As sailors melted away to take advantage of the opportunities in the new Oregon country, their captain sweated bullets; they could not be replaced. But his haste to get back out to sea while he still could set the stage for disaster. (Columbia River Bar, Clatsop County; 1840s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1507d.shark-shipwreck-part1.html)

WPA writer Sara B. Wrenn's 1939 oral history interview with Mrs. H.A. Lewis, granddaughter of the legendary Tabitha Moffat Brown, officially named the Mother of Oregon by the state Legislature in 1987, talking about her life and experiences in Oregon after her arrival in 1847. This is Part 1 of 2 parts; it will be continued next Monday. (For the transcript, see https://www.loc.gov/item/wpalh001985/ )

ON THE MORNING of April 23, 1936, the city of Portland was proudly preparing to launch its new harbor-patrol and first-aid boat, the Jack Luihn.

It was a big moment for the city. Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia of New York City was in town and had been invited to attend. Reporters were on hand, and photographers snapping pictures. And the boat’s inventor was there — it was his moment of triumph. His wife stood ready with a bottle of champagne for the christening.

The boat itself was a remarkably strange-looking thing. It looked almost as much like an airplane as a boat, like something out of a Buck Rogers comic. Nothing like it had ever plied the waters of Portland Harbor ... or, most likely, ever would again.

THE JACK LUIHN was the brainchild of a Portland attorney, aviator, promoter, and inventor named Victor Wiegand Strode.

Strode was a fascinating man. Looking over his life, his career is reminiscent of the early life of Howard Hughes — before he became insane, of course. And he really does give Thomas Slate, the Alsea-born inventor of all-metal steam-powered airships, some serious competition for the title of “The Nicola Tesla of Oregon.” For my money, he’s best described as a real-life Tom Swift....(Portland Harbor, Multnomah County; 1920s, 1930s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/2407d-1209d.victor-strode-aerohydrocraft.html)

In a country divided between slave states and free states just before the Civil War, Oregon was the only example of a third alternative: it was neither. (Statewide; 1850s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1308b-exclusion-law-marred-early-oregon-history.html)

Massive K-series airships were housed in the largest clear-span wood buildings in the world, near Tillamook; one burned in 1992, while the other houses the Tillamook Air Museum today. (Tillamook County; 1940s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1105d-blimp-squadron-first-defense-against-submarines-balloon-bombs.html)

As the Cold War spun up, federal government guarantees sent thousands of Geiger Counter-packing prospectors in Army surplus Jeeps scrambling across Oregon's Outback, hoping to make their fortunes mining “A-metal.” (Central and Eastern Oregon; 1940s, 1950s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1507c.uranium-mining-gold-rush-348.html)

WPA writer Sara B. Wrenn's short but interesting oral history interview with Mrs. John James of Lake Oswego, talking about the difference between life in her childhood versus the then-modern world. Hot and cold running water felt like a miracle the first time she experienced it! (For the transcript, see https://www.loc.gov/item/wpalh001972/ )

Very few people outside Coos County, and probably not that many inside it, know what a big deal Coos Bay is.

It’s the biggest deepwater harbor on the Northwest coast — that is, between San Francisco and Puget Sound. And it’s far safer than Portland or Astoria, tucked as they are behind the “Graveyard of the Pacific” at the mouth of the Columbia.

So, one has to wonder why it had no railroad connection to the outside world until 1916 — more than 30 years after Portland got one.

There have to have been some theories and speculations about that among the residents and business leaders in the towns of Coos Bay (then called Marshfield) and North Bend. Especially after, in the early 1900s, the Southern Pacific railroad suddenly stopped work on a feeder line that it had claimed would link to Coos Bay through Drain.

The subtext here seemed pretty obvious to Marshfield and North Bend business leaders: Business interests in Portland were eager to prevent Coos Bay from coming on line as a direct competitor. And since Portland and Salem were where most of the state’s political power was concentrated, what they wanted they generally got.

That suspicion would grow even stronger after William J. Wilsey started promoting his planned railroad line, circa 1909. But, that one would not turn out to be a bluff; and despite the best efforts of Harriman+Co., it would turn out to be a rare case in which the tiny upstart wins. (Eugene and Coos Bay, Lane and Coos County; 1910s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/22-01.coos-bay-railroad-fight-605.html)

Bride of Christ cult sought perfect righeousness, Christ-like simplicity and total humility. In practice, though, it spawned nothing but misery and madness, and a legal precedent for “honor killings.” (Waldport, Lincoln County; 1900s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1106a-bride-of-christ-holy-rollers-in-corvallis-ending.html)

Preacher Edmund Creffield's Bride of Christ Church broke up families, sanctioned adultery and inspired deadly violence in the early 20th Century. Ironically, its practitioners' goal was perfect holiness and godliness. (Corvallis, Benton County; 1900s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1105e-bride-of-christ-holy-rollers-in-corvallis-beginning.html)