Portland Noir: A look at what really happened in Portland's sordid past | Oregon Experience

From kidnapped sailors to opium dens, Portland's past is legendary. But how much of it is true?
Portland's past is filled with tales of kidnapped sailors and opium dens. In the mid-1800s, Portland served as a major Northwest trading center. With a population of mostly young male migratory workers, the town gained a reputation for violence and lawlessness. Over the years, stories of the era have taken on legendary proportions. "Portland Noir" unveils the true story of the city's sordid history.
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[@tarriegibson1193]

I love how I get to see a pic of my ancestor chief Joseph at every beginning of these Oregon experience episodes. We have a very interesting history here.😊

[@negativex6026]

Interesting in a bad way .

[@nannynan5893]

Greatly admire Cheif Joseph, thank you for sharing. Love to hear this, many things we didn't hear in school.

[@jesswells8683]

Chief Joseph was a pedophile

[@nanwilder2853]

​@@negativex6026: “Interesting in a bad way”; just like the REST of America!

[@terenceflanagan1225]

Mostly bad

[@marysmith3761]

I grew up in Portland. When I was a child & teenager, the city had an almost small town feel to it. It was pretty safe to be outside after dark. Now the city is teeming with Fentanyl & meth addicts & some places are dangerous to be in day or night. Homeless tents & junky campers are everywhere. Beautiful old houses and historic buildings are being torn down and apartments are being built in their place. The city is unrecognizable from the ‘80’s & ‘90’s. There’s nearly daily shootings, robberies, burglaries, carjackings, etc. The change is drastic and disturbing. The developers & leaders have ruined a beautiful city with their greed. It’s incredibly sad.

[@youareworthalot1228]

I hope it gets better. I was born in Portland. Also thought it was safe as a teen.

[@berndminde1674]

I've been in this incredible city since 1970. Not native, but seen quite a bit. (Old immigrant from Germany). I LOVE it here! Today ain't nuthin'! Be proud of yer home and do all you can to keep it as good as you can! Home Sweet Home!

[@FlyingCarp583]

@@berndminde1674say what? I’ve been here since 81 and have been a first responder for 21 years. It is without a doubt the city is declining fast. Especially after measure 110 past. Trust me or not, I see it and work with it every day. I will not have my kids go outside alone at anytime, and I wouldn’t advise others to do it as well. It is a result of liberal leadership and law making. It is sad indeed.

[@terenceflanagan1225]

@ bernd hey Gruppenfurher move back . Your Brownshirts took over. They're good antifa

[@_G4.R4_]

sure, its all portland and leftist’s fault, the world must look so simple, easy, and black and white when you ignore the actual issues of america, shits stupid.

[@nancystevens7447]

Portland was the “Big City” for my family for over a 100 yrs or more! It was exciting and fun,never frightening or dangerous. I really had no idea it was such a rough and tumble port where every kind of vice ran wild! Fascinating to learn about,thanks…..

[@mrmeglomania]

There's art on the top floor of the downtown library by a guy named Stewart Holbrook, who did a lot of (let's call it) reporting on this early era. He's worth a look, too.

[@jomama5186]

How very cool !

[@TJ-id6ee]

Awesome documentary about the history of Portland!

[@luxmag]

“Clean” is not a word I would use to describe Portland lol

[@sucha_shocker]

In the 90s I would have

[@airgunfun4248]

@@sucha_shocker Very much so

[@blacknoise7997]

I lived there in the 90s some areas were already bad by then.

[@terenceflanagan1225]

In any sense

[@mackpines]

They say history can repeat itself. Guess I’m experiencing today what Portland was like back in the late 1800s. Violence, crime, drugs, corruption. Sounds all too familiar. I’ve come to the conclusion years ago that Portland has always had a rough and edgy reputation and always will. No matter how many people don’t admit it. God, I love living here! Another excellent documentary OPB!

