Cover image of show Offbeat Oregon History podcast

Offbeat Oregon History podcast

Podcast by www.offbeatoregon.com (finn @ offbeatoregon.com)

English

History & religion

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About Offbeat Oregon History podcast

A daily (5-day-a-week) podcast feed of true Oregon stories -- of heroes and rascals, of shipwrecks and lost gold. Stories of shanghaied sailors and Skid Road bordellos and pirates and robbers and unsolved mysteries. An exploding whale, a couple shockingly scary cults, a 19th-century serial killer, several very naughty ladies, a handful of solid-brass con artists and some of the dumbest bad guys in the history of the universe. From the archives of the Offbeat Oregon History syndicated newspaper column. Source citations are included with the text version on the Web site at https://offbeatoregon.com.

All episodes

170 episodes

episode Rajneeshpuram: Oregon’s most (in)famous ashram artwork

Rajneeshpuram: Oregon’s most (in)famous ashram

ONCE UPON A time in India, a man lived. He would go on to become one of the most influential thinkers in new-age thought, but at this time — the early 1960s — he was merely a philosophy teacher, and one of thousands of gurus living and discoursing in that land of gurus. His name was Chandra Mohan Jain. But even then, just a few years out of graduate school, Jain was different. To call him charismatic would be a colossal understatement. By all accounts, this man could look into your eyes and speak to you for a half hour, and you would hurry home to sell all your earthly possessions to stay near him. He was charismatic enough that, by 1966, he was drawing big enough crowds and making fat enough cash on the speaking circuit to quit his teaching job at the University of Jabalpur, seven years after taking it, to focus on his “side hustle” as an independent guru. (Near Antelope, Wasco County; 1980s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/23-08.rajneeshpuramPart1of5.html)

26 May 2026 - 13 min
episode The ex-Oregonian who got the U.S. into World War II: Yosuke Matsuoka (#6 of series of 6 related episodes) artwork

The ex-Oregonian who got the U.S. into World War II: Yosuke Matsuoka (#6 of series of 6 related episodes)

Ever wonder why Hitler declared war on the U.S. after Pearl Harbor, despite some really obvious reasons why it wasn't a good idea? Here's the real reason: In April of 1941, while visiting Hitler in Berlin, Japanese Foreign Minister Yosuke Matsuoka, who grew up on the old Portland waterfront, induced Hitler to do a little bragging and to get carried away while talking about what Germany might do in a war with the U.S. “Germany would wage a vigorous war against America with U-boats and the Luftwaffe, and with her greater experience,” he assured Matsuoka. “This would be more than a match for America.” That’s when he said it: “If Japan gets into a conflict with the United States, Germany on her part will take the necessary steps at once.” With that, Japan had the personal pledge of the head of the German state that if war came, they’d back them up. And, of course, eight months later, they did. (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/22-11.matsuoka-imperial-japan-615.html)

22 May 2026 - 17 min
episode Japan's most influential diplomat of all time grew up in Portland (#5 of series of 6 related episodes) artwork

Japan's most influential diplomat of all time grew up in Portland (#5 of series of 6 related episodes)

IT MAY BE true that the movement of a butterfly’s wings on one side of the world can seed a tornado on the other. But whether it’s literally true or not, it certainly is figuratively true, and nowhere is it better demonstrated than in the case of 1890s businessman and opium smuggler William Dunbar of Portland, Oregon. If we could take Dunbar out of the stream of history before about 1890, we would derail events that led directly to Imperial Japan’s alliance with Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy in 1940; to Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor the following year; to the nuclear bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945; and (maybe) to the fact that the world did not end in a multi-gigaton nuclear fireball in late October of 1962. All this, because a politically well-connected drug smuggler in tiny, faraway Portland was unusually incompetent, and had taken a young Japanese boy into his household as a companion for his 14-year-old son. That little boy’s name was Yosuke “Frank” Matsuoka, the future Foreign Minister of Imperial Japan and the chief architect of the Tripartite Pact with Germany and Italy, just before the Second World War.... (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/22-11.matsuoka-imperial-japan-615.html)

21 May 2026 - 15 min
episode World's most incompetent drug smugglers lost tons of opium to theft, seizure (#4 of series of 6 related episodes) artwork

World's most incompetent drug smugglers lost tons of opium to theft, seizure (#4 of series of 6 related episodes)

AS YOU WILL have gathered, it didn’t exactly take brilliant detective work to figure out what was going on over at Dunbar Produce and Grocery. By November of 1893, word of what they were up to had been filtering up from the waterfront for at least a year and a half. So, in late November 1893, a grand jury returned indictments against 15 people — including Blum, Dunbar, and Lotan. The charges involved smuggling more than two tons of opium and running a human-trafficking operation smuggling thousands of undocumented Chinese laborers into Portland. The trial held the city spellbound. (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/22-12.blum-dunbar-opium-smugglers-616.html)

20 May 2026 - 13 min
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