Heroes and rascals, shipwrecks and lost gold: Strange but true stories and secrets of Oregon's wild past | Offbeat Oregon History While doing some cleaning-up around the Odd Fellows Hall in Scio, a local girl found a tiny coffin with this partial skeleton inside. Whose? We'll probably never know ... (Story No. 204, Oct. 14, 2012) While doing some cleaning-up around the Odd Fellows Hall in Scio, a local girl found a tiny coffin with this partial skeleton inside. Whose? We'll probably never know ... (Story No. 204, Oct. 14, 2012) The ever-elusive D.B. Cooper peeks into the page from behind his signature shades. The story of his skyjacking exploit starts with episode 237, from June 2, 2013. Meet Kitty Kat, the wealthiest feline in the state of Oregon and landlord to the City of Tangent. Kitty Kat, until he died at a ripe old age in 1995, owned City Hall. (Story No. 163, Jan. 8, 2012) This crazy-looking speedboat was the invention of Portland wizard Victor Strode. The city commissioned a harbor patrol boat based on his design, but it didn't work out. (Story No. 201, Sept. 23, 2012) The Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh (now known as Osho -- yes, THAT Osho) as he appeared when he lived in Wasco County with his followers. That's also him in the white Rolls-Royce surrounded by followers, in a scene from Rajneeshpuram. (Four-part story starts with Column No. 73, May 9, 2010 This is the roof of the Franz Bread Rest Hut at Pixieland, the Oregon Coast's ill-starred answer to Disneyland, which opened in 1969 and went out of biz in 1974. The Rest Hut consisted of a giant fiberglass loaf of bread sticking out of the top of this giant fiberglass hollow log, the whole thing towering over a log-flume roller coaster ride. It's probably the most campily awesome example of the proud display of crass commercialism that was Pixieland. (Column No. 52 - Dec. 6, 2009)
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Table of Contents: 2013 articles

These are the columns published in the sixth year of Offbeat Oregon History.

<<    Oldest    |    < Older: 2012 stories    | |    — This page: 2013 stories —    | |    Newer: 2014 stories >    |    Newest    >>
 

No.

Date:

Headline

Thumbnail

Place & time

267

Dec. 29, 2013

Wives were stripped of American citizenship at the altar

During World War I, women who'd married German men were legally (and very unconstitutionally) made stateless, and forced to register as "enemy aliens"; those who'd married Chinese men fared even worse.
To play podcast version:
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•Statewide
•1917-1918

266

Dec. 22, 2013

Bad recording technique led FBI to investigate “Louie Louie”

Portland band The Kingsmen recorded the song quickly and cheaply, and the words they were singing were unintelligible. But when the song became a hit, fans started guessing at the lyrics ... and some of them had rather dirty minds.
To play podcast version:
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•Portland
•1963

265

Dec. 15, 2013

The game of Faro was a crooked gambler's dream

Frontier Oregon's favorite game of chance was a "banking" game that's little played today. That's because the only way to make money as a faro banker is to cheat ... and cheat they did.
To play podcast version:
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•Portland, other Oregon towns
•1890s

264

Dec. 8, 2013

Taming of the Rascal: Edouard Chambreau's redemption

After blowing his chance at a prosperous, respectable life in the Tygh Valley, the gambler and liquor man roared through frontier life as a keeper of rowdy saloons and bawdy joints before a Temperance crusader changed his life. (Part 2 of 2)
To play podcast version:
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•Tygh Valley, Portland
•1861-1874

263

Dec. 1, 2013

Edouard Chambreau gave a swindler's-eye view of old Oregon

French-Canadian gambler started out as one of the most scurrilous rascals in the state, then changed his ways and became one of its most effective reformers. This is the story of his early years. (Part 1 of 2)
To play podcast version:
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•Statewide
•1840s-1870s

262

Nov. 24, 2013

“Blue Ruin” drove lawmakers to drink — and prohibition

Before Oregon was even a state, its territorial government outlawed all booze. Why? It all has to do with a fellow who could be called the true founder of Portland — and his ever-bubbling moonshine still.
To play podcast version:
Had William Johnson lived in the present day, he might have Photoshopped up a label for his product based on the Portland area's favorite 'hipster beer,' Pabst Blue Ribbon.

