2018
columns:
Welcome! This is the browsing page for articles published in 2018. You can read the brief description of each and decide if you want to continue ...
— 1947, LAKE COUNTY — COLUMN N° 477 — JANUARY 7, 2018 — State government was “decapitated” by 1947 plane crashOregon lost its governor, secretary of state, and Senate president when their Beechcraft Bonanza slammed into the side of a ridge southwest of Lakeview.
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— 1947, MULTNOMAH COUNTY — COLUMN N° 478 — JANUARY 14, 2018 — Helicopter crash had huge impact on Portland journalismIt was the first news helicopter in the nation, and it gave the Oregon Journal a huge advantage. But then, one day ...
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— THE 1840s, STATE-WIDE — COLUMN N° 479 — JANUARY 21, 2018 — Davy Crockett in Oregon territory? Only in legendIn the tall tales of 1840s almanacs, the “King of the Wild Frontier” had a lively interest in the Beaver State. But he did get a few of his facts wrong ...
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— 1884, MARION COUNTY — COLUMN N° 480 — JANUARY 28, 2018 — Was Joe Drake a murderer, or an innocent patsy?It's nearly certain that Drake was guilty only of extreme naivete — and his landlord, after murdering a neighbor, knew he could pin the crime on him because Drake was black.
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— 1962, MULTNOMAH COUNTY — COLUMN N° 481 — FEBRUARY 4, 2018 — Giant DC-8 airliner landed at country airport by mistakeTroutdale Airfield is just 10 miles from Portland International — and built to serve Cessnas, not Boeings. But one dark night in 1962, a jumbo-jet pilot got confused....
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—1942, TILLAMOOK COUNTY — COLUMN N° 482 — FEBRUARY 11, 2018 — Tillamook Guerillas were ready to repel invadersWhen the Oregon National Guard was called up, Oregonians felt vulnerable to Japanese invasion. So they loaded their rifles and possed up, ready to give 'em hell!
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— 1887, MULTNOMAH COUNTY — COLUMN N° 483 — FEBRUARY 18, 2018 — Chinese man’s death may have prevented a “tong war”It was obvious to nearly everyone that Chee Gong was innocent. But one of his tong brothers had murdered Lee Yik and disappeared, and blood had to answer for blood.
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— SOUTH COAST — COLUMN N° 484 — FEBRUARY 25, 2018 — Was legendary gold city of Quivira on the Oregon Coast?Native Americans told Coronado there was a fabulous just to the north. All he found were Indian villages. But, was there a real city behind this vague legend?
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— JOSEPHINE COUNTY — COLUMN N° 485 — MARCH 4, 2018 — Murderer faked catatonic state for almost two yearsCharles Fiester lay there on his cot, eyes open, staring at nothing, for 515 days ... knowing that when his ruse was discovered, he'd be hanged.
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— 1885, LINN COUNTY — COLUMN N° 486 — MARCH 11, 2018 — Slain man turned out to have been a creepy stalkerA startup newspaper in Albany was determined to see Mattie Allison hanged, one way or another.But when her court case got started, the real story came out ...
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— MULTNOMAH COUNTY — COLUMN N° 487 — MARCH 18, 2018 — Free-love anarchist newspaper shut down for “smut”Portlanders tolerated three years of calls for revolution, but when The Firebrand started saying mean things about marriage, the gloves were off.
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— MULTNOMAH COUNTY — COLUMN N° 488 — MARCH 25, 2018 — Mayor Baker's theatre defined Portland cultureFrom 1901 until the First World War, Mayor George Baker's theater was the great shaper and driver of Portland's unique overgrown-small-town community.
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— 1898, DESCHUTES & LANE COUNTIES — COLUMN N° 489 — APRIL 1, 2018 — Murderers wandered valley, desperate for an alibiThey'd left Condon with a wealthy rancher and murdered him on the way. Only then did they realize how bad it would look to show up at their destination without him ...
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— COLUMBIA RIVER BAR — COLUMN N° 490 — APRIL 8, 2018 — Deadly shipwreck was luckiest break of injured sailor’s lifeTaken to Ocean Park after being nearly killed in a shipwreck, William Begg was nursed back to health by Maude Taylor – who turned out to be the love of his life.
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— 1902, MULTNOMAH COUNTY — COLUMN N° 491 — APRIL 15, 2018 — Murderers picked the wrong landlady to steal fromThe cops wouldn't return her call, and they would be gone by morning. So Mrs. Whitlock picked up the phone – at 10:15 at night! – and woke up the District Attorney.
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— 1904, COLUMBIA RIVER BAR — COLUMN N° 492 — APRIL 22, 2018 — Schooner sailed through a hurricane, full of waterOff Yaquina Bay, the lumber schooner Frank W. Howe suddenly filled with water. Luckily, the cargo of railroad ties kept her afloat – for a week-long fight for life.
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—1902, MULTNOMAH COUNTY — COLUMN N° 493 — APRIL 29, 2018 — “Unwritten Law” didn’t cover murder of in-lawsAlfred Belding targeted his wife's family with murderous rampage, shot at his young son, and tried to claim “temporary insanity.” It didn't work.
