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  • Land-fraud swindlers plundered Oregon badly (Part 1 of 2)

    Land-fraud swindlers plundered Oregon badly (Part 1 of 2)
    2026/01/05
    ON THE MORNING of Dec. 7, 1904, Stephen A.D. Puter had just arrived at the office of U.S. Marshal Jack Matthews. He was expecting some friends to come by … and bail him out of jail. Puter had just been convicted of masterminding a plan to swindle the U.S. government out of thousands of acres of prime timberlands. He had not yet been sentenced. Like all convicts, he had the option of either staying in jail until sentencing, or posting bail. In his case, bail was set at $4,000. He figured his friends — or, rather, unindicted co-conspirators — would be by shortly to help him raise the funds. No one came. It was starting to dawn on Puter that no one was going to come. He now realized he was to be sacrificed to appease the gods in Washington D.C. He was to be thrown under the bus, branded a “bad apple” and socially disowned in order to protect the bigger fish involved and enable them to keep the good times rolling. And how much bigger were those bigger fish? Well, several of them were out-of-state millionaires; two of them were members of the U.S. House of Representatives; and one was United States Senator John H. Mitchell. (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/23-01.land-fraud-trials-617.html)
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    9 分
  • 'Most Wanted' desperadoes found a home and respect in Oregon(Part 2 of 2)

    'Most Wanted' desperadoes found a home and respect in Oregon(Part 2 of 2)
    2026/01/02
    LATE IN THE MONTH of March, 1948, in the small coastal town of Gearhart, Pauline Virgin, 12, and her cousin Navarre Smith, 14, were listening to the famous “Gang Busters” radio program on radio station KEX (A.M. 1190). The radio host was telling the story of a wanted criminal named John Harvey Bugg, who back in 1945 had kidnapped a county sheriff, robbed him, and tied him to a telephone pole. Listeners were urged to be on the lookout for a man who walked with a limp, loved horses, and had the word “LOVE” tattooed across the knuckles of his left hand. “Why — that’s Cowboy Jim!” Pauline exclaimed. (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/21-01.cowboy-jim-and-painter-ken-FBI-most-wanted.html)
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    9 分
  • Running from FBI? Hide in a friendly Oregon town!

    Running from FBI? Hide in a friendly Oregon town!
    2026/01/01
    HAPPY NEW YEAR! In the spirit of the American tradition of the season, today we’re going to explore the stories of two Missouri men whose New Year’s Resolutions probably once included “Give up crime” and “Hide from the F.B.I.” This is the sort of thing that used to be very easy to do in Oregon, which is actually the only state (so far as I have been able to learn) to have ever had one of its U.S. Senators serve under an alias which he adopted while running from law enforcement. (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/21-01.cowboy-jim-and-painter-ken-FBI-most-wanted.html)
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    9 分
  • P-town mansion was once home of starvation cult

    P-town mansion was once home of starvation cult
    2025/12/31
    The motto of Kate Ann Williams' cult was “Pray and be Cured,” and adherents went on rigorous 40-day fasts that occasionally killed them. The cult disappeared after its leader, who was Mayor George Williams' wife, starved herself to death. (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1204d-kate-williams-starvation-cult.html)
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    9 分
  • Oregon man’s wife killed his SCOTUS appointment

    Oregon man’s wife killed his SCOTUS appointment
    2025/12/30
    Senate committee went from a solid consensus to confirm George H. Williams, to a firm determination not to, in just one week. The cause? Most believed it was because of the arrogant attitude of Mrs. Williams toward the senators' wives. (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1204c-williams-scotus-confirmation-scotched-by-wife.html)
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    9 分
  • ‘Cape Foulweather Light’ built on the wrong cape

    ‘Cape Foulweather Light’ built on the wrong cape
    2025/12/29
    Today known properly as Yaquina Head Light, the state's tallest lighthouse is a popular tourist attraction, and until recently was the home of the nation's only wheelchair-accessible tidepools. (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1706b.yaquina-head-light-should-have-been-cape-foulweather-light-447.html)
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    9 分
  • Body snatchers' incompetence actually saved them from more serious charges (Part 2 of 2)

    Body snatchers' incompetence actually saved them from more serious charges (Part 2 of 2)
    2025/12/26
    Police figured out who the body snatchers were before they even had time to think about writing a ransom note — so their sentences were much lighter than they would have been if they'd had time to add extortion to the rap. (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/23-03.body-snatchers-resurrected-william-ladd-619.html)
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    12 分
  • Body snatchers plotted to steal dead mayor’s corpse (Part 1 of 2)

    Body snatchers plotted to steal dead mayor’s corpse (Part 1 of 2)
    2025/12/25
    THE NINETEENTH CENTURY was a kind of golden age of body snatching. Digging up the freshly dead to cash the corpse in at the back door of a nearby medical school was — well, not common exactly, but far from unheard-of. So when, around the middle of May 1897, Daniel Magone and Charles Montgomery asked a 20-year-old wood hauler named William Rector to help them steal a corpse out of River View Cemetery, Rector didn’t react the way you or I would. A job was a job, and Rector needed the work, and although it was technically illegal, one couldn’t really get into too much trouble for it … provided, of course, that the corpse being snatched belonged to a poor person. Body snatching as it was practiced back then was an ancillary industry to the medical profession. Medical colleges needed a constant supply of cadavers to dissect in their labs, and there were never enough available through legitimate sources to slake the demand. Well, nature abhors a vacuum, and so does a market; so, an underground industry of body-snatchers, also called “resurrection men,” developed to meet the demand for fresh corpses, by stealing them out of cemeteries in the middle of the night.... (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/23-03.body-snatchers-resurrected-william-ladd-619.html)
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    11 分