Offbeat Oregon History podcast

Mayor Frank Ivancie, Pioneer Courthouse Square's most intransigent opponent, gleefully declared the project “dead” in a 1982 speech. In doing so, he accidentally galvanized the citizen group that would prove him wrong. (Portland, Multnomah County; 1960s, 1970s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1405c.pioneer-courthouse-square.html)

Though home to some productive mines, the Blue Mountain boomtown made much of its money working the suckers back east; then its head honcho disappeared into the night with the money, hours ahead of the law. (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1011a-gold-mining-swindle-left-bourne-a-ghost-town.html)

This is a new Saturday morning feature on the Offbeat Oregon podcast! A quick run-down of the fun things that are happening at local historical museums around the state. We're starting out with "the big one" — the Oregon Historical Society in Portland. There's a fantastic archaeology panel talk, a free-admission "block party" in September, and a Pulitzer Prize-winning Presidential historian on the menu! (Links to all of them are on https://ohs.org/events. By the way, cover art for this episode shows OPB Producer Christie Goshe and archaeologist Chelsea Rose.)

SOMETIME AROUND 1908, a resident of south Clatsop County — probably from the hamlet of Arch Cape — got sick and tired of dealing with Hug Point, and decided to do something about it. — It was a decision that had some unintended consequences — because it led directly to the law that made Oregon's beaches public property.... (Arch Cape, Clatsop County; 1900s, 1910s) -- #ofor #oregonHistory #ORhistory -- 05 Jan 2025 -- By Finn J.D. John" /> (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/2501a1011e.hug-point-road-osWest-beaches-683.099.html)

Settlers in John Day in the late 1800s learned the healer of Kam Wah Chung could cure diseases others couldn't; all his patients survived the fatal Spanish Flu epidemic in 1919. (John Day, Grant County; 1880s, 1890s, 1900s. 1910s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1406d.doc-hay-lung-on.html)

The Grand Ronde Valley was a little pocket of temperate, well-watered land, tucked into some of the most inhospitable territory on the trail, was a real lifesaver for many an emigrant. But, that didn't stop them from griping about the prices they were charged .... (Near LaGrande, Union County; 1840s, 1850s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1709b.grande-ronde-valley-used-oxen-dealership-460.html)

Tiny coastal town was once known for the oldest privately owned aquarium in U.S.; it's a popular place for stormwatchers. (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1012c_depoe-bay-worlds-smallest-harbor.html)

The rising waters of lakes and reservoirs have submerged many budding Oregon metropolises over the years, from tiny one-horse towns to an entire Native American homeland. (Klamath, Baker, Lane, Wasco County) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1406e.lost-cities-oregon-atlantis.html)

AS PORTLAND DISTRICT Attorney Walter Evans and his team ramped up their case against Louise Agee, the tone of the newspaper coverage got darker and darker. At one point The Oregonian quotes prosecutors and investigators (anonymously, of course) as saying she was not acting like an innocent person, and even comparing her with Lady Macbeth — she of the Shakespeare play. “She is regarded as a woman without imagination and to whom the finer feelings are undiscovered,” the Oregonian writes... (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/21-08.harry-agee-murder-mystery-600.html)

IT WAS A little after 10 p.m. on a Friday evening in the summer of 1921. In their little house on Druid Street in the St. Johns neighborhood of Portland, Robert Green and his family were getting ready for bed when they heard the screams. Rushing to the front porch, they found their neighbor, Ann Louise Agee, in her nightclothes, wild-eyed and disheveled. “Help! Come quick! They're killing Harry!” she screamed. (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/21-08.harry-agee-murder-mystery-600.html)

When astronaut Jim Irwin came to Bend for lunar landing training in the lava rock of Oregon's 'moon country,' he made friends with a local resident — who gave him a sliver of Oregon lava to leave on the moon's surface. And so he did. (Bend, Deschutes County; 1960s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1208c-astronaut-left-oregon-lava-on-moon.html)

Calling himself “J. Hawker,” David Heesh dynamited several high-voltage powerline towers, then threatened to keep it up unless ransom was delivered; the FBI busted him using a CB radio trick. (Beavercreek, Clackamas County; 1970s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1404b.beavercreek-bomber-targeted-BPA.html)

