amused, but when they tried to crack down, things did not go as they'd planned ... (Forest Grove, Washington County; 180s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1812b.drugstore-saloon-fight-forest-grove.html)

BY EARLY 1941, the U.S. Army knew it was about to get sucked into at least one of the wars that were already raging around the world. The Selective Service and Training Act had passed the previous fall, and already young American men were being drafted into the Army, swelling its ranks with green recruits. Sooner or not much later they'd be in combat, fighting for their lives. There was no time to be lost — those combat noobs had to be trained and hardened and prepared so that they would have as good a chance as possible when thrown into the fight. With that in mind, the Army started looking for suitable locations for a combat-training campus between Portland and San Francisco on the West Coast. It would need to be about 65,000 acres and, in addition to the usual building sites and gunnery ranges, it would have to include geography similar to the sites where the fighting was expected to happen: rolling hills, steep slopes, swampy terrain, thick forests, and something approximating jungle foliage. Moving very fast — after all, new conscripts were coming in all the time — the Army settled on two prospective sites: one near Eugene, and one just north of Corvallis. The Corvallis site won the toss — there were fewer residents to be displaced, and the railroad and highway infrastructure was more developed. That was in June 1941. By the end of that year, the funds were allocated and the plans drawn up, and nine months later Oregon's second largest city had spring into being out of the swampy ground. (Camp Adair, Benton County; 1940s, 1950s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/2505b1004d.camp-adair-699.071.html)

Back when the Mazama Club formed, with membership open only to those who had climbed old Wy'East, standing on top of the mountain meant more than it does today. Just 35 years earlier, fire had been belching out of it. (Wy'East, Hood River and Clackamas County) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1705b.mount-hood-active-volcano-443.html)

At the scene of a notorious double-murder of young lovers Larry Peyton and Beverly Allan, police paid little attention to Edward W. Edwards and soon eliminated him as a suspect. But if they'd dug a little bit deeper ... (Portland, Multnomah County; 1950s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1305a-peyton-allan-murders-manwiththehook.html)

Twenty years after he tried to light the surrounding forests on fire, Japanese pilot Nobuo Fujita returned to Brookings as an honored guest and presented the town with his family's Samurai sword. (Brookings, Curry County; 1960s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1305c-japanese-pilot-fujita-friendship-with-brookings.html)

THERE WAS NO reason why the U.S. Marshal should spend the night on board the cramped, smelly little freight schooner he was in charge of. After all, the ship was anchored in a semi-civilized town — Steilacoom, near Tacoma in the Washington territory — and there were several decent hotels there. The next day he'd have a few hours' cruise to Seattle, where the ship would be sold to pay the debts of its owner, Captain James “Jemmy” Jones — who was, by a happy coincidence, locked up in a jailhouse over 100 miles away. Or so he thought. Actually he was much closer. In fact, as the marshal stepped off the deck of the little freighter and walked off toward his comfy hotel bed, there is a pretty good chance Jemmy Jones actually waved a cheerful goodbye to him as he left. THE WHOLE SITUATION stemmed from a near-death experience Jemmy and his crew had had the previous year, while crossing over the dreaded Columbia River Bar in his ship.... (Columbia River Bar, Clatsop County; 1860s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/2503e1110b.jemmy-jones-rascally-captain-695.143.html)

After World War II started, submariner and pilot Nobuo Fujita hatched an idea: Use his tiny, rickety submarine-launched seaplane to attack an enemy 5,000 miles away from the nearest aircraft carrier. (Brookings, Curry County; 1940s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1305b-fujita-bombs-oregon.html)

A recording of a June 2024 on-air conversation with Bill Lundun and Gerry Snyder of the Wake Up Call on Eugene's KPNW Radio AM 1120. Topic: 'Bobbie the Wonder Dog's' 2,500-mile odyssey. Lost in Illinois, the affable collie crossed the Rocky Mountains on foot in the dead of winter, making friends along the way and causing a sensation upon his arrival home again. (For the full story, see https://offbeatoregon.com/2406a-1101a.silverton-bobbie-the-wonder-dog-104.652.html)

