Shanghaiing in Portland: P-town's time as shanghaiing capital of the world (2 of 2)

Shanghaiing in Portland: P-town's time as shanghaiing capital of the world (2 of 2)

Author: www.offbeatoregon.com (finn @ offbeatoregon.com) January 23, 2026 Duration: 9:31
AS OF THE time of this writing, there is some disagreement over the status of Oregon’s largest city. It all came to a head last month when the President of the United States referred to it as “war-ravaged Portland” in a Tweet, and locals responded by going on Amazon and buying every inflatable frog costume they could get their hands on. Interesting times, indeed! A little over 100 years ago, though, you could have made the case that parts of Portland were — not war-ravaged, exactly, but probably the most dangerous city in North America in which to go out drinking. But the risk you ran wasn’t getting killed, injured, or — uh, ravaged. It was the risk of waking up the next morning with a splitting headache and a bad case of seasickness, on board a barque headed for Liverpool. With an angry first mate screaming at you to get up and get to work and probably giving you a few kicks in the ribs to drive the point home that, whatever you thought your occupation was last night, this morning you were a sailor. (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/2511a1006c.portland-shanghaiing-capital-of-world-710.076.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

Offbeat Oregon History podcast
Podcast Episodes
Palatial riverboat caught in hurricane on open sea [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 8:57
Designed for calm inland waterways, the sidewheel steamboat Alaskan was no match for the massive late-spring gale that pounced on it off Cape Blanco one fateful night in 1889. (Cape Blanco, Curry County; 1889) (For text…
Drunk looting party broke out at scene of shipwreck [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 15:58
ON THE MORNING OF NOV. 5, 1915, at the back of the entrance to Coos Bay, a big steamship could be seen towering improbably over the beach, stuck fast in the sand close to shore. This was the Santa Clara, a 233-foot steam…
Civil War plotters hoped to get West Coast to secede [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 8:42
Dreamed up by supporters of the old south, the plan envisioned an independent “Pacific Republic” as a slave state — to be stocked with slaves by a sort of bait-and-switch swindle. But the supporters misjudged public opin…
Buster Keaton brought Hollywood to Cottage Grove (Part 2 of 2) [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 9:58
And then there was the climactic scene, which is the main thing people talk about in South Lane County when this movie comes up. It was literally a train wreck, although metaphorically it was anything but. Buster wanted…
Buster Keaton brought Hollywood to Cottage Grove (Part 1 of 2) [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 9:25
IF A COTTAGE Grove logger had been bonked on the head in January 1926, and woke up six months later, he would have scarcely recognized his home town. There was a whole new Main Street built way out east of Main Street, w…
Prohibition sting ended with a deadly gunfight [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 10:52
IF YOU LOOK UP Prohibition Agent Glenn H. Price on the “Fallen Agents” page at www.atf.gov, you’ll get a very brief account of his death: “Prohibition Agents Glenn H. Price and Grover Todd were attempting to arrest a boo…
Town’s emergency wood money is still legal tender [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 10:04
It was, of course, the depths of the Great Depression — possibly the deepest of the depths. Former Oregonian President Herbert Hoover was still in office, but it was the interregnum — he’d been voted out of office three…
Bunny-massacre parties were big social events [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 12:37
Imagine, for a moment, that you’re passing through a little Harney County town when you see, in a used-car lot, a DMC DeLorean that someone has modified as a replica of the car from Back to the Future. It even has a repl…
Corvallis man found cows make lousy boat engines [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 9:13
The “Genius of Corvallis” hoped his cattle-powered riverboat would give the upper-Willamette sternwheelers a run for their money; and so it did, so long as it didn't try to go upstream... (Corvallis, Benton County; 1850s…

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