Pilot boat sailed back and forth on the Columbia River Bar all day and all night before finally crashing onto the beach; when onlookers ran to rescue the sailors, they found the boat empty and deserted. (Columbia River Bar, Clatsop County; 1880s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1405a.pilot-boat-jc-cousins-crew-disappears.html)

As a place to go shoot pictures on location, Oregon has become pretty popular in the last few dozen years. But the Beaver State's contribution to early cinema, though more sparse, was surprisingly influential. (Clatsop, Lane, Deschutes, Hood River County) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1403c.iconic-movies-shot-in-oregon-part1.html)

IF MULTNOMAH FALLS has any competition for the title of “crown jewel of the highway,” it would have to be Crown Point Vista House, which you could think of as America's first rest area. It perches on the brow of a bluff just outside Corbett, overlooking the most spectacular part of the gorge's big-picture scenery. It was designed by a German architect, built with cut sandstone, and features bathrooms with marble and polished mahogany walls. (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/2407c-1012b.sam-lancaster-columbia-river-highway-101.659.html)

Engineers make stuff that gets a job done. Paying extra money to make it prettier usually just doesn't make sense. But every now and then you run into an engineer with a vision that marries great aesthetics with top-tier engineering and figures out how to make it all make better financial sense than a plain, cheap job. (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/2407c-1012b.sam-lancaster-columbia-river-highway-101.659.html)

George May was in an impossible situation, trapped in the upside-down hull of his ship, waiting for death. But then the ship washed ashore, the tide receded, and he lived to tell the story of the wreck of the M/V Oshkosh. (Columbia River Bar, Clatsop County; 1910s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1204a-mariner-survives-shipwreck-by-being-trapped-inside.html)

AFTER THE WAR, Claire Phillips was hailed as a hero. Even before she was back in North America, her hometown newspaper was singing her praises. Soon afterward, Reader's Digest picked up the story and spread it nationwide. She wrote a memoir of her war activities, Manila Espionage, and it was published in 1947. The following year, at Fort Lewis, Gen. Mark Clark presented her with the Medal of Freedom, America's highest award for a civilian. The accolades kept coming... until suddenly, one day, they didn't. (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/23-09.high-pockets-the-spymaster-625.html)

'High Pockets' was the nom de guerre of Claire Phillips, a gorgeous brunette Vaudeville girl from the faraway American town of Portland, Oregon ... a dancer of sultry dances, a singer of torchy cabaret songs, and a stage actress of unusual ability. In the Philippines, in the early years of the Second World War, she was playing the role of a lifetime: Madame Tsubaki, Italian nightclub owner. (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/23-09.high-pockets-the-spymaster-625.html)

THE 1925 PRISON break had a big effect on the state prison. Warden Dalrymple, as mentioned before, had been given the job for political reasons, and he was paired up with J.V. Starrett as the state parole officer. Starrett was actually on the Ku Klux Klan's payroll (he was a Kleagle or something like that) and had done a yeoman's job getting out the “Klown vote” to elect Pierce as governor; the position of parole officer had been his reward. But like a lot of people to whom membership in a gang of secret vigilante terrorists was appealing, Starrett was always hungry for more power and contemptuous of rules.... (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/23-05.bloody-1925-prison-break-621.html)

IT WAS A TYPICAL balmy August evening at the Oregon State Penitentiary. The bell had rung for supper, so inmates were streaming out of their cells and heading toward the dining hall for the evening meal, as they always did. But on this particular evening, four prisoners hung back from the throng, and when the last prisoner had rounded the corner out of sight, they doubled back, hurrying into the cell that had been assigned to one of their number. Working feverishly with an auger stolen somehow from the prison's shops, they cut a hole in the roof ... (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/23-05.bloody-1925-prison-break-621.html)

Named after the warden who invented it, the “Gardner Shackle” eventually caused serious musculoskeletal damage; many former inmates limped for the rest of their lives as a result of habitually wearing one. (Salem, Marion County; 1860s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1403b.oregon-boot-cruel-unusual-punishment.html)

The Willamette Meteorite is the most famous heavenly body to end up in Oregon, but it's far from the only one. Here are some of the others.... (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/23-07.stealing-the-willamette-meteorite-623.html)

IT WAS GETTING toward the end of the summer of 1902, and West Linn resident Ellis Hughes was getting worried. His neighbor, William Dale, had traveled back to Eastern Oregon to sell some land he owned there. With the proceeds, Dale and Hughes planned to buy a piece of property next to the Hughes farm. The property belonged to the Oregon Iron and Steel Co., which wasn't really doing anything with it and which Hughes was pretty sure would be happy to sell … unless, of course, they found out why he wanted to buy it.... (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/23-07.stealing-the-willamette-meteorite-623.html)

