Latest Roseburg Podcast Episodes
Mayors Lee, Schrunk set mid-century P-town tone
Offbeat Oregon History podcast - May 24, 2024 14:00 - 12 minutes ★★★★★ - 160 ratingsThe history of Portland mayors in the 20th century largely comes down to the story of the struggle of progressive reformers against various forms of corruption and vice. Put that way, it sounds like a clean morality play: good vs. evil. But it’s a bit more complicated than that. (Portland, Multn...
In 1880s Portland, at least one mayor paid to play
Offbeat Oregon History podcast - May 23, 2024 14:00 - 11 minutes ★★★★★ - 160 ratingsWhen Dr. James Chapman was elected mayor of Portland in 1882, it was his third non-consecutive stint as P-town’s top executive. His previous two mayoralties had been relatively unremarkable. This one, his third and final stint, would be different. Things started out reasonably well, although a c...
Frontier Portland mayors could be drama queens
Offbeat Oregon History podcast - May 22, 2024 14:00 - 11 minutes ★★★★★ - 160 ratingsOver the years, the city of Portland has had its share of controversy and drama in the Mayor’s office. At times, the political tableaux in the top job in Oregon’s biggest town have ripened into scenes that wouldn’t be out of place in a Vaudeville act. (Portland, Multnomah County; 1860s, 1870s, 18...
Lonely Oregon boy grew up to be a comics legend
Offbeat Oregon History podcast - May 21, 2024 14:00 - 24 minutes ★★★★★ - 160 ratingsSometime in April of 1960, a shy, retiring, hard-of-hearing comic-book artist named Carl Barks got a letter at his quiet suburban home. When he opened it, he found that it was a letter from a stranger named John Spicer. And to his astonishment, he found that it was — a fan letter. “Believe it or...
Early songs and ballads, and memories of Homer Davenport (WPA oral-history interview with Mrs. Cora Ayers Jamerson)
Offbeat Oregon History podcast - May 20, 2024 14:00 - 8 minutes ★★★★★ - 160 ratingsWPA writer Sara B. Wrenn's oral history interview with Cora Ayers Jamerson, a 'small, alert gray-haired' widow and retired schoolteacher and apartment-house superintendent, in her neat but cluttered apartment in 1938. Mrs. Jamerson talked about the songs and ballads folks liked to sing in 1880s P...
Eugene’s first college died after president’s gunfight
Offbeat Oregon History podcast - May 17, 2024 14:00 - 11 minutes ★★★★★ - 160 ratingsColumbia College, atop College Hill in Eugene, was founded just before the Civil War. It closed after pro-slavery board members took over, and its president skipped town while under indictment for attempted murder; but while it lasted, it gave Eugene a taste for the college-town life that led dir...
‘Harmonial Brotherhood’ free-love cult was a disaster
Offbeat Oregon History podcast - May 16, 2024 14:00 - 9 minutes ★★★★★ - 160 ratingsThe catastrophic failure of several of the Utopian cult's articles of faith — especially on matters of diet and health care — had doomed the community to misery and sickness before it even got a start. (Central America; 1850s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1412a.luelling-l...
Oregon nursery industry founder’s ‘Free Love’ cult
Offbeat Oregon History podcast - May 15, 2024 14:00 - 9 minutes ★★★★★ - 160 ratingsFormer devout Quaker Henderson Luelling developed some odd beliefs in late middle age, founded a cult called “Harmonial Brotherhood,” and led his followers into the Central American wilderness. It did not go well. (Milwaukie, Clackamas County; 1840s, 1850s) (For text and pictures, see https://off...
‘Miner 29ers’ beat the Depression with gold pan
Offbeat Oregon History podcast - May 14, 2024 14:00 - 7 minutes ★★★★★ - 160 ratingsWhen the Great Depression hit, many Oregonians decided to head for mining claims. The life of a gold miner was rustic and tough, but in an age of bread lines and 'hoovervilles,' it beat the alternative. (Southern and Central Oregon; 1930s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/190...
Life around Oswego Lake, and square dancing (WPA oral-history interview with C.T. Dickinson)
Offbeat Oregon History podcast - May 13, 2024 14:00 - 12 minutes ★★★★★ - 160 ratingsWPA writer Sara B. Wrenn's oral history interview with pioneer Oswego resident C.T. Dickinson, recalling how the land was when the lake was thick with fish and ducks and people were thin on the land. Dickinson also served as a square-dance caller, so if you're yearning for some traumatic memories...
