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Schemers’ plans to exploit Multnomah Falls failed
Original owners of the falls tried for years to log it, but the steamship and railroad moguls were making a lot of money on excursion trips, so they …
5 months, 1 week ago
Shanghai tunnels mostly a myth...or are they?
In the glory days of Portland shanghaiing, sailors were 'helped back aboard ship' on the city streets; there was no need for a tunnel to sneak them d…
5 months, 2 weeks ago
Tarzan fans are grateful for gold miner’s failure
Had Edgar Rice Burroughs and his brothers been successful with their Snake River gold dredge, Ed likely would never have had the time or inspiration …
5 months, 2 weeks ago
Riverboat party turned out to be shanghaiing trick
One fine day in October of 1891, a teenage boy named Aquilla Ernest Clark left the farm in Scappoose where he’d been working, headed for Portland. He…
5 months, 2 weeks ago
Skipper doubled down on a bad bet ... and lost it all
ONE GRAY OCTOBER day in 1898, three British ship captains were sitting in the parlor of the Seamen’s Rest, a sort of YMCA for sailors located in the …
5 months, 2 weeks ago
Bad recording technique led to FBI investigation
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…
5 months, 2 weeks ago
P-town’s rabbi got in gun fight at President’s hotel
Oct. 1, 1880, was a very big day in Portland. For the first time in the history of the city or the state, a sitting President of the United States ha…
5 months, 3 weeks ago
Shipwrecked sailors had to paddle 200 miles to safety
While 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 …
5 months, 3 weeks ago
City-bus-powered cable car scheme was epic flop (Part 2 of 2)
IF THE IDEA of cable car service to Timberline Lodge strikes you as a not particularly bad one, you’re not alone. Over the years since the Wyler grou…
5 months, 3 weeks ago
Timberline could have been a gaudy skyscraper (Part 1 of 2)
HIGH UP ON the side of Mount Hood, Timberline Lodge has over the years become an Oregon icon. Its rustic, WPA-financed design and construction strike…
5 months, 3 weeks ago