•Portland
•1840s

261

Nov. 17, 2013

Palatial riverboat was caught in a hurricane on the open sea

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.
To play podcast version:
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•Offshore,
Oregon Coast
•1889

260

Nov. 10, 2013

Outlaw Bill Miner's first train robbery was a fiasco

Fresh from a 20-year stretch in the pen, the famous stagecoach robber known as "The Gray Fox" found the world had changed and he would now have to learn to rob trains instead. His learning curve started in Portland and ended in disaster.
To play podcast version:
Actor Justus Barnes takes a shot straight into the camera at the end of a 10-minute silent Edison Films production called 'The Great Train Robbery,' the filming of which started in November 1903 – two months after Bill Miner’s gang tried to rob the train just outside Portland. It’s hard to miss the similarity between Barnes’ character and Bill Miner.

•Near Corbett
•1903

259

Nov. 3, 2013

Was suspicious death in “The Boneyard” really a murder?

The coroner ruled Thomas McMahon's death an accident. But the testimony of witness Eliza “Boneyard Mary” Bunets was suspicious and contradictory. Could she have gotten away with murder?
To play podcast version:
"Boneyard Mary" was an old Oregon working girl who lived on a decrepit steamboat moored in the riverboat company's "boneyard" -- where it parked old and broken-down riverboats after they were worn out or damaged. But was she actually a murderer? We'll never really know, but ...

•Portland
•1878

258

Oct. 27, 2013

Vigilantes went too far with murder of suspected rustler

Everyone thought John Hawk was stealing cattle, and he refused to talk about it. So one night, a group of cattlemen snuck into his camp and shot him — and were shocked by the frontier community's response.
To play podcast version:
This panel from a Kid Colt and Ringo Kid Wild Western Comics book from 1956 shows a gang of rustlers stealing a herd of cattle, driving it to a rendezvous with an unscrupulous buyer and selling the herd “no questions asked.” Although real rustlers generally stole cattle when no one was around rather than punching out the cowboys guarding them, the illustration of how stolen cattle were sold is historically accurate.

•Wallowa County
•1881

257

Oct. 20, 2013

The life and death of a Portland gangster and his “moll”

It had been an accident, but Jimmy Walker had shot Rose City crime boss “Shy Frank” Kodat. But he picked the wrong friend to run to for help — and that night, Shy Frank's friends took Jimmy and his girl for a ride.
To play podcast version:
The front cover of ADAM Magazine for April 1955 carried this fictitious scene, which — although the car shown is newer — probably looked a lot like what happened when Jimmy Walker and Edith McClain got taken for a ride in April 1933.

•Portland, Scappoose
•1933

256

Oct. 13, 2013

Voice of Goofy, Bluto and Grumpy was Oregon's “Pinto” Colvig

One of the 20th Century's most influential show-biz men, the Jacksonville native was a Beaver who made it big; he worked on Disney projects and Popeye cartoons and delighted kids as the first Bozo the Clown.
To play podcast version:
Jacksonville, Oregon, native Vance “Pinto” Colvig voiced the part of Goofy as a cool cigarette-smoking Argentine gaucho in the 1942 cartoon 'El Gaucho Goofy,' part of a four-part set titled 'Saludos Amigos, a sort of Disney goodwill tour of South America commissioned by the U.S. State Department during World War II.

•Jacksonville
•1900s

255

Oct. 5, 2013

Legendary Civil War ship came to ignominious end in Coos Bay

During its glory days, the Gertrude was the fastest blockade runner in the Confederate fleet. But just 17 years later, it was just another dumpy old steamer on a lowly coastwise run in Oregon.
To play podcast version:
A Confederate blockade runner races to get away from Union warships.

•Coos Bay
•1880

254

Sept. 29, 2013

The mysterious skeletons of Crater Lake National Park

Oregon's only national park is a surprisingly dangerous place, and a number of people have died there. Several of these left only bones behind to help us understand what caused their death.
To play podcast version:
This image came from one of the Tarzan movies, depicting a crashed airplane with a skeleton slumped in the seat. It's an illustration of the fate of several aviators who came to grief in Crater Lake National Park.

•Crater Lake

253

Sept. 22, 2013

When the “Dark Strangler” stalked the streets of Portland

One of the first serial killers, Earle Leonard Nelson preyed on landladies, killing them while they were showing real estate. By the time he was hanged, he'd slain at least 21 women — including four in Portland.
To play podcast version:
A close-up of Earle Leonard Nelson, a.k.a. 'The Dark Strangler,' from a photograph made of him after he was captured in Canada and sentenced to hang. By the time Nelson was executed, he had murdered dozens of women, including four in Portland.

