All of this she managed to accomplish while also fulfilling all the obligations of an invalid’s wife and the mother of six children.

But Duniway, during her life, did not expect any of those things to be what she was most remembered for. She expected — or, rather, hoped — that after her death her novels would be collected and published, and that future readers would “marvel at the facts therein portrayed as much as the student of today is marveling at the progress of the world since the discoveries of Christopher Columbus or the explorations of Lewis and Clark.”

That, of course, didn’t happen. Instead, most people don’t even realize that she wrote any novels.... (Portland, Multnomah County; 1870s) (For text and pictures, see http://offbeatoregon.com/1806c.abigail-scott-duniway-noveliste-500.html)

... a Union Army outfit nicknamed “Olney's Forty Thieves.” (Columbia Basin, Wasco County; 1864) (For text and pictures, see http://offbeatoregon.com/o1111c-black-sheep-of-union-army-last-oregon-vet.html)

... and although that made for some very unsuccessful publishing ventures, his collection is the heart of the Oregon Historical Society's archives today. (Portland, Multnomah County; 1915-1940) (For text and pictures, see http://offbeatoregon.com/1512b.george-himes-history-hoarder.html)

There was a bordello upstairs, one claims. An opium den in the basement, whispers another. Oh, and see that doorway there, the one that looks like the lid of a coal chute? That’s a secret shanghaiing tunnel to the waterfront. Shh — did you hear that? A soft ghostly step from the spirit of a murdered hooker on the second floor — and the toilet at the end of the hall just flushed itself!

All of this, of course, is straight hokum. Fun hokum, but hokum just the same.

But the most interesting story about the White Eagle is absolutely true, and serious as a heart attack. It attracted nationwide attention to Portland in general and the White Eagle in particular — and not the good kind of attention, either — and possibly, if not probably, involved international espionage. (Portland, Multnomah County; 1906)(For text and pictures, see http://offbeatoregon.com/1806b.white-eagle-anarchists-499.html)

It was the start of a decade of attacks by mad coyotes, when folks carried shotguns everywhere and nature seemed to be in open revolt. (Eastern Oregon; 1916) (For text and pictures, see http://offbeatoregon.com/1303b-rabies-epidemic-eastern-oregon-mad-coyotes.html)

Dunn Hall was an easy decision. Classics professor Frederick Dunn, in the early 1920s, was the boss (or, to use his official title, “exalted cyclops”) of the Eugene cell (“klavern”) of the Ku Klux Klan. Being a leader of a secret terrorist organization was an obvious deal-killer when it came to having a building named after you, especially a dormitory in which African American students are regularly billeted.

Deady Hall was a tougher sell. To date, it has not been stripped of its name. Judge Matthew Deady, the first president of the university's board of regents, was, it is true, an open and enthusiastic advocate of slavery; but that was at a time when slavery was legal, and university leaders were reluctant to penalize Deady’s legacy for his failure to see the moral bankruptcy of something that was, in his day, common.

(Editor's Note: The University of Oregon decided, in mid-2020, to strip Deady's name from the hall. University President Michael Schill said of the decision that the university belongs to all Oregonians, Black and otherwise, and that it is of paramount importance that all Oregonians feel equally respected there.)

Deady was, however, rather an ironic Founding Father for the university to claim. He, more than anyone else, was responsible for it having been founded in the 1870s rather than the 1850s. (Eugene, Lane County; 1876) (For text and pictures, see http://offbeatoregon.com/1805d.matthew-deady-opposed-university.html)

... his spectacular bridges on the Oregon Coast highway are nearly tourist attractions in their own right. (Statewide, 1920s to 1950s) (For text and pictures, see http://www.offbeatoregon.com/o1111b-legendary-bridge-designer-conde-mccullough.html)

... the captain blamed an “uncharted current.” (Offshore; 1921) (For text and pictures, see http://offbeatoregon.com/1512a.alaska-shipwreck-368.html)

... he was just another fresh-faced lawyer, just out of Willamette University’s law school. He’d moved to Portland to open his practice, and now he was sitting at his desk in his brand-new office in Portland, sipping a glass of rye and waiting for his first client to walk in the door.

No one did. There were just too many lawyers in Portland in 1868. Fresh out of law school, with no social connections, Sam just didn’t have a chance.

But finally the door did open, and somebody stepped inside.

It wasn’t a client, though. It was one of the other residents in the boardinghouse he was staying in, a greenhorn from Chicago named Ted Harper. And Harper had a proposition: He wanted Sam to close up his law office and come to Southern Oregon with him. They would spend the summer hunting for a certain ruined cabin with an immense hoard of gold buried inside, deep in the wilderness south of Jacksonville, in a hidden valley boxed in by steep cliffs.

Only problem was, Harper didn’t know exactly where the valley was.... (Siskiyou Mountains, Josephine County; 1868) (For text and pictures, see http://offbeatoregon.com/20-05.sam-simpson-lost-cabin-gold.html)

... it would probably crash the international markets.

They make for fantastic stories, though. And often the gold isn’t the only thing being hidden. Plus, of course, the fact that they might – just might – be real adds a distinctive spice to them.

One of the most interesting and colorful Lost Cabin Gold Mine stories is the one that supposedly took place in the hills south of Jacksonville in 1853. In this case, it’s not a mine that’s been lost – it’s a vault: a small stone-lined crypt stuffed with millions of dollars’ worth of freshly dug gold, and guarded by whatever remains of the skeletons of two long-dead men.... (Siskiyou Mountains, Josephine County; 1853) (For text and pictures, see http://offbeatoregon.com/20-05.sam-simpson-lost-cabin-gold.html)