Latest Willam Podcast Episodes
Shouldn’t Oregon’s official language be Chinook?
Offbeat Oregon History podcast - May 29, 2024 14:00 - 7 minutes ★★★★★ - 160 ratingsSure, most people speak English. But there’s an older language whose roots run far deeper in Oregon’s culture and history, and it’s one that nearly every Oregonian knows a word or two of. (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1411d.314.chinook-jargon.html)
Bad climbers kept getting stuck on Haystack Rock
Offbeat Oregon History podcast - May 28, 2024 14:00 - 11 minutes ★★★★★ - 160 ratingsIt was a notoriously difficult climb, especially on the descent; but the 'idiots climbing Haystack Rock' dynamic didn't become a serious issue until after the helicopter was invented, and climbers started demanding that they be rescued. When they were, the propwash blew all the baby birds out of ...
Rural life in the Willamette Valley in the 1870s (WPA oral-history interview with Nettie Spencer)
Offbeat Oregon History podcast - May 27, 2024 14:00 - 26 minutes ★★★★★ - 160 ratings'When I asked Miss Spencer about her ancestors she exhibited a tree full of monkeys and said that they were the first one," writes WPA writer Walker Winslow in his oral history interview with Nettie Spencer, which he conducted in 1938 — a little over a decade after the famous 'Scopes Monkey Trial...
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...
Monterey Madness: Harvest 2023
Bud Break - May 22, 2024 18:00 - 16 minutes ★★★★★ - 28 ratingsJoin Wine Educator Wendi Hammond as she interviews the Monterey production crew on harvest 2023.
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...
Selling Techniques with Ron Wolfe - The Six Legs
Bud Break - May 15, 2024 07:00 - 24 minutes ★★★★★ - 28 ratingsJoin winery ambassador Katie Phillips as she and Ron Wolfe talk about The Six Legs of Sales
‘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...
Oregon Wine Month with Eugenia Keegan
Bud Break - May 09, 2024 14:00 - 41 minutes ★★★★★ - 28 ratingsJoin Wine Educator Dan Walsh as he interviews General Manager Eugenia Keegan on all things Oregon.
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...
Spring has Sprung with Pedro Rusk
Bud Break - May 01, 2024 18:00 - 41 minutes ★★★★★ - 28 ratingsJoin Wine Educator Pedro Rusk as he chats with production on what's happening during Springtime.
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...
What’s in a Sustainability Certification?
Bud Break - April 24, 2024 18:00 - 33 minutes ★★★★★ - 28 ratingsExplore the complicated but fascinating world of 3rd party sustainability certifications with Alex Everson and Ann Wallace. You’ll learn the differences between them, what each requires, how to find out which JFW wines are Certified Sustainable and how to present this important initiative to you...
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