“Uncle Joab” was the most famous preacher in the West for a reason ... and that reason was pretty much exactly why the pioneer lawmakers found him to be such a lousy fit for the job of Chaplain of the Legislature. Suddenly they were desperate to get rid of him. But, they'd hired him before his salary was in the treasury.... (Salem, Marion County; 1850s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1901d.uncle-joab-powell-political-firsts-2of2.html)

When the Legislature of the new state of Oregon started looking for someone to serve as the state's first Chaplain of the Legislature, Uncle Joab's name naturally came readily to mind. But it wouldn't be long before they wished they'd never even heard of this plain-speaking, long-preaching circuit rider.... (Near Jefferson, Marion County; 1850s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1901c.uncle-joab-powell-part1.html)

After out-of-state interests overplayed their hand and showed how little power locals had in their own state, Populists and renegade Republicans got together to do something about it. The result: The initiative-petition system. (Salem, Marion County; 1890s, 1900s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1612d.oregon-system-initiative-referendum-423.html)

Dr. E.R. Huckleberry came to Tillamook County in 1923, fresh from medical school; by the time he retired, in the 1960s, he could safely say the career he'd chosen had been neither easy nor safe ... but he wouldn't have traded it for anything. (Garibaldi, Tillamook County; 1920s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1903a.country-doctors-huckleberry-537.html)

JUST BEFORE SUNSET on the evening of April 12, 1946, Milwaukie residents James and Mary Rader were strolling with their friend H.C. Foster along the river by the Wisdom Island Moorage in Oak Grove when they saw a strange parcel swirling in an eddy under the dock. The parcel was about the size of a suitcase, wrapped in burlap and tied up with ropes and wires. It looked like it could be something important — or not. Foster thought not; he said it was probably “a bag of drowned cats” and best left alone, but he got a stick and hooked it and dragged it to the shore for curiosity's sake. It was carefully wrapped, that was for sure. And it was a solid object, about 30 inches long and 16 inches wide and less than a foot thick. The three of them untied it and started unwrapping the layers of burlap. They peeled off the burlap, then a grayish-black tweed topcoat, followed by a long pair of “union-suit” underwear, a dark blue sweater, and a pair of brown slacks. The slacks were the inmost layer. When those were removed, the three of them found themselves looking down at a naked female torso — headless, armless, legless. (Portland, Multnomah and Clackamas County; 1920s, 1930s, 1940s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/2505a.torso-murder-anna-schrader-698.518.html)

Someone killed Oliver Kermit Smith with a massive dynamite bomb planted under his car seat ... and police soon figured out who. But did Smith's wife really put the killer up to the job, like a real-life version of Nicole Kidman's character in 'To Die For'? (Portland, Multnomah County; 1950s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1811d.kermit-smith-murder-car-bomb-523.html)

After being nearly killed in a range war, sheep baron Jack Edwards started looking for a more peaceable place to run his operation. He found it in Hay Creek Ranch, near Prineville; and soon after settling in, he proceeded to put Oregon's wool industry on the map. (Near Shaniko, Wasco County; 1890s, 1900s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1811c.sheep-king-jack-edwards-522.html)

Is there a lost crystal cave in central Oregon somewhere, lined with thousands of quartz crystals? Or is the whole thing just a legend? If it's real, maybe it would be better if we never found out .... (Deschutes and Crook counties, 1890s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1811a.central-oregon-lost-crystal-cave-520.html)

In September, deranged housewife Emma Hannah gunned down a dangerously sexy neighbor she suspected of making moves on her husband; then in November, 18-year-old Lloyd Montgomery had a temper tantrum and murdered his parents. (Jordan and Brownsville, Linn County; 1890s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1810a.1812.montgomery-murder.html)

A recording of an on-air conversation with Bill Lundun and Gerry Snyder of the Wake Up Call on Eugene's KPNW Radio AM 1120, in May of 2024. Topic: When Thomas Lawson, one of the architects of the Anaconda Copper affair, one of the greatest pump-and-dump swindles in Wall Street history, came to Prineville and used his Wall Street wiles to foil Silver Lake's evil plan to win a baseball tournament. (For the full story, see https://offbeatoregon.com/2405a-1211a.thomas-lawson-baseball-bet-196.648.html)

