Legislators shut down Salem with a raging party

Author: www.offbeatoregon.com (finn @ offbeatoregon.com) February 9, 2026 Duration: 10:43

The six-week-long drunken party was thrown by the notoriously rascally Jonathan Bourne Jr. to keep the state Legislature from convening, so it couldn't elect John H. Mitchell to the U.S. Senate. It worked — well, sort of. (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1201e-bourne-40-day-party-stopped-legislature.html)

Offbeat Oregon History podcast

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: www.offbeatoregon.com (finn @ offbeatoregon.com) Language: en-us Episodes: 100

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