“The plane started to swerve away from the boardwalk, flipped perpendicular to the ground, and crashed into a small hill near the river, wing first,” wrote Ian Chen. “Later my family figured that the pilot swerved away so he would not endanger the lives of the people on the ground, which also included my mom.” “I realize Mr. Wright really spared the lives of the people on the ground,” wrote Mei-Ling Chen. “It must (have been) really hard for him to make that decision that final moment. I'm writing this letter to let you know (what) an honorable man he was. Our family is very grateful for his actions.” (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1207sp-heroic-final-flight-of-jim-wright-howard-hughes-racer-plane.html)

BY THE SPRING of 2002, the plane was finally nearly ready, and Wright was starting to think about getting it into the air. Finally, in mid-June, surrounded by a small group of admiring aviators and the entire newsroom staff of the Cottage Grove Sentinel, the plane was rolled out onto the airfield and, with that smoky belch characteristic of all radial engines, the monstrous power plant started up. Cottage Grove's airport echoed for the first time with the rough, belligerent roar of the Hughes H-1's massive engine.... (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1207sp-heroic-final-flight-of-jim-wright-howard-hughes-racer-plane.html)

He'd spent thousands of hours re-creating history's most mysterious aircraft. Something had gone wrong, and he was about to crash it. When he did, somebody would die. Who that would be was up to him. (Cottage Grove, Lane County; 2000s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1207sp-heroic-final-flight-of-jim-wright-howard-hughes-racer-plane.html)

THE PORTLAND TRAIL Blazers, in the summer of 1970, were nothing more than a gleam in the eye of the promoter who'd been banging the “NBA in Portland” drum for the previous 16 years. And it probably would have stayed that way, too, if not for a really long bathroom break taken in Beverly Hills that year. Here's how that came about: (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/2402c-1011b.blazers-potty-break-096.636.html)

Before 1970, Oregon was home to exactly zero major-league teams from any of these sports. But after 1970, it was home to one: The Portland Trail Blazers, a basketball team that took just over five years to build a team that would win the NBA World Championship and become an absolute legend. Both of those things — the team's inception, and its rise to the top — had a lot to do with a gregarious Portland promoter and sports fan named Harry Glickman. (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/2402c-1011b.blazers-potty-break-096.636.html)

To Governor Tom McCall, it looked like Portland was about to explode, and there was nothing he could do to prevent it ... until two long-haired young people came to his chief of staff with a very unusual plan. (Portland, Multnomah County; 1970s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1406a.vortex-part1-psu-riot.html)

NINETY-EIGHT YEARS ago, in a logging camp deep in the forests of British Columbia, a logger in a funny hat walked up to a big stump, an ax in his hand. Taking off the hat — it was a battered bowler, an old-fashioned dandy's hat even in 1923 — he laid it on the stump, set a nail in it, and drove it in. Then he turned and walked away. Probably he walked straight to the logging locomotive for his last ride into town. Nailing the hat to the stump was a symbolic act — Stewart H. Holbrook was quitting the logging business forever. ... (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/21-07.stewart-holbrook-599.html)

Twenty years ago, PT-658 was a weatherbeaten hulk, rotting away at a pier in San Francisco Bay. Today, it's a priceless piece of American history that you'll occasionally see on the waters of Portland Harbor. (Portland, Multnomah County; 1990s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1401c.pt-658-worlds-only-working-pt-boat.html)

Shortly after Charles Lyons' body was found, the owner of the 'bawdy house' in which he'd been partying skipped town and was never heard from again. Could she have been his murderer? Or was she an unknown killer's second victim? (Linkville, Klamath County; 1910s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1403a.charles-lyons-murder-myster-of-klamath-falls.html)

Legendary “Cayuse pony” breed gave Indians far more endurance and speed than settlers' mounts, a fact that cost gambler and horseman Joe Crabb most of his ready cash on “The Day Pendleton Went Bankrupt” (Pendleton, Umatilla County; 1870s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1404a.cayuse-tribes-legendary-ponies.html)