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— 1880s, STATEWIDE — COLUMN N° 494 — MAY 6, 2018 — Deadwood Dick's Oregon Adventures; or, Pulpy HokumWhite-hat con man Deadwood Dick was the hero of dozens of dime novels in the late 1800s. But his New York author didn't really know much about the West.
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— HAINES, HARNEY COUNTY; 1902 — COLUMN N° 495 — MAY 13, 2018 — A frontier Romeo and Juliet story, with a hypno-twistMurderer Pleasant Armstrong said he had no idea what came over him. But a strange woman claimed, in court, that he was the victim of a family of murdering hypnotists.
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— MULTNOMAH COUNTY — COLUMN N° 496 — MAY 20, 2018 — Her traitorous crime: Not lending government moneyAll she wanted to do was not finance killing. But in the war-crazed atmosphere of Portland during World War 1, pacifism was high treason.
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— LANE COUNTY — COLUMN N° 497 — MAY 27, 2018 — U. of O. founding father Deady once its No. 1 opponentOregon's official state university got off to a rocky start, in part because in 1859 Judge Matthew Deady thought it was a bad idea to have one ...
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— GRANT COUNTY — COLUMN N° 498 — JUNE 3, 2018 — Berry Way hanging: Perry Mason meets Paint Your WagonThe miners believed Way had murdered a man. So they kidnapped the sheriff, then empaneled their own DIY court so they could hang him legal-like.
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— MULTNOMAH COUNTY — COLUMN N° 499 — JUNE 10, 2018 — White Eagle Saloon: America’s ‘worst nest of anarchists’The rumor was that a cell of Polish radicals based in the White Eagle planned to assassinate President Roosevelt ... luckily, one of the Oregonian's reporters spoke Polish.
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— MULTNOMAH COUNTY — COLUMN N° 500 — JUNE 17, 2018 — Abigail Scott Duniway considered herself a novelistShe's remembered today as a journalist, a suffragist, and an intellectual powerhouse ... but not for her novels. Which might have surprised her.
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— STATEWIDE — COLUMN N° 501— JUNE 24, 2018 — Oregon was JFK's make-or-break state in the 1960 primaryA defeat in the Oregon primary, for candidate John F. Kennedy, would have sent the message that his Catholic faith was a deal-killer; a win would signify that it was not.
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— STATEWIDE — COLUMN N° 502 — JULY 1, 2018 — Oregonians called BS on Cali papers' UFO storiesA handful of California newspapers started a UFO scare in 1896 with a series of stories of sightings. But were they making it all up? (TL;DR: Yes, they were.)
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— UMATILLA COUNTY — COLUMN N°503— JULY 8, 2018 — Flying Saucer stories got their start in PendletonWhile looking for a crashed plane, aviator Kenneth Arnold saw a squadron of strange shining objects ... “nine saucer-like air craft flying in formation.”
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— YAMHILL COUNTY — COLUMN N°504— JULY 15, 2018 — McMinnville UFO photos still hotly debated todayWas the flying saucer photographed over the Trent farm near McMinnville real, or a clever hoax? Either way makes for a great story — and food for thought.
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— TILLAMOOK COUNTY — COLUMN N°505— JULY 22, 2018 — “Beeswax Wreck” mystery has been solvedFor centuries, chunks of it have washed up on the beach. And scholars are now 99 percent sure that it's coming from a Spanish galleon that disappeared in 1693.
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— CLATSOP COUNTY — COLUMN N°506— JULY 29, 2018 — 14-year-old girl ended family feud ... with a shotgunThe Frishkorn family lived with two boarders, who paid the rent in exchange for home-cooked meals. Then they found out the boarders expected something else, too ...
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— LAKE COUNTY — COLUMN N°507— AUGUST 5, 2018 — The great Christmas Valley land-sales hustleTalking fast and dreaming big, M. Penn Phillips blew into the little desert town like a tornado ... and northern Lake County would never be the same.
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— JOSEPHINE COUNTY — COLUMN N°508— AUGUST 12, 2018 — “Temporary insanity” plea didn't work for murderessWild with grief over the death of one daughter, and convinced he had seduced another, Caroline Briggs attacked schoolteacher in front of his class ...
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— CLATSOP COUNTY — COLUMN N°509— AUGUST 19, 2018 — Heroism didn't save rumrunner-rescuers from prison termsAfter the whiskey-laden schooner Pescawah responded to an S.O.S. from a sinking steam schooner, the Coast Guard pounced, arresting the crew ...
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— MULTNOMAH COUNTY — COLUMN N°510— AUGUST 26, 2018 — Little-known activist stopped plan for forced sterilizationsLegendary physician and eugenics promoter Dr. Bethenia Owens-Adair was an unstoppable force ... until she encountered the immovable object that was Lora C. Little.
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— MULTNOMAH COUNTY — COLUMN N°511— SEPTEMBER 2, 2018 — First really portable chainsaw was invented in OregonJoe Wolf invented it for loggers, but they wanted nothing to do with his electric saw. Luckily for Joe, the construction and shipbuilding industry loved it.
