Offbeat Oregon History podcast

In the days when Portland was a rough, tough, hard-drinking, hard-punching dockside town, the city's “crimping” activity actually generated international incidents with foreign governments. (Portland, Multnomah County; 1890s, 1900s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/H1006c_ShanghaiPDX.html)

After out-of-state interests overplayed their hand and showed how little power locals had in their own state, Populists and renegade Republicans got together to do something about it. The result: The initiative-petition system. (Salem, Marion County; 1890s, 1900s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1612d.oregon-system-initiative-referendum-423.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.... (Portland, Eugene; Multnomah and Lane County; 1890s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/22-11.matsuoka-imperial-japan-615.html)

Central and Eastern Oregon was “Oregon's liquor cabinet” during Prohibition; its wide open spaces and tight-knit communities made busting bootleggers uncommonly difficult there. (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1203c-moonshiners-of-oregon-outback.html)

At Jake Silverman's trial, 11 jurors wanted him to hang, but couldn't convince the lone holdout to change his vote. So voters changed the law and made Oregon the only state in the country where you could be convicted on a 10-2 vote. (Portland, Multnomah County; 1993) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1809e.1812.silverman-verdict.html)

It had been an accident, but small-time Portland crook Jimmy Walker had shot Rose City crime boss “Shy Frank” Kodat. Unfortunately for Jimmy, he picked the wrong friend to run to for help. (Portland, Scappoose; Multnomah and Columbia County; 1930s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1310c-jimmy-walker-gangland-murder.html)

Arguably, the outcome of World War II became inevitable on the day the S.S. Star of Oregon slid into the Columbia River. It was followed by a torrent of new ships — far more than the Nazis could ever hope to sink. (Vanport, Multnomah County; 1940s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1612c.portland-liberty-ships-saved-canada-422.html)

Unlikely as it sounds, law-enforcement people who worked the case think it easily could have ended in a “bloody mess” if they had had to actually invade the commune to take the Bhagwan into custody. (Antelope, Wasco County; 1980s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/H1005e_Bhagwan4of4.html)

Group's leaders planned to pack Wasco County with homeless people to facilitate a political takeover, and reduce opponents' voter turnout with a biological attack. When that didn't work, they bused all the homeless people to Madras. (Antelope, Wasco County; 1980s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/H1005d_Bhagwan3of4.html)

The Bhagwan's assistant, Ma Anand Sheela, set the tone for the commune's relations with the rest of Oregon — and that tone was not a friendly one. Soon the “Rajneeshies” were planning a political takeover ... (Antelope, Wasco County; 1980s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/H1005c_Bhagwan2of4.htm)

Bad health, a bad reputation and a big tax bill drove Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh out of India and into Central Oregon. Hilarity ensued ... hilarity, that is, in the original sense of the word. (Antelope, Wasco County; 1980s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/H1005b_Bhagwan1of4.htm)

Half a century of winning labor disputes left the waterfront employers feeling overconfident. When the Portland longshoremen walked out, they expected it would be a repeat of earlier victories for them ... it wasn't. (Portland, Multnomah County; 1930s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1304a-1934-dock-strike-paralyzed-oregon.html)

Created and priced as a luxury line to compete with coal-fired steam trains, the railroad collapsed rapidly after automobiles came on the scene. Would a cheaper, less opulent service have survived? (Willamette Valley; 1900s, 1910s, 1920s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1612b.oregon-electric-rise-and-fall-421.html)

Political boss James Lotan had landed a federal appointment that was flush with possibilities for graft and corruption. Too bad he picked such a bumbling group of criminals to partner up with. (Portland and Astoria, Multnomah and Clatsop County; 1890s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1202d-james-lotan-and-blum-dunbar-smuggling-ring.html)

Canadian bootlegger gang tried to bust three rumrunners out of Lincoln County Jail; it probably would have worked if they hadn't tried to take the confiscated whiskey too ... (Toledo, Lincoln County; 1930s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1809c.whale-cove-rumrunners-shipwreck-513.html)