Astronaut Stuart Roosa had a special relationship with the U.S. Forest Service, and when it was his turn to go to the moon, he proposed a science experiment. You can see the results towering over Peavy Hall at Oregon State University today. (Cape Canaveral, Florida; 1970s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1405b.moon-trees-of-oregon.html)

ON JUNE 1, 1981, Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh boarded a Boeing 747 for a flight from Mumbai to New York City. Officially the trip was for medical treatment, and authorities were told he'd be heading back home to India afterward. But Rajneesh was not planning on returning. His movement, which had already become an international octopus with meditation centers in dozens of different countries around the world, had outgrown the Pune campus. He needed a new World Headquarters. And his new personal secretary, Ma Anand Sheela (formerly known as Sheela Patel Silverman), had found one for him. Sheela closed the deal for the property then known as the Big Muddy Ranch the following month, paying $5.75 million for it. It was 64,229 acres of Central Oregon rangeland with only the amenities one would expect a family ranch to have. And in late August, she chartered a Learjet to fly the guru in to see, for the first time, the dry landscape that was to be his new home. (Big Muddy Ranch, Wasco and Jefferson County; 1980s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/23-08b.rajneeshpuramPart2of5.html)

ONCE UPON A time in India, a man lived. He would go on to become one of the most influential thinkers in new-age thought, but at this time — the early 1960s — he was merely a philosophy teacher, and one of thousands of gurus living and discoursing in that land of gurus. His name was Chandra Mohan Jain. But even then, just a few years out of graduate school, Jain was different. To call him charismatic would be a colossal understatement. By all accounts, this man could look into your eyes and speak to you for a half hour, and you would hurry home to sell all your earthly possessions to stay near him. He was charismatic enough that, by 1966, he was drawing big enough crowds and making fat enough cash on the speaking circuit to quit his teaching job at the University of Jabalpur, seven years after taking it, to focus on his “side hustle” as an independent guru. (Near Antelope, Wasco County; 1980s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/23-08.rajneeshpuramPart1of5.html)

A century ago, the drug had a dark, smoky allure for the 'fast' young men and women of Oregon cities, and smuggling routes through Portland were supplying the entire West Coast with the exotic, deadly stuff. (Portland, Multnomah County; 1890s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1402a.opium-culture-portland-urban-underworld.html)

By the end of the 1880s, Dunbar was one of the most respected and influential members of Portland's business community, and a member of the Arlington Club. But all was not well with him. It's not clear what happened to push Dunbar over the edge into industrial-scale criminal enterprise. It may have been the death of his wife. It may also have been the influence of Nat Blum, a flamboyant cigar-store owner who was a junior partner in Merchants Steamship Co. Or maybe he was criminally inclined all along, believing on a philosophical level that the U.S. government had no right to tell him what he could and could not do with his steamships. Or, maybe he just hated waste. After all, nobody in Portland was buying shiploads of Chinese goods; each time one of his steamships left Portland, loaded with grain bound for buyers in China, it had to sail back home in ballast. Not only was the return trip wasted, but Dunbar had to pay draymen to load and unload the ballast rocks that would keep the ship stable and safe. We can imagine him thinking about this: What cargo could I bring from China to Portland, on the return voyages, after bringing wheat from Portland to China? And we can imagine him realizing that there were two cargoes that would be extremely lucrative for him: People, and opium. (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/22-12.blum-dunbar-opium-smugglers-616.html)

The problem with smuggling opium back in the 1890s was, although the stuff was still legal, it was taxed very heavily. That meant smuggling the stuff in without paying the tax was tantamount to stealing money from the government. And the government, as always, took money very seriously ... so if you were going to smuggle it, you needed a real cracker-jack team. And the Blum-Dunbar gang was a lot of things, but 'cracker-jack' — or even just 'competent' — wasn't one of them. (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/2408a-1202d.james-lotan-opium-king-661.161.html)

A special weekend episode to announce a live history show on Friday, May 29, from 7 to 9 p.m. at the Polk County Fairgrounds in Rickreall! It's a fundraiser so it costs $10; we're trying to help save the Fairgrounds, which is threatened with closure due to electrical issues that they can't afford to fix. We scheduled it for the weekend AFTER Memorial Day so it won't clash with anyone's vacation plans! Also, a short reading of the story of a blind man who developed what may actually have been a real, live 'sixth sense.'