•Portland
•1920s

252

Sept. 15, 2013

Train robbery turned into on-board gunfight with the law

These three desperados couldn't seem to catch a break. First they robbed the wrong train; then it turned out to contain a dangerously competent lawman; and finally, someone stole their getaway car.
To play podcast version:
Train robber and all-around old-Oregon bad guy Albert Meadors poses for a photograph sometime around 1910 or so.

•Near Pendleton
•1914

251

Sept. 8, 2013

1890s “march on Washington” involved train hijackings

Despite the best efforts of an overzealous federal marshal, the episode ended in nothing more than a stern lecture from the bench for 424 members of “Coxey's Army,” who tried to “borrow” an eastbound train.
To play podcast version:
A political cartoon from an 1896 issue of Puck Magazine showing Populist candidate William Jennings Bryan at the head of Coxey’s ragtag army, eyeing the White House. (Image: Puck/ Library of Congress)

•Portland, Troutdale
•1890s

250

Sept. 1, 2013

Valsetz newspaper and its editor, age 9, won nationwide fame

Fourth-grader Dorothy Anne Hobson decided her tiny timber town needed a newspaper, so she launched the Valsetz Star. Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt, Herbert Hoover and Shirley Temple were subscribers.
To play podcast version:
The Valsetz dining-hall crew around 1937. Dorothy Anne Hobson is in the center of the group. (Image: Univ. of Washington)

•Valsetz
•1930s

249

August 25, 2013

Shevlin: Oregon's wandering timber town

The little logging-company town, owned by the Shevlin-Hixon Company of Bend, was fully portable. When the timber was all gone from an area, the company simply loaded the houses on railroad flatcars and moved on.
To play podcast version:
The first Shevlin-Hixon railroad-carried logging camp as it appeared in 1916. Note the bunkhouses are basically boxcars with a door and a window. (Image: Ronald L. Gregory)

•Central Oregon
•1920s-1940s

248

August 18, 2013

Tawdry love triangle ends in murder — and a kiss from a corpse

Lulu Reynolds was having a torrid affair with her music teacher. Her husband was an ex-Cavalry scout who carried a .38 in his jacket pocket. It wasn't the kind of thing that usually ends well. It didn't.
To play podcast version:
The headline in the Portland Morning Oregonian on June 22, 1907, announcing the dramatic events that ensued after Lulu saw the lifeless body of her lover in the coroner’s office.

•Portland •1907

247

August 11, 2013

Race exclusion of early Oregon is still embarrassing today

In a country divided between slave states and free states just before the Civil War, Oregon was the only example of a third alternative: it was neither.
To play podcast version:
Former slave Louis Southworth relaxes at his home; the violin with which he earned his freedom is perched atop the clock on the mantle.

•Oregon Territory
•1800s

246

August 4, 2013

Bootlegger’s paradise: Oregon’s Prohibition adventures

By the time the Volstead Act passed, Beaver State bootleggers were already seasoned professionals. So when the rest of the West Coast needed them, Oregon's "midnight entrepreneurs" were ready to roll.
To play podcast version:
This image graces the front cover of a piece of sheet music written by the legendary Nora Bayes ("Over There," "Shine On Harvest Moon," etc.) in 1919.

•Statewide, but especially Portland
•1920s

245

July 28, 2013

Mob racketeers, corrupt union men battled over pinball

Many people today don't realize that in the 1950s, pinball had a bad reputation as a gambler's game and was as illegal as one-armed bandits. In Portland, shady underworld characters supplied plenty of both.
To play podcast version:
The Fonz shows his mastery of the pinball machine in an episode of ABC's iconic TV show, "Happy Days."

•Portland, Milwaukie, Las Vegas
•1950s

244

July 21, 2013

When steamboats exploded on the upper Willamette

When the steamboat Gazelle reached the dock, the man in charge of its steam boilers leaped ashore and ran like a man being chased by demons. A few seconds later, the Gazelle exploded, killing 20 people.
To play podcast version:
This is a newspaper illustration of the explosion of the steamer Moselle in 1838, which led to a push for regulation of steam engines to prevent similar disasters. More than four times as many people died in the Moselle explosion as that of the Gazelle — which was, itself, the single worst catastrophe in Willamette River history.

