Table of Contents: 2015 articles
These are all the columns published in the eighth year of Offbeat Oregon History. (Click here to jump to most recent year)
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320 |
January 4, 2015 |
Express clerk's silence foiled train robberyThe masked outlaw planned the job out carefully, and thought he was ready for anything. But he met his match in the cool-handed express man, and had to leave almost empty-handed. |
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•1901 |
321 |
January 11, 2015 |
Dynamite used to be a regular part of Oregon lifeJust a few dozen years ago, nearly anyone in Oregon could easily get all the high explosives he or she might want — if not by buying it, then by mixing a few common ingredients together with some old sawdust. |
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•Statewide |
322 |
January 18, 2015 |
How to rob trains with dynamite: Tips from the prosAward-winning criminal mastermind/ motivational speaker Blackie DuQuesne shares a few key insights for aspiring train robbers on how to avoid “n00b mistakes” on a railroad heist. |
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•Statewide |
323 |
January 25, 2015 |
Oregon crooks have always enjoyed their dynamiteExtortionists, jailbreakers, safecrackers, jealous lovers and even truant students have, throughout the early years of Oregon history, found high explosives a powerful aid to their nefarious schemes. |
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•Statewide |
324 |
February 1, 2015 |
When the rebel flag flew over Oregon soilSmithfield rebels' gesture of defiance on the main stagecoach route caused shock and outrage, but nobody was outraged enough to risk being shot over it; so the flag waved there until federal troops arrived and confiscated it. |
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•Franklin (near Elmira) |
325 |
February 8, 2015 |
Cow Creek Canyon robbers weren’t afraid to blow stuff upThe “Baritone Bandit” led a small group of desperados with a large cache of dynamite, and they got away with a good bit of loot. But one of the passengers saw behind the bandit's mask ... |
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•South Douglas County |
326 |
February 15, 2015 |
Bold bandits robbed express train three miles from RoseburgThe job got off to a bad start when the fireman escaped and sprinted for the nearby town. The main suspect in the robbery quickly left town, and a few months later was killed in a holdup in Washington. |
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•Roseburg |
327 |
February 22, 2015 |
Lafe Pence's crazy plan: Move mountains down, fill up lakeHe might have accomplished it, too, but he lost friends when he tried to claim water rights to Bull Run, and when his primary investors went bankrupt, he was forced to give up and leave town. |
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•Portland |
328 |
March 1, 2015 |
Shipwrecked sailors drifted from Oregon to Puget SoundWhile the captain of the Emily G. Reed was sadly reporting the loss of 11 brave mariners, four of the missing were adrift, desperately bailing water out of a damaged and leaky lifeboat. Destination: Puget Sound. |
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•Tillamook Head |
329 |
March 8, 2015 |
Gold-dredge scheme failed — luckily for Tarzan fansHad Edgar Rice Burroughs and his brothers been successful with their Snake River gold dredge, Ed likely would never have had the time or inspiration to start writing “John Carter of Mars,” “At the Earth's Core” and “Tarzan” books. |
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•Snake River |
330 |
March 15, 2015 |
Coast Guard “Sand Pounders” kept Oregon Coast secureThey never did see any action against the Japanese spies and commando teams they expected. But the fact that they were on the job may have had something to do with the fact that none ever tried to come ashore. |
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•Oregon Coast |
331 |
March 22, 2015 |
Civil War plotters hoped to get West Coast to secedeDreamed up by supporters of the old south, the plan envisioned the “Pacific Republic” as a slave state — to be stocked with slaves via a sort of bait-and-switch human-trafficking swindle. |
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•Salem, Sacramento |
332 |
March 29, 2015 |
Legendary “authoress” started with poetry, dime novelsFrances Fuller Victor became the founding mother of all Oregon history, and one of its most important writers of all time. By the time she arrived in the Beaver State, she was already a well-known writer. |
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•Portland |
333 |
April 4, 2015 |
Pioneering historian earned recognition, but little moneyThe “Mother of Oregon History” fell on hard times in the late 1870s. She never quit, but after she took a job writing for Hubert Howe Bancroft, he took credit for the books she wrote. |
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•Portland |
334 |
April 12, 2015 |
French sailors miraculously saved from death on barAs they hung in the riggings of the sailing ship Etoile du Matin waiting for death, they felt their ship start to break apart — but the piece that broke off first was the keel, enabling the ship to float upriver to safety. |
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•Columbia River Bar |
335 |
April 19, 2015 |
Famous “Doolittle Raid” had roots in Pendleton air baseOregon played a vital role in America's answer to Pearl Harbor — the daring daylight airstrike on Tokyo and other Japanese cities that provided a much-needed morale boost during the dark days of 1942. |
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•Pendleton, Japan, China |
336 |
April 26, 2015 |
The Oregonians who flew with the Doolittle raidRobert S. Clever, Everett “Brick” Holstrom, Henry “Hank” Potter and Robert G. Emmens were four Oregon aviators who did the Beaver State proud in what seemed like a suicide mission over enemy territory. |
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•Various |
337 |
