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Did L. Ron Hubbard battle Japanese subs off Astoria?
Pulp writer and religious figure L. Ron Hubbard figures prominently in the most spectacular story of action against “Japanese submarines” in Oregon w…
3 weeks, 3 days ago
‘Desperado’ became P-town’s first police chief
James Lappeus came to Portland from the gold fields of California, where he was a gambler, saloonkeeper and general mining-town rowdy. His career as …
3 weeks, 4 days ago
Busting out of the joint was job for a safecracker
Of all the prisoners who tried to escape from Oregon's state prison, the “yeggs” were most successful — if “successful” is the right word. Their sche…
3 weeks, 5 days ago
Rusty derelict turned out to be Liberty Ship lifeboat
What looked like a rotting-away hunk of scrap steel was a rare artifact of Portland's World War II shipbuilding industry — but the discovery was made…
4 weeks, 1 day ago
How Oregon almost lost public access to beaches
After a beachfront landowner discovered a loophole in the law and fenced off “his” beach, other oceanfront property owners were eager to follow suit.…
1 month ago
Childhood tree-planting memories for thousands
For decades after the Tillamook Burn, classes of schoolchildren were bused out to help replant. Today, thousands of Oregonians, on trips to the beach…
1 month ago
Tillamook Burn ‘blew up’ with shocking speed
Quick action by state forester Lynn Cronemiller prevented the devastating forest fire from claiming hundreds of lives when a furnace-stoking wind ble…
1 month ago
Tillamook Burn sprang from loggers’ bad gamble
A hard-pressed crew tried to snake just a few more logs out before quitting for the day, hoping nothing would go wrong in the tinder-dry forest. Unfo…
1 month ago
Bunco Kelley, Coyote of P-town waterfront legend
Is there any truth to the stories of shanghaiings of the cigar-store Indian and of the dozens of dead guys found in the basement of the funeral parlo…
1 month ago
Oregon’s most notorious shanghaier: Bunco Kelley
He was Portland's most notorious bad guy, with his fingers in everything from shanghaiing sailors to smuggling opium. But ironically, when he was fin…
1 month, 1 week ago