Offbeat Oregon History podcast
Summary: 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 a1512nd 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.
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- Artist: www.offbeatoregon.com (finn @ offbeatoregon.com)
- Copyright: Creative Commons CC-BY 4.0 (all commercial use OK)
Podcasts:
State had first paved road border-to-border west of Mississippi, in 1923
Convinced his only neighbor was out to get him, solitary trapper and paranoid former prospector “Crazy Hugo” ambushed him with a rifle; the state prison became his retirement home.
Prolific Portland inventor Victor Strode designed a boat that was half airplane and all art-deco-age futurism, and early tests with a smaller model were very promising. But the larger model he built for the city was a disappointment.
A mysterious and beautiful girl comes to Newport; one day, while exploring the spooky old abandoned Yaquina Bay Lighthouse, she vanishes — leaving only a pool of warm blood and a lingering ghostly scream.
Bad health, a bad reputation and a big tax bill drove Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh out of India and into Central Oregon
Not long ago, the former gold-mining Blue Mountain boomtown was an incorporated city of one; it's grown 2,800 percent since.
Norwegian freighter got off course, piled onto Peacock Spit; a cutter pulled it off, and motor lifeboat crews rescued its crew, and the wallowing ship was pulled to port and repaired. A happy ending? Well, not for the Russians, it wasn't.
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.
The battle lines were drawn in Portland that day: A group of Victorian ladies in their Sunday best, versus a rough, pugnacious and slightly crazy saloonkeeper. It was hymns and prayers vs. water hoses and firecrackers. (MP3 audio, 20:13.)
An Oregon astronaut holds the record for time spent in space. Another peformed the first unscheduled spacewalk. And a third was a participant in NASA's first public love triangle.
The historic structure, halfway between “dry” Silverton and “wet” Mt. Angel, became a meeting place for the thirsty — and a symbol of Oregon's strange relationship with good ol' Demon Rum.
It started as a shakedown, but its backers' bluff was called, so they were forced to go ahead with it. The result: An amusement park right out of a David Lynch movie.
The battle lines were drawn in Portland that day: A group of Victorian ladies in their Sunday best, versus a rough, pugnacious and slightly crazy saloonkeeper. It was hymns and prayers vs. water hoses and firecrackers. (MP3 audio, 20:13.)
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
