Portland's Lost Waterfront

Starting in the mid 1820s it had been Hudson’s Bay Company  (HBC) policy to create “fur deserts” in areas they didn’t want American trappers to venture. Since the lower Columbia River area was one of those “deserts” any poor critter with a pelt was hunted to near or total extinction. By the 1840s the HBC in Fort Vancouver, under the leadership of Dr. John McLoughlin, had gone into the provisioning business supplying outposts as far flung as the Russians in Alaska to the missionaries in Hawaii with articles grown on its farms. Dr. McLoughlin had a perfect solution for the transition from fur trapping to farming. Some miles south of the Willamette falls there was an area of meadowland the natives kept free from brush by seasonal burning. This was to make it easier to hunt game. By this time the native population had sadly declined, leaving this land ready to be turned into wheat fields.   Lt. George F. Emmons Dr. McLoughlin used HBC resources to set up a group ...

Wreck of the USS Peacock at the Columbia River bar, Wikimedia Commons If you take away the electronics and the air travel, this blue planet is huge. It took Europeans a long time to make it across the wide oceans. The Portuguese wanderer Fernão Mendes Pinto made it to Japan forty years before Columbus discovered the "New World." But it took almost another 300 years before the first Europeans made it up to the Pacific Northwest. Spanish explorers with exotic names began poking around the area in the 1770s, even establishing a base at Nootka Sound (off of what is now Vancouver Island) in 1780. Russians had been nosing around the upper regions since the 1740s, looking for furs. During all this time no one had noticed that a gigantic river was pouring down across a large swath of the North American continent and into the Pacific Ocean. There were a few minor references hinting at such a thing, but nothing definite. In the spring of 1792 when Captain George Vancouver sailed...

Here is a brief reminder that I will be giving a talk tomorrow at the Belmont branch of the Multnomah County Library. Salty Dogs and Shanghai Tunnels Saturday, April 13, 2013  3:15 pm Belmont Library, Meeting Room  The library is at 1038 SE César E. Chávez Boulevard, so it really isn't on Belmont--never has been. Maybe they should chang e the name to César E. Chávez library.

San Francisco was the sort of place that tolerated iniquity up to the point in which that iniquity threatened to take control, then—to use a phrase from the Rogue's Lexicon—it was curtains. Back in the gold rush days the city had been over run by Irish criminals from Australia. This group of scoundrels were drawn by the promise of gold, but found digging in the bowels of the earth too hard. It was easier, and more profitable to rob the miners after they had done the work. These criminals were called "Sydney Ducks" and the area close to the waterfront was "Sydney Town." The Irish Aussies got busy with American Democracy and began threatening voters and stuffing ballot boxes until many of the positions of authority in the city were controlled by them. What followed was the business men and former members of civil society formed the "Committee of Vigilance." The members of this committee invested themselves with the power of life or death over the perp...

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...

I enjoy hanging out with J.D. Chandler for a number of reasons, but mainly because he knows more about Portland history than anyone else I know, and he does not hesitate to correct me if my assumptions about some historical event are unfounded. I especially enjoy a pleasant walk with J.D. in Lone Fir looking for the final resting place of some denizen from Portland's sordid past. We met through our association with History Press, so I have been anxiously waiting for the day his book, "Murder and Mayhem in Portland, Oregon" goes to press. That day is here, and even though I haven't yet gotten the book into my hands, I can point others that direction with a hearty recommendation—knowing intuitively that it is sure to become a Portland classic. J.D. Chandler, "Murder and Mayhem in Portland, Oregon" The book can be seen and purchased here, at History Press:  https://historypress.net/catalogue/bookstore/books/Murder-&-Mayhem-in-Portland,-Oregon/9...

I must remind anyone who is interested that I will be speaking tonight at the Capital Hill branch of the Multnomah County Library, 7 pm, in the meeting room. I was a little worried last week when I did the first of this series of talks. "Why would anyone bother to come hear me?" I wondered. Then the little room filled up with about 30, very nice, people; and it was enjoyable. I only got through a portion of my prepared material, but I think I got a few ideas across. Principal anchorage points, from a 1919 Pacific Marine Review Someone labeled these talks "Salty Dogs and Shanghai Tunnels," and maybe that was a good idea, judging by the turnout for the first one. I don't feel that I can talk about shanghaiing without laying some ground work about the port itself. In my mind, the biggest "porky" (fib) told about the waterfront is that it was some magical "head of navigation" destined to become a leading port because of its serendipito...