ONE OF THE most significant events in the history of the world took place in 1892, when a corrupt political hack named James Lotan managed to land a cushy government job as the head of the customs inspection service for the Port of Portland. Believe it or not, Lotan's landing that job led directly to Pearl Harbor and eventually Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and indirectly to the defeat of Nazi Germany in Europe. Not bad for a small-time white-collar criminal in a tiny backwater seaport town on the far side of the world, eh? I realize you may be a bit skeptical of this claim. Bear with me while I unpack it and prove it to you, along with the strong possibility that most of us owe our lives and the continued existence of human civilization to James Lotan and the sleazy little band of well-heeled drug smugglers and human traffickers who worked with and for him, on the Portland waterfront in the early 1890s.... (Portland, Multnomah County; 1890s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/2408a-1202d.james-lotan-opium-king-661.161.html)

Oregon's last geothermal water-blaster, Old Perpetual, erupted for the last time sometime in the spring of 2009; a few dozen years ago, the state had two. (But now it's fixed again — see editor's note at end!) (Lakeview, Lake County; 1920s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1011c-last-geyser-in-oregon-goes-still-in-lakeview.html)

Discovered (sort of) by Oregon's first governor, the dry lakebed in south-central Oregon's Lake County is a gold mine of Ice Age fossils, from tiny rodents to wooly mammoths, saber-tooth cats and dire wolves. (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1010c-fossil-lake-oregons-answer-to-labrea-tar-pits.html)

Gorse reminded Irishman Lord George Bennett of home, so he planted it when he founded the Oregon seaside town of Bandon; years later, the gorse destroyed the city in a fiery cataclysm. (Bandon, Coos County; 1930s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1011d-bandon-founder-favorite-plant-destroyed-his-town.html)

Until the 1980s, you could ride the "Blue Goose" up the Row River past where "Stand By Me" was shot, near Cottage Grove.. Today, it's a 15.6-mile bike trail. (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1003d_BlueGoose.html)

A special weekend episode to announce a live history show on Friday, May 29, from 7 to 9 p.m. at the Polk County Fairgrounds in Rickreall! It's a fundraiser so it costs $10; we're trying to help save the Fairgrounds, which is threatened with closure due to electrical issues that they can't afford to fix. We scheduled it for the weekend AFTER Memorial Day so it won't clash with anyone's vacation plans! Also, a short reading from the Lockley Files, two of 'em: How the pioneers got rid of fleas and lice; and Umatilla County Sheriff John Bentley's creative plan to arrest legendary outlaw Hank Vaughan!

All through the summer of 1973, there was one song on the radio everywhere that you just couldn't get away from: Jim Croce's smash hit, “Bad, Bad Leroy Brown.” Come to think of it, it's been very difficult to get away from that song ever since Croce wrote it. You probably are humming it to yourself right now: “Bad, bad Leroy Brown, baddest man in the whole damn town. Badder than old King Kong, meaner than a junkyard dog.” The little Cascade-foothills town of Boring once had its own Bad, Bad Leroy Brown — although when the song came out, very few people then alive were old enough to remember him. His name was Free Coldwell — or at least, that was what he called himself. Like Leroy Brown, he a proud, strutting tough guy who got a humiliating comeuppance. But his downfall didn't come from making a pass at “the wife of a jealous man” in a Boring nightclub or bar. No; Free Coldwell was taken down by the citizens of Boring, who basically played an elaborate practical joke on him — with the help of a professional prizefighter. (Boring, Clackamas County; 1900s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/21-05.bad-bad-free-coldwell-baddest-boxer-in-boring.html)

In his short 11-month stay on the island nation, he taught 14 Imperial diplomats to speak English, and impressed them with his gentility and respectfulness. And after a long, adventurous life in Canada, his last word was, “Sayonara.” (Nagasaki, Japan; 1840s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1409d306.ranald-macdonald-part2.html)

Young Ranald MacDonald didn't know he was the grandson of Concomly, Chief of the Chinook Tribe. But before anyone could tell him, he'd run away to sea — and in so doing, dramatically changed the destiny of three great nations.(Astoria, Clatsop County; 1820s, 1830s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1409c305.ranald-macdonald-part1.html)

“World's Greatest Trick Rider” sold more than 50,000 bicycles in an age when bikes were the cutting edge of transportation technology; Oregon women loved them — until they started getting mistaken for hookers on the prowl ... could this be the true orgin of 'bicycle face'? (Portland, Multnomah County; 1890s, 1900s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1409a.303.fred-merrill-bicycle-king.html)