Gen. John C. Fremont's troops in SE Oregon were attacked by a band of roving Modoc Indians from California. They responded by massacring the nearest tribe of Klamath, women and children, everything, in retaliation.

Then we named a national forest, a major street and a bridge after him.

It's a fact: the first hipster was successfully domesticated in 1887. Nathanial "Nasty Nate" Hazkell scandalized early Stumptown residents with his coaster-brake-only buckboard wagon and backwards stovepipe hat.

(He invented the food cart when he sold his poutine johnnycakes from the back of the wagon).

@Commenty Colin Thank you for that comment.

I have a friend who likes to tell a story about the (supposedly) greatest coke dealer in Portland, a great big guy who lived in the Drugstore Cowboy condos in the NW. Story goes, Keanu Reeves was hanging out in Portland around the time that My Own Private Idaho was being made and during that time he fell in with this coke dealer. The person who told me the story was in a car with Keanu and the coke dealer on the east side heading back to the NW. Keanu made some joke about how messy the guy's car was, and the guy pulled over and told Keanu to get the fuck out and walk, which he did.

And that's the truth, *thpppppppppppppppp*

In the early 1920s the Oregon governor, Portland mayor and Oregon's Speaker of the House (the Speaker of the House's namme was Kasper K Kubli) were all open KKK members. They passed a number of laws limiting the rights and freedoms of People of Color, immigrants and Catholics. The KKK also passed a number of laws in regards to what could or could not be taught in the schools of Oregon; many of these regulations closely resemble the types of ideas that are being propogated by the Texas Board of Eduation.

http://www.oregonencyclopedia.org/entry/vi…
http://bluebook.state.or.us/cultural/histo…

My grandfather's uncle, A. Gerald Paffenbarger, was arrested in Portland in 1922 after placing an ad in the Oregonian classifieds seeking donations to fund a book about Grover Cleveland Bergdoll, a notorious World War I draft dodger. Cops showed up at Gerald's apartment, and he allegedly slugged one of them and ran, with bullets flying around him. Captured later, he was even questioned by the feds, due to some clippings he had in his apartment about the William Desmond Taylor murder case (he had lived in L.A. for several years). He claimed that the clippings were research materials for another book he wanted to write. He admitted to having been a draft dodger himself, and was fined $25 for disorderly conduct.

Older but not entirely wiser, Gerald ran another classified ad the following year, this time offering hot stock tips. He was also the inventor of a patented roofing material, but it's unclear if he ever made any money from it. Gerald never married (as far as I can tell), and I haven't found any record of him after his mother's death in 1940. Did he live on, quietly, in Portland? Go back to L.A.? Die soon afterward? Maybe when later censuses are made public I'll find out. I also haven't found any indication that he ever had any work published.

Interesting or not, this is all true; if I'd made it up, I would've made it funnier. I think of Gerald as a predecessor of the aspiring writers here with just a rented room, a cheap laptop, and a dream. Just don't go slugging any cops...

@Graham And then in this decade, the KKK adopted a highway in Marion County! How far we've come!

Oregon was the only one of the lower 48 states were people were killed during WWII as a direct result of enemy action. Incendiary balloons were floated across the Pacific by the Japanese (who, unlike us, knew about the jet stream) in an attempt to set fire to our forests tying up military manpower. A few of the balloons actually made it, and one landed near Klamath falls, killing attendees at a church picnic.

I've only been in town 9 years but started living and working on Mississippi Ave. in '02. I'd love to see some shots from then. The open-air chain-link Rebuilding Center lot, Grandfather's BBQ on the corner, basically nothing else...

Kudos, CC, for remembering Nasty Nate. His experimental Jew's Harp band shanty parties were legendary.

Johnny Appleseed had a brother who was dropped on his head as a child. Ronny Appleseed loved pies as much as his brother, but instead of apple pies Ronny loved pinecone pies. He was shunned by everyone back in his home state of illinois and so he came west hoping to teach the Natives about pine pies. He walked and walked until he eventually came to Oregon, where he found a bunch of people who thought pine pies were ironically delicious. He's been here ever since planting pine trees and selling deep fried pinecones out of a cart near the river called "The Pies Have It".

A Japanese submarine also shelled Fort Stevens during the war, but no one was hurt. We didn't fire any shots at them, because that way they "couldn't see where our guns were."

Naturally.

@ TSW: Agreed, though the band didn't make much money, so Nate toiled four hours a week at a chicory stand so he could afford the very sheer dungarees that he favored.

The building where Union Jacks is now used to be a brothel. You'd choose a companion in the bar on the first floor, and then proceed to their apartment upstairs for your allotted time.

There was a terrible fire upstairs that killed some of the working women and ruined all of the little apartments.

After the tragedy, instead of tearing down the building, or remodeling, or even repairing(!), the building owners simply LOCKED THE DOOR LEADING UPSTAIRS.

The party continues on the first floor today, but the upper floors have never been touched again, and still feature burned furniture, clothes, and debris.

Recent pictures here: http://redflagging.wordpress.com/2010/06/2…

The details are too numerous to name here, but when it comes to Favorite Oregon History Fact, I'd have to pick "everything and anything related to the Oregon Brewpub Law."