•Oregon City, upper Willamette River
• 1850s

243

July 14, 2013

Oregon's Harry Lane: A real hero of the First World War

As his countrymen and colleagues succumbed to the propaganda for joining the conflict, only Senator Lane and a handful of other lawmakers kept their wits. But Lane paid dearly for his commitment to sanity.
To play podcast version:
Dr. Harry Lane as he appeared at the age of about 60, when he was a U.S. Senator.

•Portland, Salem
•1917

242

July 7, 2013

McCarty Gang's Oregon story: “Bonanza” meets “Unforgiven”

After homesteading some of the West's best cattle country, the family could have been wealthy squires like TV's Cartwright family; instead, they gave it all up for an outlaw life that left some broke and others dead.
To play podcast version:
The body of Bill McCarty after he was slain in the McCarty gang’s last bank robbery. This rather macabre picture was proudly published in the newspapers at the time.

•Eastern Oregon

241

June 30, 2013

Frontier journalists settled their differences with a gunfight

The nationally notorious “Oregon Style” of newspapering involved vicious personal attacks and cutting invective; but it was ink being spilled, not blood. That is, until one day in downtown Roseburg ...
To play podcast version:
The front cover of the May 1946 issue of 44 Western Magazine shows a scene vaguely reminiscent of the downtown gunfight between feuding newspaper editors in 1871 Roseburg.

•Roseburg

240

June 23, 2013

What really happened to D.B. Cooper? Pick a theory

For more than 40 years, amateurs and pros alike have put forward dozens of theories, many quite plausible and backed with some evidence. But the story seems destined to remain a delicious historical mystery.
To play podcast version:
This hard-to-find book, written by an anonymous person claiming to be D.B. Cooper in 1983, was printed at the Portland Daily Journal of Commerce. Three copies are currently listed on Amazon for roughly $160.

•Northwest Oregon, southwest Washington

239

June 16, 2013

The hunt for D.B. Cooper: Searching for the drop zone

The hunt for the man who called himself Dan Cooper started just hours after he disappeared into the night sky with a bag of $20 bills tied to his waist. Did he get away? Did anyone find him? The search continues to this day.
To play podcast version:
An artist's sketch of what D.B. Cooper may have looked like, from an FBI bulletin sent out shortly after the skyjacking.

•PDX,
southwest
Washington,
Columbia River

238

June 9, 2013

The deplaning of D.B. Cooper: Getting away with the loot

After demanding four parachutes and a knapsack of $20 bills, the legendary anonymous skyjacker disappeared into the night sky over southwest Washington with $200,000 — touching off a massive manhunt.
To play podcast version:
The aft staircase of the Boeing 727 that D.B. Cooper jumped out of — an image from the FBI’s file on the case.

•PDX

237

June 2, 2013

The D.B. Cooper skyjacking legend took flight out of PDX

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)
To play podcast version:
This image appeared on the front cover of the Sept. 12, 1936, issue of Argosy magazine, accompanying a novelette about an early skyjacking titled 'Transpacific Plunder.' The artist's rendering of the skyjacker, with black hair and business suit, is not unlike witnesses' descriptions of D.B. Cooper - although Cooper did not use a gun.

•PDX

236

May 26, 2013

Joseph bank robber became VP of the bank he once robbed

Young cowboy wanted a share of the loot so he could marry his sweetheart; after he got out of prison, he worked for decades to earn back the trust of her and of the community.
To play podcast version:
The front cover art of "For Men Only" Magazine showed a scene that bore some resemblance to the scene on the day Dave Tucker robbed the bank of which he would, 32 years later, be named Vice-President.

•Joseph (Wallowa County)

235

May 18, 2013

A town's special friendship with its onetime would-be destroyer

Twenty years after he tried to light the surrounding forests on fire, Japanese pilot Nobuo Fujita returned to Brookings as an honored guest and presented the town with his family's Samurai sword.
To play podcast version:
Retired aviator Nobuo Fujita presents his family’s 400-year-old sword to Brookings Mayor Fell Campbell as his wife, Ayako, and son, Yasuyoshi, look on. (Image: William McCash/ Bombs Over Brookings book)

•Brookings area

234

May 12, 2013

The flying Samurai who attacked Oregon

After World War II started, submariner and pilot Nobuo Fujita hatched an idea: Use his tiny, rickety submarine-launched seaplane to attack an enemy 5,000 miles away from the nearest aircraft carrier.
To play podcast version:
Nobuo Fujita in his flight suit with parachute on, during the war. Fujita flew the tiny submarine-launched float plane that dropped four bombs on the state of Oregon -- the only wartime airstrike on continental U.S. territory, ever.