[@user-High-IQ769]

I grew up in Oregon , 5 generations , Portland , most of the state can’t stand, Portland wasn’t the tough area by far, this county been whooping them for years, most won’t show up anymore , Portland has ALWAYS been soft, that’s where the wussies are

[@TJ-id6ee]

I love your attitude! I feel the same way when I visit from Olympia. I love the old logging towns and seaports. 💙🌲🌲

[@katherenewedic8076]

repeat? in never phkng changed

[@DeePresentsCrime19]

😅

[@valjean2036]

But how's dating ?😂

[@patricialong5767]

I ate at Gus's bar which could rival Erickson's bar any time! I ate there when I was twelve with my father and family and ate there many many times there after. The food was unmatchable and the solid wooden bar ran clear across the building! So Erickson's bar was not the only one! In the old days, they served lumberjack's food, beef, etc. Very, very good!

[@danielkeene1623]

Many years ago, My wife was bar manager at McCormack and Schmicks Oak Street Restaurant. In the wine cellar there was one of the Shanghai Trap doors to the underground. It was also rumored to be haunted.

[@lisareed5669]

The haunted part REALLY adds to the believability.

[@user-zp7jp1vk2i]

Portland is about the only northwest town the DiDN'T completely burn down back in the day. The includes Vancouver , BC in Canada. It make Portland the architect centre for the NW among other industries.

[@nannynan5893]

Some things so ironic in similarities; social ills, drugs, gangs, kidnapping, corruption, Deja vu 😢

[@robertafierro5592]

Wonderful.Documentary! Fantastic photographs! Thank you to everyone who made this film. There's nothing more interesting than the truth. I love History!

[@natlenan6743]

Thank you. I get so sick of the current narrative around "not my city" concerning crime with pearl clutching. I'm like do you know nothing about Portland???

[@terenceflanagan1225]

Are you seriously comparing the prohibition/ turn of gje century with today's leftist lost Portland? Sit down little boy

[@edfleming9600]

As a native Portland, Oregonian, this is sortta curious. I've seen the prohibition tunnels.

[@ronanzann4851]

As have I. And they're not exclusive to Portland. We have them in other much smaller towns east along the Columbia as well.

[@jimfisher2451]

A great relief to hear the truth about Portland. Well researched and accurate. Finally.

[@terenceflanagan1225]

Actually it's a leftist crock of shite

[@jimmymarx6294]

Doesn't seem to have changed very much since then.

[@airgunfun4248]

I can tell you personally it was one of the cleanest low crime city's in the world in the 80's 90's even early 2000's. Logic and accounts I have heard dictate that goes back to the 50's at least probably farther

[@OhArchie]

Makes you wonder if Portland will be around long enough for someone to do a story on its sordid present...

[@kixigvak]

The lefties at OPB think everything is just fine in today's Portland.

[@blacknoise7997]

Yes. It's going to feature with Seattle as the near future Sodom and Gomorrah.

[@user-qf7ud5de9h]

No necromancers

[@miltonbunch429]

It's currently getting cleaned up

[@terenceflanagan1225]

Nothing is getting " cleaned up ". This place was a sewer in 2020 and 2021 . Seattle us worse. But leftists are liars and avoid reality

[@BKaneNp8]

I enjoyed this, thanks for sharing. Greetings from Philly

[@Porsche996driver]

Never knew about this parallel history with San Francisco but it all makes sense! Great storytelling.

[@OldProVidios]

Boy, Portland hasn't changed.

[@wild-radio7373]

Absolutely FANTASTIC presentation ❤👍

[@bigtinyhomeadventurebigtin5201]

So Portland is getting back to it's roots...

[@ScoutSniper3124]

Just finished watching Portland Expose (1957 movie), and researching some of the Life magazine expose of Portland crime that the film was 'loosely' based on. Hard to think that such a beautiful city was drug down by a criminal element, and even harder to believe that it's now the LEAST of their problems.