IF THERE WERE a category in the Guinness Book of World Records for the state with the crankiest former governor, Oregon would surely hold the title. The state would have earned the record in 1886, when it elected Sylvester Pennoyer. And Pennoyer would have clinched it seven years later with a telegram he shot off to the President of the United States of America telling him, in essence, to mind his own damn business. His precise words: Washington: I will attend to my business. Let the president attend to his.          — Sylvester Pennoyer, Governor of Oregon. This famous telegram was in response to a note from the president, Grover Cleveland, urging western governors to take steps to make sure no Chinese people got hurt in riots or demonstrations following the renewal of the Chinese Exclusion Act. The president had sent the same telegram to the governors of Idaho and California and gotten very different replies. (Washington wasn't a state yet.) But then, Pennoyer was no friend of the Chinese. Or any other ethnic minority either, for that matter. In fact, he owed his governorship to an incident in 1886 in which he and a mob of workers crashed an outdoor meeting being held by the mayor of Portland and turned it into a slogan-chanting anti-Chinese rally-cum-riot. His role in the riot catapulted him to the head of the anti-Chinese worker movement in Oregon, which clinched the election for him a few months later. But I'm getting ahead of myself here. Let's take this story from the top — it's more interesting that way.... (Salem, Marion County; 1880s, 1890s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/2502d1008a.pennoyer-crackpot-governor-690.082.html)

The saloon owners won in court, but the temperance ladies absolutely destroyed them in the court of public opinion. Delighted, the preachers and patriarchs who fancied themselves their leaders geared up for victory in the upcoming election ... and seriously overplayed their hand. (Portland, Multnomah County; 1870s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1902d.temperance-wars-4of4-536.html)

Angry, surly saloonkeeper Walter Moffett attracted a large, hostile crowd with his harassment of a group of ladies holding a prayer service outside his bar. When the crowd rioted and trashed his saloon, he got the Portland police chief — also a saloon owner — to arrest them for instigating it. (Portland, Multnomah County; 1870s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1902c.temperance-wars-3of4-535.html)

Very few of Portland's saloonkeepers threw firecrackers at the ladies of the Women's Temperance Prayer League and called them 'damn whores' when they came by to hold prayer services at their bars. But, as the old song goes, there's one in every crowd ... and it's usually Walter Moffett of the Webfoot Saloon. (Portland, Multnomah County; 1870s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1902b.temperance-wars-2of4-534.html)

Inspired by the successes of temperance activists back east, a group of Portland ladies decided to take their message of abstinance out of the churches and into the streets. They may have been surprised by the reaction they got. (Portland, Multnomah County; 1870s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1902a.temperance-wars-1of4-533.html)

DAWN WAS ONLY a couple hours away when 33-year-old lumber mill owner Gene Harington got home from a really long night. He pulled into the drive around 5:45 a.m., and immediately proceeded to wake up his pretty young wife, Virginia, along with their two babies (ages 1 and 2). Virginia tucked the two kids back into bed, and after that, an argument ensued. Virginia later said it was a bad one — at one point Gene threatened to kick her out of the house, and at another point he threatened to push her down the basement stairs. Finally, she said, around 7:45 a.m., he got undressed for bed. But then he got back up again, got into the closet, and got out his .38 Special. “I'm getting this so you won't,” he said. Then he put it down on the floor beside the bed. The couple continued their argument. Virginia wanted Gene to stop drinking; Gene wanted Virginia to get off his back, and maybe have a drink or two herself (she was a teetotaler). She probably accused him of having an affair; after all, he had been out all night. Then — something happened. Precisely what, only Virginia really knew afterward — but after it was over, Gene Harington was dead, a pair of .38-caliber bullets buried deep in his brain.... (Eugene, Lane County; 1940s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/2504a.virginia-harington-shooting-696.517.html)

But in 1861, the worst floods in state history turned the Willamette Valley into one giant half-million-acre lake and swept several burgeoning towns away. And, despite our flood-control dams, someday it will probably happen again. (Willamette Valley; 1860s, 1890s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1704c.willamette-floods-1894-1861-439.html)

Half a century of winning labor disputes left the waterfront employers feeling overconfident. When the Portland longshoremen walked out, they expected it would be a repeat of earlier victories for them ... it wasn't. (Portland, Multnomah County; 1930s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1304a-1934-dock-strike-paralyzed-oregon.html)

