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But then, in 1859, the old blackleg Hound started a law enforcement career. He was hired as city marshal. City Marshal Lappeus 
A portrait of James Lappeus painted from a photograph made around the time he first became Portland’s police chief. (Image: Leland John)Almost immediately, Lappeus got himself into trouble. When he got the job, there was a famous fugitive loose in the area: Danford Balch, a homesteader who had reacted to news of his daughter’s elopement by taking a shotgun and emptying both barrels into his new son-in-law. When Lappeus took the job, Balch had just escaped from the city jail, where he’d been held awaiting his murder trial. Lappeus tracked Balch down and brought him back, and he was promptly tried, convicted and sentenced to hang. Then, after the trial, Lappeus apparently made the soon-to-be widow a proposition: “Cross my palm with $1,000 and I’ll accidentally leave the jailhouse door unlocked one of these nights.” 
A lithograph of the scene on a bleary Saturday morning in the Portland city jail, published in The West Shore magazine in 1888. (Image: UO Libraries)This offer can’t be proven to have been made, but the widow’s subsequent fund-raising frenzy can, and a number of citizens swore out affadavits accusing Lappeus of making this offer. But ultimately, it fell short of its goal, and Balch was hanged — in the first public execution in Portland history. Portland’s first police chief? In spite of the rumors of this attempt, when the Oregon Legislature seized control of Portland police matters in 1870 to prevent a political rival from gaining control, it picked Lappeus as police chief. Most sources say he was the first chief; the police department’s official history disagrees, saying the man who designed the department, Joseph Saunders, was chief for two weeks before the state seized power. This may be true, but it’s easy to see why P.P.D. wants to think so. Saunders was a good cop and had earned the right to be the city’s first chief; Lappeus, on the other hand, was not. 
The Oro Fino Saloon and Theater as they appeared in 1876. The Gem was also a saloon. These buildings were located on First Street between Oak and Stark. (Image: Oregon Historical Society)In power as chief, Lappeus was able to make some extra money by taking care of his friends. Chambreau wrote about how he’d work with Lappeus to make sure any suckers fleeced at his saloon didn’t get anywhere when they complained to the cops. Lappeus also, on several occasions, arrested temperance workers for “disturbing the peace” by singing and praying on public sidewalks outside other saloonkeepers’ establishments. It was a nice, cozy time for Portland gamblers and grogshop operators. The fall of the house of Lappeus Not that everything was always smooth. Lappeus was removed from office “for cause” in 1877, and replaced with a former City Councilor named Luzerne Besser (remember that name). But he was back in office again two years later. 
A lithograph of temperance workers praying and singing outside a saloon in Iowa, published in Frank Leslie's magazine in 1874. Similar scenes played out in Portland that year, and Chief Lappeus arrested the protesting ladies several times. (Image: Library of Congress)In 1883, though, Lappeus’s law enforcement career ended for good — on a very ironic note. Newly elected Mayor James Chapman suddenly and unexpectedly brought the Danford Balch case up again, and used it as a pretext to fire Lappeus. A few weeks later, he confessed that he’d done this because ex-Chief Luzerne Besser had bribed him. Lappeus apparently took the hint, though, and disappeared from city politics for good after that.
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