•Brookings area

233

May 5, 2013

Did Oregon miss a chance to catch the Zodiac Killer?

At the scene of a notorious double-murder of young lovers Larry Peyton and Beverly Allan, police paid little attention to Edward W. Edwards and soon eliminated him as a suspect. But if they'd dug a little bit deeper ...
To play podcast version:
Investigators look over Larry Peyton’s car after his body has been removed, on Sunday, Nov. 27, 1960.

•Portland

232

April 28, 2013

Corruption, hypocrisy and the fall of the house of Klux

Klan-backed politicians won a big victory that they interpreted as a mandate for ethnic and religious cleansing, then found out the hard way that they'd misjudged the voters' intentions.
To play podcast version:
This modest display ad ran in the Silverton Appeal the week before a big Klan recruiting meeting there.

•Statewide

231

April 21, 2013

The Rise of the House of Klux: How the KKK took over the state

The secret society of anonymous xenophobic vigilantes spread through Oregon society like a virus in 1922, and by the time elections were held that year, it was ready to seize the reins of power. But it wouldn't keep them for long.
To play podcast version:
A detail from the movie poster for the 1915 racist move 'Birth of a Nation,' which inspired and propelled the resurgence of the Ku Klux Klan in the years just after the Great War.

•Statewide

230

April 14, 2013

Rise of Ku Klux Klan in Oregon: A racist moneymaking scheme

How a sinister, secretive hate-group found acceptance in 1920s Oregon with its message of "100-percent Americanism" and pledges of a moral cleanup. But undertones of masked vigilantism were there from the very start.
To play podcast version:
A flyer for a Klan rally held in December of 1921 in Portland, in an attempt to boost enrollment. By the time this was published, the Klan was well established and already making plans for the next election.

•Medford, Portland

229

April 7, 2013

Massive 1934 Portland dock strike paralyzed the state

Half a century of winning labor disputes left the waterfront employers feeling overconfident. When the Portland longshoremen walked out, they expected it would be a repeat of earlier victories for them ... it wasn't.
To play podcast version:
The Portland munciipal dock -- Terminal 1 -- as it appeared around the time of the waterfront strike.

•Portland

228

March 31, 2013

Union squabbles were part of life on Portland waterfront

Every few years, in the early 1900s, burly and hard-fisted dock workers got into a battle of wills with the autocratic sea-captains who ran the shipping companies. Most of the time, the dock workers got the worst of it.
To play podcast version:
This postcard picture from the 1910s shows a steamer at a dock in Portland being loaded with wheat using conveyer belts. The men tending the belts, loading and unloading 200-plus-pound sacks of wheat, are longshoremen.

•Portland

227

March 24, 2013

Bridge-building scandal aroused fury of 1920s Portland

Crafty county commissioners tried to rig the bidding so their favorite bid, padded to the tune of half a million bucks, would win — and got busted. Three months later, they'd all been thrown out of office.
To play podcast version:
A hand-tinted image from a postcard postmarked 1931 shows the Burnside Bridge drawn open to allow shipping to pass through. This is the bridge the commissioners were trying to use to make some extracurricular cash.

•Portland

226

March 17, 2013

Massive passenger liner won race against fiery death

Calm seas, a hard-working crew and a cool-headed skipper helped the steamship Congress and everyone on board survive a terrifying night after a fire broke out in the cargo hold and spread throughout the ship.
To play podcast version:
the burning steamer S.S. Congress, taken from the deck of the dredge Colonel P.S. Michie, with lifeboats in the water.

•Coos Bay

225

March 10, 2013

Rabies epidemic was like a war in Eastern Oregon

State health officials scoffed at the idea of hydrophobia in Oregon — until people started dying. It was the start of a decade of attacks by mad coyotes, when folks carried shotguns everywhere and nature seemed to be in open revolt.
To play podcast version:
This 1930s-era postcard image shows a coyote howling. Coyotes, rightly or wrongly, were considered the primary disease vector in the rabies outbreak, and great efforts were made to exterminate them.

