D.B. Cooper skyjacking legend started at PDX

D.B. Cooper skyjacking legend started at PDX

Author: www.offbeatoregon.com (finn @ offbeatoregon.com) August 18, 2025 Duration: 8:54
Offbeat Oregon History podcast
HistoryCulturePlacesSocietySociety & CultureTravel
History's only unsolved hijacking drama started at Portland International Airport when a nondescript man calling himself 'Dan Cooper' stepped aboard a Boeing 727 bound for Seattle. (Part 1 of a 4-part series) (Portland, Multnomah County; 1970s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1306a-db-cooper-part-1-the-skyjacking.html)

The Offbeat Oregon History Podcast is a daily service from the Offbeat Oregon History newspaper column. Each weekday morning, a strange-but-true story from Oregon's history from the archives of the column is uploaded. An exploding whale, a few 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. Source citations are included with the text version on the Web site at https://offbeatoregon.com.
Author: Language: English Episodes: 184

Official website RSS
apple_music
Offbeat Oregon History podcast
Podcast Episodes
Town’s police chief was later executed for murder [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 8:46
At the pay the city of Sandy was offering, Otto Austin Loel was the only man willing to take the job. He didn't turn out to be much of a bargain ... but it wouldn't be until years later that the town learned how much wor…
Rooftop stunt made local aero-daredevil famous [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 8:51
“This is an age of do-it-first,” said Silas Christofferson, and proceeded to launch his spindly kite-like “aeroplane” from the roof of a downtown hotel — making aviation history in the heart of Oregon's biggest town. (Po…
Giant skeleton hinted at legend of pirate treasure [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 8:18
Neighbors wondered if the eight-foot-tall corpse found by developer at what today is YWCA Camp Westwind was evidence that an old Native American legend of a pirate ship is true; if so, there might actually be booty burie…
Mass murderer honored in courthouse monument [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 8:38
75 years ago, without realizing who he was, Wallowa County included Bruce “Blue” Evans — leader of the gang that massacred dozens of innocent Chinese miners back in 1887 — on a plaque commemorating its earliest white set…
‘Ship of Romance and Death’ met a dramatic end [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 8:11
The Melanope's maritime career started with a witch's curse. But her most dramatic story was the torrid, doomed love affair its skipper carried on with the heiress who bought the ship so she could be with him as he saile…
Prison break happened during “conjugal visit” [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 10:53
By far the most embarrassing jailbreak in state history happened when a murderer simply walked out the back door of a Motel 6 during an unsupervised “date” with a woman officials thought was his fiancee. (Salem, Marion C…
Portland lost world’s biggest log cabin in 1964 fire [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 7:45
Ancient electrical wiring ignited Portland's legendary Forestry Building, a structure made of massive, flawless old-growth logs that had been built for the Lewis and Clark Exposition in 1905. (Portland, Multnomah County;…
The mysterious demise of the S.S. South Coast [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 8:56
Historic steam schooner vanished on a calm night in 1930, leaving lifeboats and debris floating in the water — but no bodies, alive or dead. Was it a violent micro-storm? A “seaquake”? A boiler explosion? We'll never rea…
Horrific 'Trunk Murders' made headlines nationwide (Part 2 of 2) [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 8:24
Ruth Judd was in a fierce argument with her friends Annie Leroi and Sammy Samuelson. Furious, she stood up to go. She took her drink cup to drop it off in the kitchen sink. When she got there — well, something happened.…
Locals drawn into 1930s’ most notorious murder (Part 1 of 2) [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 8:49
OREGON DIVORCEE AGNES Anne “Annie” LeRoi arrived in Phoenix in the first few months of 1931 with her best friend and roommate, schoolteacher Hedvig “Sammy” Samuelson. They were climate refugees: Sammy had tuberculosis, a…

«123456...19»