Paddlewheel riverboats and fancy bordello girls seem like a match made in pop-culture heaven, don't they? Plush “parlour houses” and luxurious riverboats both were common in the “naughty nineties,” and both represented probably the closest thing to luxury a working man or woman would find in a frontier waterfront city like Portland or San Francisco, or even St. Louis or New Orleans. And yeah, there were times when the twain did meet in real life. Naïve farmboy Aquilla Ernest Clark was lured into the clutches of Portland shanghaier Larry Sullivan by a flock of beautiful, friendly ladies obviously hired for the purpose, who joined him and eight other victims on a chartered riverboat for what they thought was a “birthday party” cruise. (Here's a link to that story.) And who can forget Eliza “Boneyard Mary” Bunets, the 40-year-old solo practitioner who apparently entertained her customers aboard mothballed sternwheelers in the Oregon Steam & Navigation Co.'s “boneyard” at the foot of Flanders Street? (Here's a link to that one.) But the combination seems to have reached its peak in the case of a Portland madam named Nancy Boggs, who actually operated a bordello aboard a 40-by-80-foot barge anchored in the middle of the Willamette River, in the early 1880s.... (Portland, Multnomah County; 1880s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/2502b1007d.nancy-boggs-floating-bordello-688.120.html)

Klan-backed politicians won a big victory that they interpreted as a mandate for ethnic and religious cleansing, then found out the hard way that they'd misjudged the voters' intentions. (Statewide; 1920s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1304d-fall-of-the-house-of-klux.html)

The secret society of anonymous xenophobic vigilantes spread through Oregon society like a virus in 1922, and by the time elections were held that year, it was ready to seize the reins of power. But it wouldn't keep them for long. (Statewide, 1920s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1304c-rise-of-the-ku-klux-klan-in-oregon.html)

How a sinister, secretive hate-group found acceptance in 1920s Oregon with its message of '100-percent Americanism' and pledges of a moral cleanup. But undertones of masked vigilantism were there from the very start. (Medford, Jackson County; 1920s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1304b-ku-klux-klowns-kome-to-oregon.html)

When con artist Harry Virtue learned of Dr. Richard Barber's heroic demise, he guessed no one would bother to tell medical authorities in the UK. So he went there -- and, stealing Barber's name, went into practice. (Gardiner, Coos County; 1910s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1810b.1812.fake-doctor-impersonator.html)

The newlyweds, Alvin and Gladys, were on a little vacation at the Big Chief Auto Court in Truckee, Calif. — it may have been their honeymoon — when they went out together to the local cinema to see “The Postman Always Rings Twice.” It was September of 1946, so it was the old film-noir version starring Lana Turner. As you'll surely remember if you've seen it (or a more recent remake of it), this is a film in which Turner's character, Cora Smith, seduces a drifter named Frank and convinces him to murder her husband for her so that the two of them can take over ownership of his restaurant. After the film, Gladys was in a pensive mood as she turned to Alvin, the eager 23-year-old cowboy she'd married in Reno a day or two before. “It's too bad something like that can't happen to the doctor,” she remarked to him, innocuously. By “the doctor,” she meant Dr. Willis Broadhurst, a prominent Jordan Valley rancher and chiropractor — her other husband. Or, rather, one of her other husbands. At that particular moment, Gladys, a strikingly pretty and charismatic 40-year-old, was married to three different men, and there were four additional failed marriages in her rear-view mirror. If there was anyone for whom the wedding bells sounded like the alarm clock, it was Gladys. Or, maybe they sounded like funeral bells. Because less than a month later, Alvin actually did it.... (Jordan Valley, Malheur County; 1940s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/2503a.gladys-broadhurst-film-noir-murderess-691.516.html)

Although Oregon turned out to be harder for the Japanese navy to reach than folks thought, historian Bill McCash estimates the civilian plane-spotting service likely saved as many as 100 American aviators from dying in plane crashes. (Oregon Coast; 1940s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1705a.aws-eyes-on-the-sky-442.html)

South Lane and north Douglas counties felt their county seats neglected them and treated them as a tax-revenue milch cow. So they proposed seceding and forming a new county, Nesmith County. Eugene city leaders campaigned hard against the plan at the ballot box, and it was defeated. But a year or two later, the embittered south-county town got the opportunity to be revenged... and it was brutal. (Cottage Grove, Lane County; 1910s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1704e.eugene-cottageGrove-feud-over-nesmith-county-441.html)