•Eastern Oregon

224

March 3, 2013

Early anti-prostitution crusade was an embarrassing fizzle

Well-meaning church congregations banded together to offer "wayward girls and fallen women" a place to get away from their profession — but it turned out most of them didn't really want to leave it. At least, not in the middle of the busy season.
To play podcast version:
This cartoon appeared with Herbert Lundy's retelling of the Vice Crusade story in the Portland Morning Oregonian, April 2, 1939.

•Portland

223

Feb. 24,
2013

A deadly maritime concert of timidity and incompetence

The wreck of the steamship Czarina: A cascade of bad decisions by nearly everyone involved resulted in the worst possible outcome: 23 mariners slowly dying in the surf as friends and family members watched from the beach.
To play podcast version:
Doomed crew members cling to the rigging of the steamer Czarina as massive breakers pound the ship. The ship was anchored by accident in the worst, deadliest and most inaccessible part of the line of breakers at the shore.

•Coos Bay spit

222

Feb. 17,
2013

“Camp Castaway” was an inconvenient miracle

Feeling lucky to be alive, the soldiers and sailors of the shipwrecked schooner Captain Lincoln got busy salvaging everything off their stranded ship. But then the Army had a problem: How were they going to retrieve it?
To play podcast version:
A Google Earth image of the beach on which the Captain Lincoln miraculously hit, at high tide, in the middle of a stormy January night, when its desperate skipper turned it landward for an emergency grounding.

•Coos Bay, Horsfall Beach

221

Feb. 9,
2013

First public execution in Portland still surrounded with mystery

Danford Balch got drunk and shotgunned his new son-in-law on the deck of the Stark Street Ferry. Official records tell part of the story. But the real story can only be guessed at — and some of the guesses are sinister indeed.
To play podcast version:
The Stark Street Ferry as it appeared in the 1870s. Twenty years earlier, when Mortimer Stump was murdered on the ferry's deck, it was a smaller craft, powered by mules on a treadmill.

•Portland, East Portland, Albina

220

Feb. 2,
2013

Mill owner's fight with city sparked anti-Japanese riot

It's an event remembered with some shame in Oregon: A group of innocent, terrified men and women found themselves at the mercy of an angry mob, pawns in a power struggle between a mill owner and a group of townspeople.
To play podcast version:
The C.D. Johnson sawmill as seen from the bay in Toledo, shortly after it had been sold to Georgia-Pacific in the 1950s.

•Toledo

219

Jan. 27,
2013

Radical Wobblies found support among Oregon loggers

Industrial Workers of the World union grew strong in the woods just before the First World War broke out — and the U.S. Army had to teach soldiers to cut timber to get the industry moving again.
To play podcast version:
A recruiting poster for the radical Industrial Workers of the World union, from about the time of the 1917 strike action.

•Toledo-Yaquina Bay area, Lincoln County

218

Jan. 20,
2013

In Great War, Allies flew planes made of Oregon spruce

Famous First World War aircraft were made of spruce, and one of the most important sources of the strategic wood was the town of Toledo on the northern Oregon coast.
To play podcast version:
A French SPAD fighter plane parked in a museum. Chances are good this aircraft contains some Oregon spruce.

•Toledo-Yaquina Bay area, Lincoln County

217

Jan. 13,
2013

Gun-toting “Oregon Wildcat” was America’s first “shock jock”

Robert Gordon Duncan was the first radio broadcaster ever to be sent to prison for cursing on the air. For the first six months of 1930, the entire city was riveted to his radio show, wondering who he'd slander next.
To play podcast version:
A cartoon from the Oregonian in 1930, showing a small boy looking dubiously at a radio cabinet whose loudspeaker has been replaced with a rattlesnake. In 1930, many radio sets had loudspeakers like the horns of old-time Victrolas, rising out of the top.

•Portland

216

Jan. 6,
2013

Larry Sullivan's internationally notorious shanghaiing syndicate

The legendary Portland and Astoria “boarding master” sparked several international incidents when he figured out how to shake the ship captains down, foiling their plan to stiff their sailors for the journey's wages. (Part 2 of 2)
To play podcast version:
Lawrence Mikola "Larry" Sullivan at age 43, as he appeared in a portrait from a sketchy boxing promotion he got involved with in Goldfield, Nevada, just after leaving Portland.

•Portland, Astoria
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