Skill, stout shipbuilding kept wreck fatality-free
Offbeat Oregon History podcast - May 10, 2024 14:00 - 10 minutes ★★★★★ - 160 ratingsReally, the only reason the U.S.S. Peacock didn’t break into pieces and drown all hands within hours of slamming into the sand was that it was a United States Navy ship. That meant it was crewed by some of the best-trained sailors in the world, and built solidly enough for iron shot to bounce off...
Guild Lake was P-town’s water wonderland
Offbeat Oregon History podcast - May 09, 2024 14:00 - 8 minutes ★★★★★ - 160 ratingsThe hordes of awestruck visitors who admired the scenery at the 1905 Lewis and Clark Exposition would have been shocked if they'd known the beautiful little lake would be gone in 20 years — filled in for industrial lands. Not a trace remains. (Portland, Multnomah County; 1900s) (For text and pict...
Wreck of the U.S. Grant: A weird historical mystery
Offbeat Oregon History podcast - May 08, 2024 14:00 - 9 minutes ★★★★★ - 160 ratingsThe little riverboat came loose from its moorings during a storm and floated downriver and onto the deadly bar with the owners aboard. How could such a thing have happened? Did someone do it on purpose? (Astoria, Clatsop County; 1870s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1411c.3...
Politicians’ plan for Army to seize gold mines foiled
Offbeat Oregon History podcast - May 07, 2024 14:00 - 7 minutes ★★★★★ - 160 ratingsSome Eastern politicians had a plan for paying down Civil War debt: Send in the Army, with the aid of foreign troops, and seize all the productive gold-mining operations in the West. Luckily, a Nevada Senator had a plan to pre-empt it. (Washington, D.C.; 1860s) (For text and pictures, see https:/...
What riding the transcontinental railroad was like (WPA oral-history interview with Mrs. Hortense Watkins)
Offbeat Oregon History podcast - May 06, 2024 14:00 - 10 minutes ★★★★★ - 160 ratingsWhen we get the story of early-day Oregon emigrants' journeys, usually they involve covered wagons. This is a story of a lady who came to Oregon on the newly built transcontinental railway, which she did the same year the connection was finished: 1883. This is WPA writer Sara B. Wrenn's oral hist...
Oregon’s first murder defendant saved by wife
Offbeat Oregon History podcast - May 03, 2024 14:00 - 10 minutes ★★★★★ - 160 ratingsIt was the first murder trial ever held in the Oregon Territory. The prosecution alleged that Nimrod O’Kelley was a land pirate who had invented an imaginary wife in order to fraudulently claim extra land, and that he had murdered Jeremiah Mahoney to prevent losing it, and to intimidate his other...
Mysterious skeletons of Oregon history: If only these bones could talk ...
Offbeat Oregon History podcast - May 02, 2024 14:00 - 10 minutes ★★★★★ - 160 ratingsSometimes the silent bones of the long dead almost seem to want to tell their stories ... but, of course, they can't.There are a few stories of skeletal remains found in Oregon whose secrets will probably never be known. (Scio, Ochoco National Forest, Peters Creek Sink) (For text and pictures, s...
Nutty 1890s governor gave state two Thanksgivings
Offbeat Oregon History podcast - May 01, 2024 14:00 - 9 minutes ★★★★★ - 160 ratingsIn 1893, famously irascible governor Sylvester Pennoyer made a mistake on the date of Turkey Day in a speech. But then, instead of admitting his error, he defiantly doubled down on it. (Salem, Marion County; 1890s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1411b.312.pennoyers-thanksg...
Prospectors turned their backs on a fortune, twice
Offbeat Oregon History podcast - April 30, 2024 14:00 - 9 minutes ★★★★★ - 160 ratingsMiner William Aldred, traveling to a rumored bonanza in Idaho with five dozen other miners, found two gold mines on the way — but couldn't get the other miners to stay with him to work them. Luckily, one of the two mines was still unclaimed on their return. (Prairie City, Grant County; 1860s) (F...
HEADLINE (WPA oral-history interview with NAMENAMENAME)
Offbeat Oregon History podcast - April 29, 2024 14:00 - 16 minutes ★★★★★ - 160 ratingsWPA writer William Haight's oral history interview with Miss Etta Crawford, wealthy and cultured member of frontier Oregon's social elite and political activist, recalling her girlhood days in Portland shortly after the Civil War. (For the transcript, see https://www.loc.gov/item/wpalh001943/)
Laws in old Oregon were rough, not always ready
Offbeat Oregon History podcast - April 26, 2024 14:00 - 9 minutes ★★★★★ - 160 ratings“From 1861 to 1876, every man committed to the Oregon State Penitentiary for ‘life’ either escaped or was pardoned,” writes historian and newspaper columnist Erik Bromberg, quoting from the U.S. Federal Writers Project’s “Oregon Oddities” article of 1939-1941. “Some who escaped were recaptured an...