May 3, 2015 |
Oregon’s Doolittle raiders made history in startling waysTwo of them had movies made about their wartime exploits — “30 Seconds over Tokyo” and “The Great Escape”; a third, captured and imprisoned in the raid, returned to Japan after the war as a Christian missionary. |
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•Various |
338 |
May 10, 2015 |
Storm-tossed ships shared a double date with destinyThe Mindora and the Merrithew had docked next to each other in San Francisco, arrived within a few days of each other, wrecked within a few hours of each other, and washed up on the beach within a few miles of each other. |
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•Columbia River Bar |
339 |
May 17, 2015 |
Mount Angel Abbey owes grandeur to colorful Swiss monkJovial and gregarious, Adelhelm Odermatt locked his sights on a vision of a hilltop monastery—then deployed himself like a jovial, glad-handing, never-sleeping bombshell to make it happen. And he pulled it off. |
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•Mt. Angel |
340 |
May 24, 2015 |
Oregon’s highest, smallest city once had its jail stolenBecause 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 Canyon City raiders one summer night. |
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•Greenhorn |
341 |
May 31, 2015 |
FBI’s “Most Wanted” gangster was busted in BeavertonThe mild-mannered drywall contractor turned out to be a notorious gangster after an article in the Morning Oregonian published his mugshots; he was wanted for the murder of three family members. |
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•Beaverton |
342 |
June 7, 2015 |
The small-town police chief who was executed for murderAt the pay the city offered, Otto Austin Loel was the only man willing to take the job. He didn't turn out to be much of a bargain ... but it wouldn't be until years later that the town learned how much worse he could have been. |
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•Sandy, Oklahoma City |
343 |
June 14, 2015 |
“Ship of Romance and Death” came to a dramatic endThe Melanope's maritime career started with a witch's curse. But her most dramatic story was the torrid, doomed love affair its skipper carried on with the heiress who bought the ship so she could be with him. |
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•Columbia River Bar |
344 |
June 21, 2015 |
Cursed or not, S.S. Rosecrans was unusually unluckyThe big oil tanker had weathered two major catastrophes in the previous year — a stranding and a colossal fire. But for 33 doomed crew members, the third time would be the charm — or, rather, the hex. |
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•Columbia River Bar |
345 |
June 28, 2015 |
Rosecrans rescue one of Coast Guard’s finest hoursTwo motor lifeboat crews went out on the bar to save three surviving sailors. Both boats went to the bottom of the sea — but not a man was lost on either crew, and all the survivors were rescued. |
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•Columbia River Bar |
346 |
July 5, 2015 |
Sudden tempest caught steamship at worst possible timeNot since before the Civil War had so many mariners drowned in a shipwreck on the bar; as hurricane-driven breakers tore the big ship to pieces, all the would-be rescuers could do was watch in horror. |
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•Columbia River Bar |
347 |
July 12, 2015 |
Blundering robber turned out to be Joaquin Miller’s sonYoung Henry Miller, rejected by his illustrious father, turned to a life of crime, but he turned out not to be very good at it. For his part, Joaquin took to claiming Harry was not really his son. |
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•Portland, Coos Bay, California |
348 |
July 19, 2015 |
Oregon’s 20th-century “gold rush”: The quest for uraniumAs the Cold War spun up, federal government guarantees sent thousands of Geiger Counter-packing prospectors in Army surplus Jeeps scrambling across Oregon's Outback, hoping to make their fortunes mining “A-metal.” |
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•Southeastern Oregon |
349 |
July 26, 2015 |
Schooner doomed by skipper’s fear of skipping sailorsAs sailors melted away into the new Oregon country, their captain sweated bullets; they could not be replaced. But his haste to get back out to sea while he still could set the stage for disaster. |
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•Fort Vancouver, Astoria |
350 |
August 2, 2015 |
Shark shipwreck: Navy’s loss was Cannon Beach's gainThe captain's desperate haste to get out to sea, combined with a terrible decision to cross the bar on the ebb, resulted in disaster — and the ship's stranded armaments resulted in a name for the town of Cannon Beach. |
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•Columbia River Bar |
351 |
August 9, 2015 |
Six picnickers were only victims of balloon bombsLunching in the woods during World War II, Elyse Mitchell and four kids from church were killed in the blast. But, hoping to deny the Japanese knowledge of their “victory,” the newspapers kept it quiet. |
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•Bly (Lake County) |
352 |
August 16, 2015 |
The ones that got away: Almost-shipwrecks on the barWhen a sailing ship found itself in trouble in the legendary “graveyard of ships,” there was nothing left to do but count the bodies. But every now and then, a vessel would slip out of the icy grip of the bar to sail on. |
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•Columbia River Bar |
353 |
August 23, 2015 |
The Unwritten Law: A license to kill (but just for men)Around the turn of the last century, if a murderer could convince a jury that his victim had been a “home-wrecker,” he could expect to be not only acquitted, but lionized as a brave and noble domestic hero. |
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•Statewide |
354 |
August 30, 2015 |
Man hailed as a hero for murdering sister’s ex-loverUnwritten Law Files, Episode 1: Orlando Murray's trial had something for everyone: Sex, revenge, vigilantes, a Fallen Woman, drunkenness, hysteria, the asylum, and even fist-fighting lawyers. |
