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Shanghaied in Astoria: A once-perilous port city
Desperate for men, shanghai artists once tried to kidnap the local Methodist minister. He turned out not to be as soft a target as they'd anticipated…
3 months ago
Secretary imposed martial law on rowdy town
Don't be fooled: Fern Hobbs was a secretary in the “Secretary of Defense” sense of the word. A practicing attorney, she was the highest-paid woman in…
3 months, 1 week ago
Legislators shut down Salem with a raging party
The six-week-long drunken party was thrown by the notoriously rascally Jonathan Bourne Jr. to keep the state Legislature from convening, so it couldn…
3 months, 1 week ago
Wolf Creek Tavern was a refuge for Hollywood stars
THERE WERE TIMES, during Hollywood’s golden age, when Clark Gable simply couldn’t be found anywhere. Studio executives would search frantically for t…
3 months, 1 week ago
How Marie Dorion earned title ‘Oregon’s Revenant’ (Part 3 of 3)
Marooned in a frozen winter wasteland after a hostile tribe attacked and killed everyone else, she kept herself and her two children alive through th…
3 months, 1 week ago
Astorian party’s decision to follow river proved fatal (Part 2 of 3)
Charged with blazing a trail to the West Coast, the voyageurs in the party decided to paddle down a strange river, hoping for an easy ride to the sea…
3 months, 1 week ago
Marie Aioe Dorion was a wilderness-survival ninja (Part 1 of 3)
As the Native American bride of a French-Canadian interpreter, she joined the Astorian Party on its overland voyage to Oregon to set up a trading pos…
3 months, 2 weeks ago
Legendary Civil War ship met a sad end in Coos Bay
During its glory days, the Gertrude was the fastest blockade runner in the Confederate fleet. But just 17 years later, it was just another dumpy old …
3 months, 2 weeks ago
Dispute over 'McQuinn Strip' lasted more than a century (Part 2 of 2)
The dispute over the McQuinn Strip was no simple neighborhood kerfuffle. The amount of land in dispute was roughly 80,000 acres — close to 10 percent…
3 months, 2 weeks ago
Dispute over Indians’ land lasted for 101 years (Part 1 of 2)
IF THERE IS an entry in the Guinness Book of World Records for the longest active land dispute, it has to belong to the Confederated Tribes of Warm S…
3 months, 2 weeks ago