Episodios

  • Dead hero-doctor’s identity stolen by serial swindler

    Dead hero-doctor’s identity stolen by serial swindler
    Jun 30 2025
    When con artist Harry Virtue learned of Dr. Richard Barber's heroic demise, he guessed no one would bother to tell medical authorities in the UK. So he went there -- and, stealing Barber's name, went into practice. (Gardiner, Coos County; 1910s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1810b.1812.fake-doctor-impersonator.html)
    Más Menos
    11 m
  • Real-life femme fatale got her young lover to murder her husband

    Real-life femme fatale got her young lover to murder her husband
    Jun 27 2025
    The newlyweds, Alvin and Gladys, were on a little vacation at the Big Chief Auto Court in Truckee, Calif. — it may have been their honeymoon — when they went out together to the local cinema to see “The Postman Always Rings Twice.” It was September of 1946, so it was the old film-noir version starring Lana Turner. As you’ll surely remember if you’ve seen it (or a more recent remake of it), this is a film in which Turner’s character, Cora Smith, seduces a drifter named Frank and convinces him to murder her husband for her so that the two of them can take over ownership of his restaurant. After the film, Gladys was in a pensive mood as she turned to Alvin, the eager 23-year-old cowboy she’d married in Reno a day or two before. “It’s too bad something like that can’t happen to the doctor,” she remarked to him, innocuously. By “the doctor,” she meant Dr. Willis Broadhurst, a prominent Jordan Valley rancher and chiropractor — her other husband. Or, rather, one of her other husbands. At that particular moment, Gladys, a strikingly pretty and charismatic 40-year-old, was married to three different men, and there were four additional failed marriages in her rear-view mirror. If there was anyone for whom the wedding bells sounded like the alarm clock, it was Gladys. Or, maybe they sounded like funeral bells. Because less than a month later, Alvin actually did it.... (Jordan Valley, Malheur County; 1940s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/2503a.gladys-broadhurst-film-noir-murderess-691.516.html)
    Más Menos
    21 m
  • AWS spotted few enemies, but saved many friends

    AWS spotted few enemies, but saved many friends
    Jun 26 2025
    Although Oregon turned out to be harder for the Japanese navy to reach than folks thought, historian Bill McCash estimates the civilian plane-spotting service likely saved as many as 100 American aviators from dying in plane crashes. (Oregon Coast; 1940s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1705a.aws-eyes-on-the-sky-442.html)
    Más Menos
    10 m
  • Cottage Grove’s revenge for 'Nesmith County' incident was brutal

    Cottage Grove’s revenge for 'Nesmith County' incident was brutal
    Jun 25 2025
    South Lane and north Douglas counties felt their county seats neglected them and treated them as a tax-revenue milch cow. So they proposed seceding and forming a new county, Nesmith County. Eugene city leaders campaigned hard against the plan at the ballot box, and it was defeated. But a year or two later, the embittered south-county town got the opportunity to be revenged... and it was brutal. (Cottage Grove, Lane County; 1910s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1704e.eugene-cottageGrove-feud-over-nesmith-county-441.html)
    Más Menos
    10 m
  • Pro-tip: Model T engines make bad airplane motors

    Pro-tip: Model T engines make bad airplane motors
    Jun 24 2025
    Part of the problem with owning and operating the only flight school in town in the 1920s and 1930s was, every time one of your students slapped together some home-built piece of kit, you’d be expected to help fly it. And 'help fly it' usually translated into 'go first.' (BEND, DESCHUTES COUNTY; EARLY 1930s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1811b.ted-barber-diy-test-pilot-521.html)
    Más Menos
    9 m
  • Portland’s play to beat The Dalles literally cost a mint

    Portland’s play to beat The Dalles literally cost a mint
    Jun 23 2025
    Gasping for hard currency to finance the Civil War, and awash in raw gold from two Eastern Oregon gold rushes, the federal government tried to build a mint in The Dalles in 1863. But the Oregon delegation, dominated by Portland interests, would not stop trying to switch its location to Portland ... finally, the gold rush petered out, and the feds said, 'Never mind!' (The Dalles, Wasco County; 1860s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1810d.the-dalles-mint-that-wasnt-519.html)
    Más Menos
    10 m
  • Finn on KPNW's Wake Up Call: Governor's act of kindness was fatal for frontier city marshal

    Finn on KPNW's Wake Up Call: Governor's act of kindness was fatal for frontier city marshal
    Jun 22 2025
    A recording of an on-air conversation with Bill Lundun and Gerry Snyder of the Wake Up Call on Eugene's KPNW Radio AM 1120. Topic: Reading between the lines of the story, it’s clear that Governor Oswald West’s well-intentioned intervention in pardoning his friend City Marshal Z.H. Stroud was probably the worst thing that could have happened to Stroud, and precipitated the closest thing Oregon history has to Arizona’s famous O.K. Corral gunfight. Which, as I’m sure you’ve gathered, the lawman lost. (For the full story, see https://offbeatoregon.com/24-04a.1107e_os-west-pardons-gunfighter-marshal.html)
    Más Menos
    23 m
  • Lewis and Clark marked their trail with laxatives

    Lewis and Clark marked their trail with laxatives
    Jun 20 2025
    AS LEWIS AND CLARK’S Corps of Discovery made its way across the continent to Oregon, the men (and woman) of the party probably weren’t thinking much about their place in history. So they weren’t taking any particular pains to document their every movement. There were, however, some particular pains they were experiencing, as a result of a relentlessly low-fiber diet: Everyone was constipated, all the time. Luckily, they had something that helped with that — a lot. The Corps of Discovery left on its journey with a trove of 600 giant pills that the men called “thunder-clappers,” which the soldiers and travelers used to jump-start things when they got bound up. And everyone used them pretty regularly. And, strange as it seems, that fact is why we know several of their campsites along the way. The main active ingredient in “thunder-clappers” was a mercury salt, which is a pretty stable compound. Archaeologists simply have to search for dimples in the ground — which is what old latrine pits often end up looking like, hundreds of years later, after Nature has partly filled them in — and take samples of the dirt in them. If it comes up with an off-the-charts reading for mercury, well, that’s a Corps of Discovery pit toilet — and the layout of the rest of the campsite can be extrapolated with considerable precision by consulting the military manuals they used to lay out their camps. (Astoria, Clatsop County; 1800s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/2501d1006d_biliousPills-686.077.html)
    Más Menos
    11 m