Skip to main content

Portland History and Maritime Links

The following is a collection of websites that may be of interest to anyone who finds this site worth perusing.

Oregon Maritime Museum
Anyone who hasn't visited this wonderful museum should do so very soon. The museum is located in the sternwheeler moored at Waterfront Park. It has an incredible number of top notch exhibits-the sternwheeler tug itself being exhibit number 1. There is a very kid- friendly section with lots of buttons to push, whistles to blow, and hidden treasures. A visit to this museum is highly recommended as a way to show off the unique qualities of Portland to out-of-town visitors, and to people who have lived here their entire lives.

History Press West
The publisher of Portland's Lost Waterfront, and many other fine books of local history.

Historic Photo Archive
This is probably one of the largest independent photo archives in the world. Many hundreds of historic photos of Portland and the Portland waterfront and docks, including hundreds of aerial photographs. What is online is only the tip of the iceberg with this archive, a labor of Thomas Robinson's life-long love and obsession. There are tens of thousands of negatives in the archive, and each week more images are digitized and added to the database.

Home of Kick-Ass Oregon History
A blog and podcast encapsulating-- with humor and irreverence-an enthusiastic look at the past.

Vintage Portland
This site is a source of great pleasure for those who (like myself) enjoy pouring over historic photos large enough to show a great deal of detail. The photos are mostly from deep within the vaults of the Portland City Archives.

Portland Building Ads
This is a great blog for Portland history lovers or anyone else interested in the pealing paint on old buildings.

Cafe Unknown
A superb blog devoted to off beat Portland history.

Oregon Historical Society
The flagship of Oregon history websites.

Wicked Portland
A site interacting with a book of the same name dealing with aspects of Portland's seedy underbelly in by gone years.

Portland History Website
An esoteric collection of ephemera.

Portland Timeline (City Auditor's Office) Another timeline for lovers of timelines. I can't get enough of them myself.

ILWU Local 8

Columbia River Maritime Museum
Located in Astoria, Oregon, this is one of the finest museums on the Pacific coast. This is a large museum with a great number of fine exhibits. It isn't the sort of place that you can breeze through in an hour, so plan to spend an afternoon.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

The Last Word on Shanghai Tunnels - Including 14 reasons why the stories are bogus

I have never been on a tour of Portland's so-called "shanghai tunnels," so I am unable to comment on this attraction, except that I have heard that the tour is quite entertaining. Neither have I been to the Pirates of the Caribbean in Disneyland,  the Magic Carpets of Aladdin, or the Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh, for that matter. The closest I have come to this sort of tourist entertainment was while visiting the ancient city of York I took my family on the "York Ghost Walk." This tour is a bit of innocent fun with some old ghost stories mixed in with distorted history—just for the tourists.  It may be true that I have no experience with the tourist tours of these basements in the northwest regions of downtown, but I do know a bit about them. There is a great deal of documentation in the newspapers, and in old court records. They were built by Chinese back in the days when Chinatown was the center of gang activity related to the different tongs...

The Steel Bridge and the Railroad

I don’t know if anyone has noticed this, but the Steel Bridge on old postcards is often designated as being owned by any one of three different companies. Most often you will see the words “O.W.R. & N. Co. Bridge across the Willamette,” or something to that effect. Other times the card might read, “O. R. R. & N. Co. bridge, Portland, Oregon.” Then, on occasion, a card might say, “Union Pacific bridge, Portland, Oregon.” This was confusing to me at one time, until I read a little something on the history of the Union Pacific lines in the west, then I became even more confused. The lines were in and out of receivership, leased, sold, given different, but very similar names, and called different names by different levels of railroad hierarchy. When the first Steel Bridge was built in 1888 the company behind the construction was the Oregon Railway & Navigation Company (O. R. & N. Co.), an old and powerful entity that had evolved from the Oregon Steam Navigation Company...

The Turks in California Part 1

Where it all took place, the little dot to the left is the first house of Jackson In the early evening of twilight of a dank November in 1869 the activity along the "city's front" consisted of the usual howling drunks and raucous laughter. It was a region that had been San Francisco's no-man's land for decades. Not long before it had worn the name "Sydney Town" in honor of the Irish criminals drawn to California from Australia at the news of gold. Instead of "digging in the harmless earth" themselves, these boys had found it easier, and more profitable, to relieve the heavy burden of gold from those miners who wandered the streets of the city in search of pleasure. "Sydney ducks," was the derisive name the Americans gave them, but they set about beating the Americans at their own game. Democracy was made for such as they. It was simple enough to elect their own sheriffs and judges by stuffing ballot boxes and using threats and vio...