Deadly weather usually catches Oregon by surprise
Offbeat Oregon History podcast - April 25, 2024 14:00 - 10 minutes ★★★★★ - 160 ratingsCyclones, tornadoes, flash floods, earthquakes and volcanoes — the Beaver State is not immune to any of these things, but they're rare enough that no one is expecting them when they appear. (Statewide) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1210b-deadly-weather-usually-catches-oreg...
The short, tragic story of P-town’s municipal whale
Offbeat Oregon History podcast - April 24, 2024 14:00 - 9 minutes ★★★★★ - 160 ratings“Ethelbert” the orca somehow ended up stranded miles from the ocean in the Columbia Slough, much to the delight of most Portland residents. But it wasn't long before the city's would-be Nimrods came out and spoiled everything. (Columbia Slough, Multnomah County; 1930s) (For text and pictures, see...
Bootlegger ‘lobster trap’ a huge but costly success
Offbeat Oregon History podcast - April 23, 2024 14:00 - 9 minutes ★★★★★ - 160 ratingsNo one in Tillamook County even suspected the “Lee Film Company” was a front for government Prohibition enforcement until the trap was sprung ... but it has to have been the most expensive law enforcement operation in the county's history. (Tillamook County; 1920s) (For text and pictures, see htt...
The Portland mining engineer who invented fracking (WPA oral-history interview with William Hampton)
Offbeat Oregon History podcast - April 22, 2024 14:00 - 13 minutes ★★★★★ - 160 ratingsWPA writer Walker Winslow's oral history interview with William Huntley Hampton, a son of Brigham Young although not a Mormon, who was probably Oregon's second most famous mining engineer around the turn of the Twentieth Century (behind Herbert Hoover). He invented the process of hydraulic fracki...
Brothel owner Carrie Carrie’s sidekicks proved bad at corpse disposal (Part 2 of 2)
Offbeat Oregon History podcast - April 19, 2024 14:00 - 9 minutes ★★★★★ - 160 ratingsOn the morning of Nov. 25, 1881, two men were walking to work along the North End waterfront when they saw something incongruous in the river, just off the foot of Everett Street ... a pair of feet, sticking straight up into the air. (Portland, Multnomah County; 1990s) (For text and pictures, see...
Bordello madam Carrie Bradley was a real-life Brigid O’Shaughnessy (Part 1 of 2 parts)
Offbeat Oregon History podcast - April 18, 2024 14:00 - 10 minutes ★★★★★ - 160 ratingsThe Femme Fatale, like most really satisfying tropes in fiction, is based on real life. And arguably, the closest Oregon has ever come to a real-life femme fatale worthy of Hammett’s pen was in early 1880s Portland, in what today is known as the Tenderloin — in the person of a gorgeous, hard-eyed...
Scholarly Albany flyer was the real father of Oregon aviation
Offbeat Oregon History podcast - April 17, 2024 14:00 - 9 minutes ★★★★★ - 160 ratingsIn a race with Portland neophile Henry Wemme to be the first owner of an airplane in Oregon, Cornell-educated John Burkhart was two weeks too late; but unlike Wemme, he designed, built and flew his own machine. (Albany, Linn County; 1910s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/14...
Was Bridge of the Gods real? Almost certainly yes
Offbeat Oregon History podcast - April 16, 2024 14:00 - 9 minutes ★★★★★ - 160 ratingsThe geographical evidence isn't there; but every nearby Indian community has legends about the river tunneling underground for miles, and roughly similar accounts of the tunnel's collapse. What are the odds? (Near The Dalles, Wasco County; circa 1450 A.D.) (For text and pictures, see https://offb...
The maddest man in old Portland (WPA oral-history interview)
Offbeat Oregon History podcast - April 15, 2024 14:00 - 12 minutes ★★★★★ - 160 ratingsYoung Charley Imus was the son of the local undertaker, and he and a school friend were tasked with watching over a corpse while an Irish wake was going on, as the wind howled in the shingles on a stormy, spooky night. Imagine the boys' consternation when the 'corpse' ... woke up. Apparently the ...
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