Part of the problem with owning and operating the only flight school in town in the 1920s and 1930s was, every time one of your students slapped together some home-built piece of kit, you'd be expected to help fly it. And 'help fly it' usually translated into 'go first.' (BEND, DESCHUTES COUNTY; EARLY 1930s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1811b.ted-barber-diy-test-pilot-521.html)

Gasping for hard currency to finance the Civil War, and awash in raw gold from two Eastern Oregon gold rushes, the federal government tried to build a mint in The Dalles in 1863. But the Oregon delegation, dominated by Portland interests, would not stop trying to switch its location to Portland ... finally, the gold rush petered out, and the feds said, 'Never mind!' (The Dalles, Wasco County; 1860s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1810d.the-dalles-mint-that-wasnt-519.html)

A recording of an on-air conversation with Bill Lundun and Gerry Snyder of the Wake Up Call on Eugene's KPNW Radio AM 1120. Topic: Reading between the lines of the story, it's clear that Governor Oswald West's well-intentioned intervention in pardoning his friend City Marshal Z.H. Stroud was probably the worst thing that could have happened to Stroud, 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 the full story, see https://offbeatoregon.com/24-04a.1107e_os-west-pardons-gunfighter-marshal.html)

AS LEWIS AND CLARK'S Corps of Discovery made its way across the continent to Oregon, the men (and woman) of the party probably weren't thinking much about their place in history. So they weren't taking any particular pains to document their every movement. There were, however, some particular pains they were experiencing, as a result of a relentlessly low-fiber diet: Everyone was constipated, all the time. Luckily, they had something that helped with that — a lot. The Corps of Discovery left on its journey with a trove of 600 giant pills that the men called “thunder-clappers,” which the soldiers and travelers used to jump-start things when they got bound up. And everyone used them pretty regularly. And, strange as it seems, that fact is why we know several of their campsites along the way. The main active ingredient in “thunder-clappers” was a mercury salt, which is a pretty stable compound. Archaeologists simply have to search for dimples in the ground — which is what old latrine pits often end up looking like, hundreds of years later, after Nature has partly filled them in — and take samples of the dirt in them. If it comes up with an off-the-charts reading for mercury, well, that's a Corps of Discovery pit toilet — and the layout of the rest of the campsite can be extrapolated with considerable precision by consulting the military manuals they used to lay out their camps. (Astoria, Clatsop County; 1800s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/2501d1006d_biliousPills-686.077.html)

Portlander Walter Waters arrived in D.C. at the head of 20,000 disciplined, well-intentioned petitioners to request that First World War vets be paid their service bonus early. Hoover refused to meet with him — a big mistake. (Portland, Multnomah County; 1930s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1704d.bonus-army-ended-hoovers-hopes-440.html)

Four states away from his family, with no living parents, young Carroll Beebe was like a walking, talking invitation to a shanghaiing. And when he checked into Bridget Grant's boardinghouse, she obliged. (Astoria, Clatsop County; 1880s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1903c.carroll-beebe-shanghaied-539.html)

Once the finest residence in Oregon Territory, the John McLoughlin House also was once one of the most disreputable — so when history buffs set out to save it, they had to overcome some resistance (Oregon City, Clackamas County; 1840s, 1900s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/22-09.mcloughlin-house-613.html)

Fresh from breaking out of jail in Utah, Harry Tracy apparently came to Portland looking for a fresh start; he married, and then for three years kept his nose clean. But, it seems, the call of the outlaw trail was too much for him to resist, and he was caught and sent to prison. His prison break, and the subsequent two-month manhunt for him, became legendary. (Salem, Portland; Marion and Multnomah County; 1900s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/22-10.harry-tracy-wild-west-outlaw-jailbreak-614.html)

Back in the 1800s, a fire on a riverboat was a very serious matter, and not as rare as you might think. Riverboats were made of wood and powered by steam boilers, so there was always a fire on board. If powered by coal, there was coal dust to worry about; if, in later times, by oil, the engine room was often soaked with flammable liquids. The stories of paddlewheel riverboats on American rivers are peppered with tales of fires breaking out on them and quickly surging out of control, and nearly all such anecdotes come with a body count. Oregon's most famous riverboat fire has a body count, too. It's 1. But it unquestionably would have been a lot higher than that, if not for the quick thinking and clear decisionmaking of its legendary skipper — and, probably more importantly, his instant unwillingness to gamble his passengers' lives to try and save his boat. THE BOAT THAT burned was a legend in its own time, and that  legend has only grown since. (Astoria, Clatsop County; 1880s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/2503d1111a.heroic-captain-scott-telephone-694.145.html)