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•Hubbard, Portland |
355 |
September 6, 2015 |
Private manhunt ended with jury-approved murderJohn Bowlsby stalked his wife's paramour from North Bend to Portland, a heavy .44 revolver in his pocket. He caught up with him on a steamboat in Astoria. |
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•North Bend, Astoria |
356 |
September 13, 2015 |
Cop's murder turned Portland against Unwritten LawWhat started out looking like a clean-cut morality play, with a hero, a villain, an innocent victim and a bereaved widow, quickly turned into a tale of remarkable sordidness as the truth slowly emerged. |
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•Portland |
357 |
September 20, 2015 |
Clean-cut case turned out to be sordid and complex“Good guy”: A petty swindler. “Wronged woman”: A prostitute and bigamist. “Innocent victim”: A serial philanderer. By the time the “bad guy” was caught, Portland just wanted to forget the whole thing. |
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•Portland |
358 |
September 27, 2015 |
Unwritten Law wasn’t always a disastrous moral failureA Linn County case with a strong element of self-defense, and a Malheur County child-abuse travesty that ended with a shotgun blast, were hailed as Unwritten Law triumphs in the newspapers — sort of. |
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•Brownsville; rural Malheur County |
359 |
October 4, 2015 |
Murderer shocked when Unwritten Law fails himR. Thomas Dickerson, after gunning down the chief witness in his wife's suit for divorce, clearly expected the jury to buy his claim that the man was a “home-wrecker” and deserved what he got. It didn't. |
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•Portland |
360 |
October 11, 2015 |
A tale of two heroes of two different Civil WarsThe farmer was a former Union general; the pastor, an ex-Rebel soldier who once faced his forces on a battlefield. But in Corvallis, they traded enmity for friendship, and blue-vs.-gray for Beavers-vs.-Ducks. |
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•Corvallis |
361 |
October 18, 2015 |
Daring rescue saved 49, made skipper toast of the coastDead in the water and adrift in a gale, passengers and crew of the steam schooner Washington thought they were goners. But then out of the mist and spray came Buck Bailey's tugboat ... |
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•Astoria, Columbia River Bar |
362 |
October 25, 2015 |
Tillamook Lighthouse ghost greeted keeper on first nightSomewhere in the inky blackness of his little room, miles away from shore, James Gibbs awoke to hear stealthy footsteps, getting closer and closer. And then something brushed his throat ... |
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•Tillamook Rock |
363 |
November 1, 2015 |
To get help building lighthouse, bosses had to be sneakyLocals familiar with Tillamook Rock would have nothing to do with the project, so the government had to hire suckers from distant cities to fill crews; rumor has it some were even supplied by shanghaiers. |
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•Tillamook Rock |
364 |
November 8, 2015 |
Keeping lighthouse running was hard, and expensiveTillamook Rock gets the worst weather in the state — and waves that sometimes break over the top of the lighthouse. When they do, they sometimes carry with them boulders torn off the basalt bluff below. |
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•Tillamook Rock |
365 |
November 15, 2015 |
Monmouth’s 150-year tradition of Prohibition in OregonBy the 1990s, support for keeping Monmouth's ban on booze wasn't about morality; it was about the cachet that came with being the only “dry” town west of the Mississippi. But that wasn't enough. |
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•Monmouth |
366 |
November 22, 2015 |
The all-night municipal gunfight in the town of IoneHoled up on a nearby hillside clutching a stolen shotgun, local drunken rowdy Charlie Earhart held the whole town at bay until dawn, when he finally gave himself up; surprisingly, no one was killed. |
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•Ione |
367 |
November 29, 2015 |
Charity Lamb, Oregon’s most misunderstood ax-murderessAbusive husband Nathaniel Lamb probably didn't really plan to kill his wife, but when he aimed his rifle at her that morning, he clearly wanted her to think he did. That night, he learned how successful he'd been. |
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•Clackamas County |
368 |
December 6, 2015 |
Incompetence and a labor strike led to deadly shipwreckPassengers on the speeding liner said an incompetent crew and disappearing ship's officers contributed to a shocking death toll after the Alaska crashed in the fog; the captain blamed an “uncharted current.” |
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•Portland |
369 |
December 13, 2015 |
Collection of “history hoarder” now a priceless treasurePrinter George Himes saw the historical value of the everyday things around him, and although that made for some very unsuccessful publishing ventures, his collection is the heart of the Oregon Historical Society's archives today. |
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•Portland |
370 |
December 20, 2015 |
Oregon’s own would-be fascist dictator: Charles MartinDuring the First World War, Martin was the central figure in one of the most shameful acts in U.S. history: the deliberate, systematic breaking of the spirits of black combat veterans to put them back “in their place.” |
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•Portland |
371 |
December 27, 2015 |
Gov. Martin tried to run Oregon like an Army baseThe retired general campaigned as a New Deal Democrat, but dropped the mask immediately; seeing every hint of opposition as an existential threat to democracy, he reacted to criticism like a junta dictator. |
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•Portland, Salem |