Offbeat Oregon History podcast

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)

“We notice,” Lola Green Baldwin said to the Portland City Council, “that there was $5,030 used this year for the dog pound, and an additional thousand is asked for 1908.” Would the Council consider, she asked, allocating half that amount “for practical, positive protection for the growing girlhood of the city of Portland?”, she wondered? Well, when one put it that way, how could they have said no? (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/23-06.lola-baldwin-municipal-mother-622.html)

BY THE TIME Walt Disney Productions released “The Rescuers” in 1977, the idea of a “Rescue Aid Society” dedicated to the eradication of kidnapping felt quaint, old-fashioned, and fun. But not many years earlier, when memories of the Progressive Era were fresher, it would not have scanned that way.... (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/23-06.lola-baldwin-municipal-mother-622.html)

On that tense late-August weekend, tens of thousands of young people enjoyed themselves at McIver Park, while the much-dreaded riots failed to materialize. Was there a connection? Many voters thought so. (McIver Park, Clackamas County; 1970s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1406c.291.vortex-the-event.html)

When McCall green-lighted the plan to distract potential street rioters with a week-long music festival, he fully expected to lose his job for it — whether it worked or not. (Salem, Marion County; 1970s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1406b.290.vortex-part2-the-family.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)

DAWN WAS JUST breaking, and Tom McAdams had just barely crawled into bed, when he got the alarm. A 50-foot sailboat was washing ashore near Waldport. McAdams had been up all night escorting a leaking fishing boat into port after it got caught in a bad storm 20 miles offshore. Now it was the morning of Dec. 13, 1973, and it was his wife Joanne’s birthday. He’d planned on snatching four or five hours of sleep and then maybe doing something with Joanne. Instead, he was sprinting across the street to Newport’s U.S. Coast Guard station, jumping a fence, and bounding into his 44-foot rescue lifeboat. McAdams was a master chief petty officer in the U.S. Coast Guard (and still is, albeit retired; he’s now in his 80s). In 1973 he was the commander of the Newport station, and was already probably the most famous enlisted man in Coast Guard history, a title he certainly holds today. By the time he retired in 1977 he had personally rescued hundreds of people, and taught hundreds of other rescuers how it was done. On this particular morning, though, there wouldn’t be much for McAdams to do. He raced out across the Yaquina Bay bar — which was rough, but it takes a lot to stop a 44 from crossing any river bar — and turned south. But by the time he’d gone a mile or so, the station radioed that the yacht had gone up on the beach, out of reach for a rescue boat. Other Coasties, rescue swimmers Greg Albrecht, Lewis Cavina and Bill Masten, were on their way down Highway 101 to the beach; saving the people on the boat would be up to them. When the rescue swimmers arrived, they found a middle-aged couple struggling feebly in the icy surf in their life jackets, trying to swim to shore. The rescuers quickly got them out of the water and onto dry land. Job done? Well, no. Because it turned out the boat's owner had his life savings, in gold, stuffed up under the cabin vent ... (Newport and Waldport, Lincoln County; 1970s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/21-06.mysterious-yacht-gold-rescue-McAdams-598.html)

Adorably boisterous and hearty, Mayor George Baker was the life of every party. But if you were a supporter of organized labor or an anti-war activist, he and his “Mayor's Secret Police” goons were not your friends. (Portland, Multnomah County; 1910s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1401b.george-baker-portlands-vaudeville-mayor.html)

Will Daly had earned the sworn enmity of the newspaper's publisher, Henry Pittock, by exposing his plan to steal city water for his lush West Hills estate. But Pittock evened the score with a midnight visit to Daly's residence. (Portland, Multnomah County; 1910s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1401a.will-daly-black-bag-job.html)

'Hols' Holbrook picked Portland for his new home because it had the best library, in his opinion, on the West Coast. Plus, it was smack in the middle of logging country. Upon arrival, he got a job as an associate editor of 4-L Lumber News. This was the official publication of the Loyal Legion of Loggers and Lumbermen union. This job more or less completed the apprenticeship of Stewart Holbrook as the premier voice of the American Mid-Century Timberman. (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/21-07.stewart-holbrook-599.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)

After the missionaries at Waiilatpu were wiped out by a military expedition of the Cayuse tribe, a crafty missionary named Spalding fabricated a wild, patriotic whopper of a phony story about them, and sold it to the nation. It was believed for more than a century afterward. (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/2403b-1010a.marcus-whitman-2of2-091.639.html)

JUST ABOUT EVERYONE remembers, from third-grade civics class, the story of Paul Revere’s midnight ride. And most people have since learned that his ride was a bit less dramatic than was portrayed in the famous poem about it. Christopher Columbus is an even more egregious example of how modern mythmakers have shaped even truly unsavory historical characters for propaganda purposes. The Oregon Territory’s late, lamented missionaries Marcus and Narcissa Whitman were certainly not unsavory characters like Columbus. But they had something more powerful going for them: Martyrdom. Or at least, something that looked a lot like it. (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/2403a-1010a.marcus-whitman-saves.091.638.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)