The executives in charge of Henry Villard's Oregon Railway and Navigation Co. no doubt thought they'd played their cards very cleverly when they bought the little screw-driven riverboat Gold Dust in 1881. They could not have been more wrong.... (Cascade Locks, Hood River; 1880s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/2503c1110e.steamboat-wars-uriah-scott-693.145.html)

READERS OF A certain age all over North America will remember a really excellent Canadian comedy-variety show called The Red Green Show, which had a 15-year run starting in 1990, starring Steve Smith as gravel-voiced handyman Red Green. Each week, Red would preside over the “Handyman Corner” segment of the show, in which he would do something ridiculous with duct tape and, usually, one or more rusty old cars. In one memorable episode from Season 14, Red made a DIY “mid-engine sports car” by sawing off the trunk of a rusty Mercury Grand Marquis, squashing the cabin flat, and duct-taping what remained onto the front of another car of the same model. The result was a remarkably ugly barge-shaped thing, about 50 feet long, which Red then hopped into and fired up, remarking proudly, “This isn't an old junker anymore, it's a fancy Italian mid-engine junker,” and adding his famous tagline: “If the women don't find you handsome, they should at least find you handy!” Viewers and studio-audience members of Red's show probably felt, watching him drive off in this monstrosity, about the same way the executives of Oregon's two big riverboat almost-monopolies did back in 1874 while they watched an Ohio greenhorn's progress on the riverboat he was building. They watched, and they laughed. The executives were also, it seems clear, congratulating themselves for having had the good sense not to hire that “Red Green” type guy when he'd applied to them for a job a few months earlier. The Ohio man, whose name was Uriah B. Scott, had come to them almost as soon as he'd arrived in Oregon, asking for a job and babbling about “shallow-draft hulls” — as if their riverboats weren't already on shallow-draft hulls! What, did he think they ran a blue-water fleet or something? They were in for a big surprise.... (Canemah, Clackamas County; 1870s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/2503b1110d.uriah-scott-riverboat-genius-692.145.html)

Arguably, the outcome of World War II became inevitable on the day the S.S. Star of Oregon slid into the Columbia River. It was followed by a torrent of new ships — far more than the Nazis could ever hope to sink. (Vanport, Multnomah County; 1940s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1612c.portland-liberty-ships-saved-canada-422.html)

DURING THE FIRST year of the Second World War, the conflict in the Pacific was all about aircraft carriers. With a carrier, one could take the fight to the enemy. Without one, one could only huddle on an island as a passive target, waiting for an enemy carrier's aircraft to arrive and attack. When the war broke out, the U.S. had seven of these precious warships, but only three were in the Pacific. They were the actual targets of the attack on Pearl Harbor — the Japanese knew if they could get them out of the way, they'd have a free hand for at least a year. It had taken an average of more than three years to build a regular full-size aircraft carrier before the war. Mobilization would cut that timeframe to under a year, but that was still a long wait. The Japanese almost had a free hand for that year anyway. Much of their equipment was just more advanced in 1942, especially airplanes. By the end of that year the U.S. was down to one carrier. Both sides were hurriedly converting existing ships to bolster their fleets, but it certainly looked, from far away, as if the U.S. was not too far from ending up in that helpless position that the Japanese had hoped to put it in with the Pearl Harbor attack. Carriers were rare, complicated ships, hard and time-consuming to build. Japan had lost four of their best ones at Midway, but they still had at least six left. And that's about the point at which Henry Kaiser decided to go into the aircraft-carrier business.... (Vanport, Multnomah County; 1940s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/22-07.kaiser-aircraft-carriers-611.html)

Litter enraged outdoor enthusiast Richard Chambers, so he launched a one-man campaign to pass a deposit bill. Then Gov. Tom McCall leaped aboard, and Oregon became the first state to ban nonreturnable bottles and cans. (Pacific City, Tillamook County; 1970s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1810c.1812.bottle-bill-tom-mccall.html)