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P-town mansion was once home of starvation cult
The motto of Kate Ann Williams' cult was “Pray and be Cured,” and adherents went on rigorous 40-day fasts that occasionally killed them. The cult dis…
4 months, 2 weeks ago
Oregon man’s wife killed his SCOTUS appointment
Senate committee went from a solid consensus to confirm George H. Williams, to a firm determination not to, in just one week. The cause? Most believe…
4 months, 2 weeks ago
‘Cape Foulweather Light’ built on the wrong cape
Today known properly as Yaquina Head Light, the state's tallest lighthouse is a popular tourist attraction, and until recently was the home of the na…
4 months, 2 weeks ago
Body snatchers' incompetence actually saved them from more serious charges (Part 2 of 2)
Police figured out who the body snatchers were before they even had time to think about writing a ransom note — so their sentences were much lighter …
4 months, 3 weeks ago
Body snatchers plotted to steal dead mayor’s corpse (Part 1 of 2)
THE NINETEENTH CENTURY was a kind of golden age of body snatching. Digging up the freshly dead to cash the corpse in at the back door of a nearby med…
4 months, 3 weeks ago
‘Blue Ruin’ drove Oregon 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 probably be called the t…
4 months, 3 weeks ago
Larry Sullivan's 'second act' career dwarfed his first (Part 2 of 2)
BY THE TIME George Graham Rice met Larry Sullivan at Sullivan and Grant’s “palace” in Goldfield, he was doing a booming business in Nevada as the own…
4 months, 3 weeks ago
Boss shanghaier Sullivan’s mining-stock fraud career (Part 1 of 2)
For anyone interested in the shanghaiing of sailors on the old Portland waterfront, the name “Larry Sullivan” needs no introduction. Smooth, polished…
4 months, 3 weeks ago
Brides were stripped of U.S. citizenship at the altar
Women who'd married German men suddenly learned they'd been legally (and very unconstitutionally) made stateless, and were forced to register as 'ene…
4 months, 4 weeks ago
Oregonians had the jump on California Gold Rush
If you’d been lucky enough to live in Portland in July of 1848, you would have been able to say, literally, that your ship had come in. The ship in q…
4 months, 4 weeks ago