Prior to the mid eighties, the brewpubs we all loved so much in Oregon were illegal. You had to make and sell beer on different premises. What's more, beer also had to be pasteurized, which is a pretty severe limit on brewing.

Some enthusiastic brewers (they had names like "Widmer" and "McMenamin") lobbied the legislature to change that. They brought up wineries- you could make, sell and consume wine all in the same place. Why not beer? Experts successfully demonstrated that pasteurization was unnecessary in brewing- alcohol and hops are natural antibacterials.

The brewers were victorious, and the Oregon Brewpub Law was passed. The first brewpub in Oregon was the McMenamin's Hillsdale Pub, and Bridgeport soon followed here in Portland.

Sure there are other great tales from Oregon history: The awesome story of Vortex I, the hilarious unveiling of the Thompson Elk, the crime and corruption scandals in the 1940s and 50s, the fact that a dude launched a place off of a roof in 1912. All kinds of things. But none of those anecdotes gave us Hopworks or the Lucky Lab or Hair of the Dog. None of those fun stories resulted in Amnesia or the Laurelwood or the Tugboat or Ninkasi.

Facts are fun, but beer is tasty, and my hands down favorite part of Oregon's history and present.

You probably already know my own two favorite Oregon History Facts.

(1) From 1914 until the 30s/early 40s, SW Third had a serie sof illuminated archways. http://communique.portland.or.us/05/06/rev…

(2) During WW2, Kaiser shipyard workers at Swan Island published a zine. http://fingerpublishing.com/

@Reymont
The ol' "lock the door to the brothel" technique was also utilized in Pendleton! There's this perfectly-preserved whorehouse you can tour for like $15, up a narrow set of stairs from a bunch of crappy boutiques. Wallpaper intact and everything.

I like to remind people that Oregon was the state where the only attack on a mainland American military installation during World War II occurred. Oh, and the unicorns thing, too, of course.

Bill Schultz, of Grants Pass, harnessed 180,000 BTUs of heat from 400 rabbits. This raised the temperature of his greenhouse by roughly 20 degrees.

I'm having a tough time coming up with something (good) 400 hipsters can provide.

@miracle minnie - Yeah, but... so? The Japanese blew up a pier in Goleta, California. The remnants are still there. Piers aren't important - only military installations?

(might be listed as "Gaviota, California" - since it's a beach just north of Goleta.)

The CORNDOG was invented here in Rockaway!

Originally a 1500 seat venue, the Hollywood Theatre was built in 1926. The Hollywood was the last venue in Portland built both as a vaudeville house and as a movie theatre, and is located in the only Portland area to be named after a building - The Hollywood District!

Oh! I have another one I like, though I haven't been able to source it particularly well.

Apparently, the monkey puzzle trees scattered around SE and elsewhere are all about the same age and share a common origin. As was in vouge with other world fairs of the era, the Lewis & Clark Exposition of 1905 had a number of exhibits from various countries interested in demonstrating how comparatively hot their shit was.

So for instance Italy brought over millions of dollars of marble statues, and Germany made an 80 foot embroidery (I don't know). Not to be outdone, Chile gave out hundreds of araucaria araucana seedlings (commonly known as the monkey puzzle tree), which people took home and planted in their back yards.

Perhaps unmentioned at the time, these hardy prehistoric trees grow well in temperate climates like ours and can live upwards of a thousand years. Also, in the fall, their branches can be used to really smack the hell out of your friends on the way home from school.

Oh, and the exploding whale. That was good too.

In 2001, I attempted to visit every city in Oregon--from Adair Village to Yoncalla--in ALPHABETICAL ORDER. I was on my 4th beer at the Tolo Club in Central Point when I said, "Fuck it" about the alphabetical thing, but I still visited every city that summer. I learned a lot, but the most relevant fact for this forum would be that I learned that the Mayor of Sodaville, Oregon was a convicted felon.

Well, let's all take a second of righteous pride about the fact that this is the only part of the country gained by discovery rather than purchase, and therefore the only part of the country that never lived under a foreign flag.

THESE COLORS DON'T RUN, BUTTFUCKER.

My favorite Oregon history fact was that a copy of the "Expose Yourself To Art" poster hung on the wall of the living room of the "Young Ones". I used to work in the Mead Building, whose front entrance is visible in the picture. How trippy!

Commenty Colin and Joe Streckert win the day. thanks for playing everybody, this was a good one.

That's unfortunately not true, Oregometry! The whole Oregon territory was claimed by Great Britain until 1846. 54' 40" or Fight!

http://www.ushistory.org/betsy/faq.htm

Actually, Reymont--ACTUALLY, Reymont, there was no sovereign over Oregon, which was governed by the Provisional Government of Oregon before then.

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Provisional…

Portland has the oldest Pet Cemetery on the West coast. It is at the Oregon Humane Society on NE Columbia Blvd. Bobbie, the Wonder Dog is buried there. Bobbie became famous in the early 1920's by finding his way back to Silverton, Oregon after getting lost in Indiana. True story.

http://www.oregonencyclopedia.org/entry/vi…

As to the monkey puzzle trees around Portland, they were brought over as part of the Lewis and Clark Exposition. Many of the large ones around town are the original seedlings. There was one on the Campus of the University of Western States but they just cut it down without any regard to the history.