Finn J.D. John

"Offbeat Oregon:" Unusual stories of historic Oregon ... suggestions welcomed.

Image: OHS##The front page of the only surviving copy of The Flumgudgeon Gazette and Bumble Bee Budget, in the Curry collection at Oregon Historical Society.

Offbeat Oregon: Oregon Territory journalism began with a flamboyant Flumgudgeon

In west’s first newspaper, every copy was written out longhand It’s widely known that the first newspaper west of the Mississippi River was the short-lived Oregon Spectator, which published ...

Image: University of South Florida##A woodcut portrait of Sylvester Pennoyer as he appeared in the late 1880s.

Offbeat Oregon: 1890s governor to U.S. president: Mind your own damn business

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 ...

Image: Gary Halvorson/ Oregon State Archives##Ruined buildings in the old ghost town of Westfall as they appeared in 2011. The roofless house in the foreground is what remains of Jasper Westfall’s home.

Offbeat Oregon: Former town marshal protested his firing by murdering the new marshal

Everyone in the tiny Harney County town of Westfall knew something bad was going to happen after City Marshal Asa Carey was fired for the second time. Carey had been an odd pick for city marshal, but ...

Image: Cascade Volunteers##A wagon crosses the Old Santiam Wagon Road near Sisters, sometime in the late 1800s.

Offbeat Oregon: Epic wagon-road swindle made headlines nationwide

A few years after Oregon became a state, some of its leaders participated in what might actually have been the biggest non-Indian-related land-grab swindle in U.S. history. That’s putting it a bit ...

Image: Oregon Historical Society##A sketch of Fort Clatsop as it would have appeared in 1805.

Offbeat Oregon: Lewis and Clark blazed trail with heavy-metal laxatives

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 ...

Image: Wikimedia Commons##Jackrabbits are driven into the capture corral during a rabbit drive in 1902. The rabbits in the foreground are in the capture corral; the people in the far distance are driving more jackrabbits toward the gate, which will then be closed and the rabbits will be slaughtered.

Offbeat Oregon: Jackrabbit-massacre parties were all the rage a century ago

Imagine, for a moment, that you’re passing through a little Harney County town when you see, in a used-car lot, a DMC DeLorean that someone has modified as a replica of the car from “Back to ...

Image: Oregon Historical Society##Storefronts in Long Creek as they appeared about 10 years after the cyclone struck.

Offbeat Oregon: Deadly Long Creek tornado was worst in state’s history

Around New Year’s, many writers make a regular practice of looking back upon the past year and writing about it. I suspect this practice got started with Penny Press-era newshounds who found it very ...

Image: Oregon Historical Society##Frederic Balch’s gravestone, in the Lyle Cemetery; it’s a natural rock, not a shaped piece, which Balch picked out himself before his death. In the background, a man pays his respects at the grave marker of Genevra Whitcomb. Left: Frederic Balch as he appeared in his mid-20s. Images: Oregon Historical Society

Offbeat Oregon: Frederic Balch’s dreamy mythology came to define wilderness Oregon

Here is a pop quiz for Oregon history enthusiasts, and yes, it’s a trick question. But, humor me: What comes to your mind when I mention the name “Balch”? For most of us, it’s ...

Image: Offbeat Oregon##The D River, as seen from under the Highway 101 bridge in Lincoln City, looking out to sea.

Offbeat Oregon: World’s shortest river is still long on drama – and hilarity

Far away from the Beaver State, in the backcountry of West Virginia by the Kentucky border, a man named Floyd Hatfield was the proud owner of a fine razorback hog. A distant neighbor, from across the ...

Image: Oregon Historical Society##Downtown Heppner in the wake of the devastating 1903 flood. In the distance is the Palace Hotel, in which 200 townspeople took refuge.

Offbeat Oregon: The country’s deadliest natural flash flood happened in Heppner

On June 15, 1903, a strange little article appeared in the Portland Morning Oregonian. “It is reported that a tremendous cloudburst occurred at Heppner late in the afternoon,” the article ...

Image: USDA##A watercolor image of the Black Republican cultivar of cherries, created by William Henry Prestele in 1892 from a specimen in Newberg.

Offbeat Oregon: Bing cherries are a product of the Oregon Trail

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 ...

Image: F.J.D. John##Boiler Bay as it appeared from the bluff above on a sunny summer afternoon in 2013.

Offbeat Oregon: Fiery, explosive shipwreck gave Boiler Bay its name

A mile or two north of the picturesque little Central Coast town of Depoe Bay, there’s a little unassuming wide spot at the side of Highway 101 where you can pull off the road and park. There are ...

Image: Bruce Fingerhood/Wikimedia Commons##The Wolf Creek Tavern as it appears from the front of the drive.

Offbeat Oregon: The state’s oldest hotel was a hideaway for Hollywood stars

There were times, during Hollywood’s golden age, when Clark Gable simply couldn’t be found anywhere. Studio executives would search frantically for the top-shelf star, needing to talk to him ...

##A still from the movie “The General,” in which Johnny Grey (Buster Keaton) climbs onto the cowcatcher on the front of his speeding locomotive to foil an attempt by bandits to rob his train.

Offbeat Oregon: The summer Buster Keaton made Cottage Grove a mini-Hollywood

If a Cottage Grove logger had been bonked on the head in January 1926, and woke up six months later, he would have scarcely recognized his home town. There was a whole new Main Street built way out east ...

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