... it turned out his cash came from furtive excursions northward to rob stagecoaches in Oregon and northern California. (Siskiyou Pass, Jackson County; 1870s, 1880s) (For text and pictures, see http://offbeatoregon.com/1401d.black-bart-gentleman-stage-robber-poet.html)

... and washed up on the beach within a few miles of each other. (Columbia River Bar, Clatsop County; 1850s) (For text and pictures, see http://offbeatoregon.com/1505b.mindora-merrithew-double-shipwreck-338.html)

His career as a cop was dogged by rumors he'd offered to spring a murderer for a $1,000 bribe. (Portland, Multnomah County; 1850s, 1860s, 1870s) (For text and pictures, see http://offbeatoregon.com/1207a-james-lappeus-crooked-gambler-police-chief-in-portland.html)

... a fact that was Exhibit A in Governor Oswald West’s plan to save the beaches. (Arch Cape, Clatsop County; 1910s) (For text and pictures, see http://offbeatoregon.com/H1011e-tiny-scary-hug-point-road-likely-saved-oregon-public-beaches.html)

Each Tuesday we have a reading from a particularly interesting historical item. Sometimes it's a historical tidbit that wasn't quite beefy enough to make a full column out of; other times, an especially interesting old newspaper article; frequently it's a short story from one of the frontier literary magazines that thrived in Oregon at the end of the 19th century.

Today it's Lischen M. Miller’s The Haunted Light at Newport-by-the-Sea. This is a short story, and one of the most famous short stories in Oregon history. Like, this story is to Oregon what “An Occurrence at the Owl Creek Bridge” by Ambrose Bierce is to the Civil War. It was first published in the August 1899 issue of Pacific Monthly magazine, one of the precursor titles later merged into Sunset; at the time of its publication, Mrs. Miller was actually the editor of Pacific Monthly. Her husband, George Miller, was a brother of Cincinnatus Miller, a.k.a. Joaquin Miller.

We talked about this story, and its unusual impact on Newport history, on yesterday's podcast episode. (For text and pictures, see http://www.offbeatoregon.com/s1212w-lischen-miller-haunted-light.html)

... did she merely write down a story that locals whispered to each other on stormy nights? (Newport, Lincoln County; 1890s) (For text and pictures, see http://offbeatoregon.com/1709a.muriel-trevenard-evan-macclure-yaquina-bay-lighthouse-ghosts-459.html)

... Portland led the nation in baby deaths as a result. (Portland, Multnomah County; 1900s) (For text and pictures, see http://offbeatoregon.com/1208b-bad-milk-was-killing-babies-in-portland.html)

... today it’s a popular place for stormwatchers. (Depoe Bay, Lincoln County) (For text and pictures, see http://offbeatoregon.com/H1012c_depoe-bay-worlds-smallest-harbor.html)

... built when roadbuilding was as much an art as a science. (Corbett, Multnomah County; 1910s) (For text and pictures, see http://offbeatoregon.com/H1012b-crown-point-vista-house-marble-rest-area.html)

Each Tuesday we have a reading from a particularly interesting historical item. Sometimes it's a historical tidbit that wasn't quite beefy enough to make a full column out of; other times, an especially interesting old newspaper article; frequently it's a short story from one of the frontier literary magazines that thrived in Oregon at the end of the 19th century.

Today it's Today it's an interview from the WPA Writers's Project, the Oregon History and Folklore project. In it, Walker Winslow interviews Miss Nettie Spencer, a seventy-something Portland woman (she absoLUTEly deCLINED to tell him her birth date), about rural life and frontier 'hard-shell Baptist' church practices in the 1870s. The interview happened on Dec. 14, 1938. You can find more about it, and a transcript, at https://www.loc.gov/item/wpalh001960/