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— MULTNOMAH COUNTY — COLUMN N°512— SEPTEMBER 9, 2018 — Bugs in a stump inspired invention of modern chainsawLogger Joe Cox, watching "timber worms" chew through a log, wondered, "How do they do that?" So he took some home, figured it out, and invented chisel-chain.
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— LINCOLN COUNTY — COLUMN N°513— SEPTEMBER 16, 2018 — Bootleggers' bad luck was "whiskey galore" for localsIn Whale Cove, Canadian rumrunners lost their engine at the worst possible time and ended up beached. So they buried the booze, burned the boat, and fled ....
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— LINCOLN COUNTY — COLUMN N°514— SEPTEMBER 23, 2018 — Bootleggers’ buddies’ midnight-jailbreak a failCanadian gangsters-of-grog tried to bust three colleagues out of jail; it probably would have worked if they hadn't tried to take the confiscated booze too.
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— MULTNOMAH COUNTY — COLUMN N°515— SEPTEMBER 30, 2018 — Oregon is only state where jury need not be unanimousAt Silverman's 1931 trial, 11 jurors wanted him to hang, but couldn't convince the lone holdout to change his vote. So voters changed the law to make convictions easier.
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— LINN COUNTY — COLUMN N°516— OCTOBER 7, 2018 — Linn County had a bloody holiday season in 1895First deranged housewife Emma Hannah shot down a suspiciously sexy neighbor; a month later, Lloyd Montgomery, 18, had a tantrum and murdered his parents.
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— COOS COUNTY — COLUMN N°517— OCTOBER 14, 2018 — Dead Oregon doc’s identity stolen by serial swindlerWhen con artist Harry Virtue learned of Dr. Richard Barber's heroic demise, he guessed no one would bother to tell medical authorities back home in the UK. So ...
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— TILLAMOOK COUNTY — COLUMN N°518— OCTOBER 21, 2018 — Stubborn citizen got nation’s first bottle bill passedLitter enraged outdoor enthusiast Richard Chambers, so he launched a campaign to pass a deposit bill. Then Gov. Tom McCall leaped aboard ....
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— WASCO COUNTY — COLUMN N°519— OCTOBER 28, 2018 — Portland’s play to beat The Dalles literally cost a mintThe Oregon delegation would not stop trying to switch the mint's location to Portland. Finally the gold rush petered out, and the feds said, “Never mind!”
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— DESCHUTES COUNTY — COLUMN N°520— NOVEMBER 4, 2018 — Is Central Oregon’s lost crystal cave just a legend?Is there a lost cave somewhere near Bend, lined with millions of dollars' worth of quartz crystals? If so, maybe it would be better if we never found it ....
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— DESCHUTES COUNTY — COLUMN N°521 — NOVEMBER 11, 2018 — Pro-tip: Model T engines make lousy airplane motorsPart of the problem with owning and operating the only flight school in town was, every time one of your students built some DIY plane, you’d be expected to help fly it.
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— WASCO COUNTY — COLUMN N°522 — NOVEMBER 19, 2018 — Range-wars veteran put Oregon on map as sheep countryTired of battle, sheep baron Jack Edwards started looking for a more peaceable place to run his operation. He found it in Hay Creek Ranch, near Prineville.
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— MULTNOMAH COUNTY — COLUMN N°523 — NOVEMBER 25, 2018 — Dynamite killing a sordid love triangle gone badSomeone killed Oliver Kermit Smith with a massive bomb ... and police soon figured out who. But was it really Smith's wife who put the killer up to the job?
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— KLAMATH COUNTY — COLUMN N°524 — DECEMBER 2, 2018 — County’s squabble over courthouses wasted $3.1 millionIf Klamath County had confiscated $2,800 from every household in the county and set it on fire, the result would have been pretty much the same.
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— WASHINGTON COUNTY — COLUMN N°525 — DECEMBER 9, 2018 — Dry town’s sting on drugstore’s secret saloon didn’t go wellForest Grove druggist responded to city ban on recreational liquor by opening a medical-alcohol dispensary — with a blind pig in the back room.
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— WARM SPRINGS RES. — COLUMN N°526 — DECEMBER 16, 2018 — Oregon’s own patent-medicine sensation — sort ofIn the mid-1870s, a fast-talking East Coast hustler teamed up with a famous half-Native Indian scout to cash in on his fame with a line of dodgy faux-Indian patent remedies.
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— MULTNOMAH COUNTY — COLUMN N°527 — DECEMBER 23, 2018 — Summer shipwreck adventure couldn’t happen todayThey pedaled their bicycles from Portland to Astoria, snuck aboard a wrecked ocean liner, and spent the night marooned on board, with breakers crashing all around them.
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— JOSEPHINE COUNTY — COLUMN N°528 — DECEMBER 30, 2018 — “Bear Grylls of the 1910s” had something to proveJoe Knowles' wilderness-survival demonstration had made him famous. But he'd been dogged by rumors that he cheated. He'd come to Oregon to prove the rumors wrong.
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