Offbeat Oregon : Station keeper’s cowardice cost 11 sailors their lives
Tales of the heroism of U.S. Lifesaving Service rescue boat crews (and their successors in the Coast Guard) are so frequent as to be almost unremarkable. After all, theirs is a job that attracts ...
Offbeat Oregon: Trappers’ disappearance had relatives suspecting foul play
As the first day of March 1924 arrived, L. Sarah Wilson’s worry and alarm mounted. Something had happened. Something bad. Her son, 36-year-old Harry “Roy” Wilson, had promised ...
Offbeat Oregon: Old-time millworkers and loggers were a hardy lot
Nearly everyone whose family has been in Western Oregon for more than one or two generations has an older male relative who’s missing some parts — one or more fingers perhaps, or part ...
Offbeat Oregon: ‘Beautiful pelt’ would have been best admired from afar
One of the most appealing aspects of life in rural Western Oregon, around the middle of the last century, was the wildlife. Loggers and mill workers in places like Valsetz and Wendling might not ...
Offbeat Oregon: ‘Prepaid shanghaiing’ went badly amiss when victim died
Most of the time, the shanghaiing of sailors in old Astoria and Portland was a spur-of-the-moment kind of thing. It was resorted to when a ship captain needed a crew for an imminent departure, ...
Offbeat Oregon: In 1916, Umatilla’s mayor got an election day surprise
It was around 2 p.m. on Election Day, in December of 1916, that Umatilla’s mayor, E.E. Starcher, first discovered that he was not running unopposed for re-election. Offbeat Oregon Finn ...
Offbeat Oregon: Letter to traveler's family told of his unfortunate end
Letter from afar gave young traveler’s family a view to a shanghaiing Sometime around 1885 or 1886, a handsome-but-diffident-looking young man named Carroll Beebe got on a westbound ...
Offbeat Oregon: Shyster lawyer planned to steal man’s land by shanghaiing him
In the late 1880s, in the wilds of southwest Washington near the mouth of the Cedar River, a “stump rancher” named Peter Norris developed a more-than-professional interest in the wife ...
Offbeat Oregon: Lives of old-time country doctors anything but boring
One of the most colorful and rewarding occupations in human history was that of a country doctor in the first half of the 20th century. By about 1900, breakthroughs in medical science had put ...
Offbeat Oregon: Portland's 'Temperance Crusade' collapsed when leaders got too preachy
As detailed in last week’s article, Portland’s legal authorities responded to the riot and street fight at the Webfoot Saloon on April 16, 1874, by arresting not the rioting brawlers, ...
Offbeat Oregon: Saloon riot led to charges, but not against the rioters
It was April Fools’ Day of 1874 when saloonkeeper Walter Moffett, proprietor of the Webfoot Saloon and sworn antagonist of the women of the Women’s Temperance Prayer League, escalated ...
Offbeat Oregon: Stubborn saloonkeeper refused to play nicely
Part two in a four-part series on the temperance riots of 1874. As March of 1874 drew to a close, there was a certain uneasiness among the businessmen of the liquor industry in Portland. A large ...
Offbeat Oregon: The story behind Portland's 'Temperance War of 1874'
The temperance movement, when it came to Portland in the early 1870s, really shouldn’t have taken anybody by surprise. What was surprising, though, was the form it took when it got ...
Offbeat Oregon: 'Uncle Joab' too blunt for Legislature's comfort
Back in 1859, the pioneer lawmakers of the very first Oregon State Legislature extended an invitation to Missionary Baptist circuit preacher “Uncle Joab” Powell, the most famous man of the ...
