Offbeat Oregon History podcast

Offbeat Oregon History podcast

A daily (5-day-a-week) podcast feed of true Oregon stories -- of heroes and rascals, of shipwrecks and lost gold. Stories of shanghaied sailors and Skid Road bordellos and pirates and robbers and unsolved mysteries. An exploding whale, a couple shockingly scary cults, a 19th-century serial killer, several very naughty ladies, a handful of solid-brass con artists and some of the dumbest bad guys in the history of the universe. From the archives of the Offbeat Oregon History syndicated newspaper column. Source citations are included with the text version on the Web site at https://offbeatoregon.com.

Episodes

How Sheriff Bentley arrested legendary outlaw Hank Vaughan — and an IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENT ...

May 9, 2026 • 11 mins
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 th...
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World champion hired to humiliate town bully

May 8, 2026 • 14 mins
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 lit...
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Oregon Indian prince was Japan’s intro to the West

May 7, 2026 • 8 mins
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)
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An unrecognized Indian prince’s quest to see Japan

May 6, 2026 • 9 mins
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)
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Bike business in P-town ruined by ... prostitutes?

May 5, 2026 • 10 mins
“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)
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Schemers sought to steal Peter Iredale shipwreck

May 4, 2026 • 9 mins
Clackamas County man claimed his father had bought the salvage rights in 1908, setting off a huge dust-up among residents, beachgoers and politicians, who scrambled to protect the landmark wreck. He almost got away with it, too. (Warrenton, Clatsop County; 1960s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1208d-schemer-sought-to-sell-peter-iredale-shipwreck-for-scrap.html)
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Uncle Dave's Incredible Shrinking Horse Story — and an IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENT ...

May 2, 2026 • 8 mins
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 th...
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The legendary lies and tall tales of Reub Long (2 of 2)

May 1, 2026 • 14 mins
LEGENDARY RACONTEUR REUB Long, the “Sage of Fort Rock,” packed a whole lot into his 76 years living in central Oregon. Most of it — though by no means all — had to do with horses. But, as you may remember from last week’s column, by the time he was settling down on his ranch in the mid-1960s to take it easy and write his memoirs, Reub Long had worked at least a dozen different side hustles, from dairy farming to running a pool hall...
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Rancher Reub Long, the legendary Sage of Fort Rock (1 of 2)

April 30, 2026 • 13 mins
Oregon was once known as a place full of “great liars” — tellers of tales so tall they'd cause every pair of pants in the room to spontaneously burst into flame. Central Oregon storyteller Reub Long could hold his own with the best of them. (Fort Rock, Lake County; 1930s, 1940s, 1950s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/2405c-1209a.reub-long-sage-of-fort-rock-1of2-187.650.html)
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War-games campaign blanketed Central Oregon

April 29, 2026 • 8 mins
Tens of thousands of U.S. soldiers, shipped to the Beaver State for training (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1408d.oregon-maneuver-ww2.html)
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Camp Adair hardened recruits with combat training — and poison oak (Part 2 of 2)

April 28, 2026 • 9 mins
Built in six months, the bustling metropolis of 40,000 lasted just six years before being turned, by order of the U.S. Government, into a ghost town and cut up for salvage. (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/2505b1004d.camp-adair-699.071.html)
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Oregon's second-largest city was built in six months (Part 1 of 2)

April 27, 2026 • 6 mins
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 ...
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Before news “crusade,” milk was killing babies

April 24, 2026 • 7 mins
State regulators didn't care, so neither did some dairy farmers, who left dead cows to rot among their dairy herds and brought milk to market in the same cans they used to slop the hogs; Portland led the nation in baby deaths as a result. (Portland, Multnomah and Columbia county; 1900s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1208b-bad-milk-was-killing-babies-in-portland.html)
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Quest for lost gold mine led to 12,000-acre jewel

April 23, 2026 • 10 mins
Searching for a fabulous source of gold formerly belonging to a friend who'd mysteriously disappeared, miners stumbled across Crater Lake. They never found the gold, though; could it be that it's still out there somewhere? (Yreka, Siskiyou County (Calif.); 1850s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1207b-crater-lake-discovered-by-legendary-gold-mine-seekers.html)
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Did L. Ron Hubbard battle Japanese subs off Astoria?

April 22, 2026 • 10 mins
Pulp writer and religious figure L. Ron Hubbard figures prominently in the most spectacular story of action against “Japanese submarines” in Oregon waters. It's called, with tongue firmly in cheek, the “Battle of Cape Lookout.” (Off Cannon Beach, Clatsop County; 1940s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1407a.sunken-submarine-rumors.html)
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‘Desperado’ became P-town’s first police chief

April 21, 2026 • 9 mins
James Lappeus came to Portland from the gold fields of California, where he was a gambler, saloonkeeper and general mining-town rowdy. His career as a cop was dogged by rumors he'd offered to spring a murderer for a $1,000 bribe. (Portland, Multnomah County; 1850s, 1860s, 1870s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1207a-james-lappeus-crooked-gambler-police-chief-in-portland.html)
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Busting out of the joint was job for a safecracker

April 20, 2026 • 7 mins
Of all the prisoners who tried to escape from Oregon's state prison, the “yeggs” were most successful — if “successful” is the right word. Their schemes for leaving the jailhouse behind included a tunneling scheme right out of “The Shawshank Redemption.” (Salem, Marion County; 1890s, 1910s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1207d-safecrackers-were-good-at-jailbreaks.html)
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Rusty derelict turned out to be Liberty Ship lifeboat

April 17, 2026 • 7 mins
What looked like a rotting-away hunk of scrap steel was a rare artifact of Portland's World War II shipbuilding industry — but the discovery was made just a few days too late. (Zigzag, Columbia County; 1940s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1207e-rusty-lifeboat-turned-out-to-be-relic-of-second-world-war.html)
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How Oregon almost lost public access to beaches

April 16, 2026 • 8 mins
After a beachfront landowner discovered a loophole in the law and fenced off “his” beach, other oceanfront property owners were eager to follow suit. Governor Tom McCall was determined to stop them, and this is how he did it. (Cannon Beach, Clatsop County; 1960s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1206a-how-tom-mccall-saved-public-beaches.html)
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Childhood tree-planting memories for thousands

April 15, 2026 • 9 mins
For decades after the Tillamook Burn, classes of schoolchildren were bused out to help replant. Today, thousands of Oregonians, on trips to the beach, can point to a thriving patch of forest and say, “We planted those trees.” (Tillamook, Yamhill, Washington county; 1950s, 1960s, 1970s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1408b.schoolkids-replant-tillamook.html)
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