Oregon’s highest, smallest city once had its jail stolen

Oregon’s highest, smallest city once had its jail stolen

Author: www.offbeatoregon.com (finn @ offbeatoregon.com) March 4, 2026 Duration: 8:16
Offbeat Oregon History podcast
HistoryCulturePlacesSocietySociety & CultureTravel
Because of how it's chartered, the ghost town of Greenhorn remained an incorporated city even when its population was zero — but it couldn't defend its city hoosegow from the midnight raiders of Canyon City one summer night. (Grant and Baker County; 1960s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1505d.greenhorn-smallest-city-jail-stolen-340.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: en-us Episodes: 100

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Podcast Episodes
Quest for lost gold mine led to 12,000-acre jewel [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 10:36
Searching for a fabulous source of gold formerly belonging to a friend who'd mysteriously disappeared, miners stumbled across Crater Lake. They never found the gold, though; could it be that it's still out there somewher…
Did L. Ron Hubbard battle Japanese subs off Astoria? [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 10:08
Pulp writer and religious figure L. Ron Hubbard figures prominently in the most spectacular story of action against “Japanese submarines” in Oregon waters. It's called, with tongue firmly in cheek, the “Battle of Cape Lo…
‘Desperado’ became P-town’s first police chief [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 9:24
James Lappeus came to Portland from the gold fields of California, where he was a gambler, saloonkeeper and general mining-town rowdy. His career as a cop was dogged by rumors he'd offered to spring a murderer for a $1,0…
Busting out of the joint was job for a safecracker [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 7:33
Of all the prisoners who tried to escape from Oregon's state prison, the “yeggs” were most successful — if “successful” is the right word. Their schemes for leaving the jailhouse behind included a tunneling scheme right…
Rusty derelict turned out to be Liberty Ship lifeboat [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 7:07
What looked like a rotting-away hunk of scrap steel was a rare artifact of Portland's World War II shipbuilding industry — but the discovery was made just a few days too late. (Zigzag, Columbia County; 1940s) (For text a…
How Oregon almost lost public access to beaches [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 8:57
After a beachfront landowner discovered a loophole in the law and fenced off “his” beach, other oceanfront property owners were eager to follow suit. Governor Tom McCall was determined to stop them, and this is how he di…
Childhood tree-planting memories for thousands [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 9:50
For decades after the Tillamook Burn, classes of schoolchildren were bused out to help replant. Today, thousands of Oregonians, on trips to the beach, can point to a thriving patch of forest and say, “We planted those tr…
Tillamook Burn ‘blew up’ with shocking speed [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 9:18
Quick action by state forester Lynn Cronemiller prevented the devastating forest fire from claiming hundreds of lives when a furnace-stoking wind blew in from Eastern Oregon, flogging the fire toward the sea. (Washington…
Tillamook Burn sprang from loggers’ bad gamble [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 8:08
A hard-pressed crew tried to snake just a few more logs out before quitting for the day, hoping nothing would go wrong in the tinder-dry forest. Unfortunately, something did. (Forest Grove, Washington County; 1930s) (For…
Bunco Kelley, Coyote of P-town waterfront legend [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 10:03
Is there any truth to the stories of shanghaiings of the cigar-store Indian and of the dozens of dead guys found in the basement of the funeral parlor next door to the “Snug Harbor Saloon”? Well ... maybe. But then again…

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