Offbeat Oregon History podcast

ON A GUSTY late-summer evening in 1930, well after dark, a few feet off the ground near the Oregon-Nevada border, 22-year-old Ted Barber was hurtling through the blackness, preparing to die.

Barber was an aviation pioneer and an actual barnstormer — a pilot who paid the bills by making the circuit of county fairs and country dances, selling airplane rides and flying lessons and performing daring tricks like wing-walking and inverted low passes. His “ship” was a Waco 9, a primitive but rugged biplane built in the mid-1920s.

This was going to be his fourth crash-landing of the weekend. And it was looking like it was going to be a bad one. (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/2406d-1103c.ted-barbers-night-flight-115.655.html)

Danford Balch got drunk and shotgunned his new son-in-law on the deck of the Stark Street Ferry. His diary and official records tell part of the story. But the real questions can only be guessed at — and some of the guesses are sinister indeed. (Portland, Multnomah County; 1850s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1302b-balch-murders-stump-on-stark-street-ferry.html)

Calm seas, a hard-working crew and a cool-headed skipper helped the steamship Congress and everyone on board survive a terrifying night after a fire broke out in the cargo hold and spread throughout the ship. (Coos Bay, Coos County; 1910s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1303c-steamer-congress-won-race-against-fiery-death.html)

PORTLAND, MULTNOMAH COUNTY - It was the first news helicopter in the nation, and it gave the Oregon Journal a huge advantage. But then, one day ... (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1801b.sam-jackson-helicopter-crash-journal-478.html)

Going to prison for a year or two might have saved the city marshal's life — it would have given the rivals some time to cool off, and also a sense of justice served (or retribution satisfied, depending on how you look at it). Moreover, he probably would have had to sell his saloon, so that there would have been nothing left to fight over. Instead, he was sent trotting triumphantly back to town with a pardon in his hand, ready to take things up where he’d left off.... (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/24-04a.1107e_os-west-pardons-gunfighter-marshal.html)

Reading between the lines of the story, it’s clear that the governor’s well-intentioned intervention was probably the worst thing that could have happened to Marshal Stroud of Harney City, 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 text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/24-04a.1107e_os-west-pardons-gunfighter-marshal.html)

The Reverend preached the funeral service to an empty church, while the deceased's friends and colleagues fought in the parking lot over who got to ride in the taxicabs. But the hostilities were forgotten when they arrived at a roadhouse. (Tacoma, Washington Territory; 1880s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1603c.circuit-preachers-longshoreman-funeral.html)

When trying to minister to the spiritual needs of a crowd of hard-sinning miners and sailors, it was sometimes necessary to resort to unorthodox tactics — tactics not often seen among men of the cloth in more civilized times. (Old Oregon Territory; 1840s, 1850s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1603b.circuit-preachers-shanghai-flock-382.html)

Eagerly, the Reverend leaped into the waiting bathtub, positioned at the top of the stairs in the chilly foyer of the frontier hotel. And then, to his horror, he realized it was sliding toward the top of the staircase on a sheet of ice ... (Weston, Umatilla County; 1850s, 1860s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1603a.circuit-preachers-wells-wild-ride-381.html)

ON SEPT. 14, 1964, the steamship Al Kuwait was moored at the dock in Kuwait City when something terrible happened: The ship capsized and settled to the harbor floor.

The solution came from a Danish engineer named Karl Kroyer. Kroyer’s plan was to rig a pipe to the ship and blast thousands and thousands of small polystyrene balls — Ping-Pong balls, basically — into the hull of the ship. Eventually, he reasoned, there would be enough balls in the ship to float it to the surface; and he could, by carefully choosing where to inject the balls, bring it back onto an even keel at the same time.

Kroyer was given the green light, and on New Year’s Day he was ready to do the job. He turned on his Ping-Pong pumps and blasted 27 million of the balls — 65 tons in all — into the sunken ship.

It rolled upright and lay there low in the water, ready to be towed away from the water plant to safety. Success! The city was saved!

Kroyer promptly filed patent applications on this ping-pong ball method. But he ran into trouble in the Netherlands. There, his application for a patent was denied. It seemed someone in the Dutch patent office recognized Kroyer’s “new” technique … from a Donald Duck comic book, “The Sunken Yacht,” published in 1949....

(For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/24-03a.carl-barks-the-duck-man.html)