Elvis himself is rumored to have played at The Cottonwoods, a jumpin' joint near Lebanon, where thousands danced to the music of many of the 20th Century's greatest musicians. Today, it's a vacant lot — piled high with memories. (Lebanon, Linn County; 1930s, 1940s, 1950s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1208a-cottonwoods-dance-hall-hosted-music-legends-maybe-even-elvis.html)

Largest elephant in captivity went from “Tusko the Magnificent,” star of Lotus Isle, to “Tusko the Unwanted,” abandoned at the Oregon State Fair, with several destructive rampages along the way. But who could blame him? (Portland, Multnomah County; 1930s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1209c-tusko-the-terrible-led-a-colorful-tragic-life.html)

The short-lived attraction on Tomahawk Island was launched in an attempt to shake down the owners of nearby Jantzen Beach; their bluff called, the backers were forced to go forward with it. (Hayden Island/Tomahawk Island, Multnomah County; 1930s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1209b-lotus-isle-amusement-park-a-swindle-gone-awry.html)

The oysters belonged to the Siletz Indians and their employees, but Richard Hillyer was determined to take them anyway. We don't know much about the final battle, but we do know the outcome, and it must have been a doozie. (Newport, Lincoln County; 1860s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1405d.yaquina-oyster-pirate-wars.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)

AFTER THE ELECTION, the new formerly homeless residents of Rajneeshpuram were the most pressing problem for Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh and his followers. They cost a lot of money to feed and house, and they started fights and made trouble. Rajneeshee leaders started out giving them bus tickets home, but that got very expensive very fast. After all, it had cost $1 million to bring them in by busloads; sending them home one or two at a time would be many times more than that. So finally, the Rajneeshees gave up and, herding them all aboard buses, simply hauled them to downtown Madras and dropped them off. Social-services agencies were forced to take on the task of getting them all home. The Salvation Army alone spent more than $100,000 taking care of them. (Near The Dalles, Wasco County; 1980s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/23-08d.rajneeshpuramPart4of5.html)

The Rajneeshee takeover of Antelope was not an anodyne bureaucratic exercise. To those who lived through it, it really did feel like a foreign military power had rolled into their town and occupied it. It started out very stealthily. Several properties in the town were up for sale, and suddenly there were offers on all of them. Very ordinary-looking people signed the documents and took possession. Then some more very ordinary-looking people moved into the properties.... (Rajneeshpuram, Wasco County; 1980s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/23-08c.rajneeshpuramPart3of5.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)

Ever wonder why Hitler declared war on the U.S. after Pearl Harbor, despite some really obvious reasons why it wasn't a good idea? Here's the real reason: In April of 1941, while visiting Hitler in Berlin, Japanese Foreign Minister Yosuke Matsuoka, who grew up on the old Portland waterfront, induced Hitler to do a little bragging and to get carried away while talking about what Germany might do in a war with the U.S. “Germany would wage a vigorous war against America with U-boats and the Luftwaffe, and with her greater experience,” he assured Matsuoka. “This would be more than a match for America.” That’s when he said it: “If Japan gets into a conflict with the United States, Germany on her part will take the necessary steps at once.” With that, Japan had the personal pledge of the head of the German state that if war came, they’d back them up. And, of course, eight months later, they did. (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/22-11.matsuoka-imperial-japan-615.html)

IT MAY BE true that the movement of a butterfly’s wings on one side of the world can seed a tornado on the other. But whether it’s literally true or not, it certainly is figuratively true, and nowhere is it better demonstrated than in the case of 1890s businessman and opium smuggler William Dunbar of Portland, Oregon. If we could take Dunbar out of the stream of history before about 1890, we would derail events that led directly to Imperial Japan’s alliance with Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy in 1940; to Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor the following year; to the nuclear bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945; and (maybe) to the fact that the world did not end in a multi-gigaton nuclear fireball in late October of 1962. All this, because a politically well-connected drug smuggler in tiny, faraway Portland was unusually incompetent, and had taken a young Japanese boy into his household as a companion for his 14-year-old son. That little boy’s name was Yosuke “Frank” Matsuoka, the future Foreign Minister of Imperial Japan and the chief architect of the Tripartite Pact with Germany and Italy, just before the Second World War.... (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/22-11.matsuoka-imperial-japan-615.html)

AS YOU WILL have gathered, it didn’t exactly take brilliant detective work to figure out what was going on over at Dunbar Produce and Grocery. By November of 1893, word of what they were up to had been filtering up from the waterfront for at least a year and a half. So, in late November 1893, a grand jury returned indictments against 15 people — including Blum, Dunbar, and Lotan. The charges involved smuggling more than two tons of opium and running a human-trafficking operation smuggling thousands of undocumented Chinese laborers into Portland. The trial held the city spellbound. (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/22-12.blum-dunbar-opium-smugglers-616.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)