[@foxmanghost1822]

If I ever decide to become a teacher or history teacher in school, this is the type of stuff that I will let my kids that my students watch

[@terenceflanagan1225]

Becusse its biased

[@Abijah12411]

Wow, this was interesting.

[@Into_The_Mystery_13]

Well done

[@blacknoise7997]

21:00 My great grandma's maiden name was Sullivan. She was born in Montana, then moved to Oregon in the late 1800s.

[@OldF1000]

Looks like Portland fell back into old habits

[@uncledogg5156]

Heck yeah, I love local history.

[@davidanderson5767]

Is that any different from any other major city?

[@thePrisoner1000]

Yes and no, each has it's own flavor, for example, Denver doesn't have a water front.

[@ladybug5093]

Yes, it is.

[@airgunfun4248]

Nope

[@airgunfun4248]

@@thePrisoner1000 Water front is irrelevant it had all the vice and crime. The lie in this show is that Portland was worse than other city's

[@cherylpelletier3165]

No different

[@blacknoise7997]

I wonder if OPB has ever done a video about the early Oregon architecture and why buildings now suck compared to then.

[@terenceflanagan1225]

No but there is a video about pre 1908 Portland . Jaridboosters...I think is the YT channel

[@aldengoebel7223]

Where are the tents?

[@greggoato6729]

These people are reaching out😮!!..

[@chumpmu1]

"Erickson's Saloon bar was 684 feet long - almost as long as a city block." Yet, Portland blocks are less that 200x200 feet....wut?

[@thePrisoner1000]

Bars can curve and some buildings are bigger than a city block.

[@benchewan75]

Blocks were different back, then clearly downtown has had a few remakes. Most people know this, but the waterfront wasn’t even where it is today it was basically down by St. John’s Bridge.

[@neilost86]

Pretty sure it’s standard that ten blocks make a mile?

[@jamescarter3196]

As somebody else said, the blocks were a lot bigger back then, and you can see evidence of it on some of the older buildings. There's an old boarding house just off NW 23rd street which had a modern address in the 2300s, but you could see where the old street number was painted over, and it was the 700 block originally. So there's a casual calculation for you, 23 new blocks is equal to about 7 old blocks.

[@godfreydaniels1817]

The bar was U shaped, I believe.

[@warrenpeece1726]

I miss opium dens!

[@jasminesmith7551]

… you’ve been to an opium den?

[@johng4093]

Hard to imagine it was as sordid as the current version.

[@nanwilder2853]

The word “Noir” has no business in the title to this video! In fact, the makers of this 10 year old program only referenced “the Mob” once-without going into the decades of graft, corruption and crime that would follow. For that part of Portland’s history, Phil Stanford was the columnist/author to read! (I can’t recall whether he wrote his pulpy PDX history for the Oregon Journal or the Oregonian newspaper, but I was fascinated by those columns and books in my youth-along with what remained of downtown’s historic architecture.)

[@terenceflanagan1225]

PBS caters to pseudo intellectual leftists that's why

[@jeffhildreth9244]

Welcome to Stump Town.

[@user-zp7jp1vk2i]

Portland is a Port town. When was this first guy interviewed??? 1975? That shirt and tweed suit dates from there!!!

[@terenceflanagan1225]

People here have no style at all

[@bler1890]

Please tell me this was produced in the 00s. I sure hope this really isn’t from 2023

[@nanwilder2853]

It says 2013 in the end credits, but I thought it appeared older.

[@user-fh1yt1xo4h]

My friend said that once logger's made their way to the tops of the mountains and logger's camps that coming down was damn near impossible you would have to hike or pack it out for 50 to 75 miles up in the camps against black bear's brown grizzly and Kodiak mountain lions cougers just to name a few things that would kill you and the elements and mountain tareene

[@simonestreeter1518]

Haha! In the intro there is a quick shot of Free Willy getting free. Only to die as a reject later, but hey.

[@AnchoringHighFrequency]

One big black magic portal… including the Portland Spirit 🛳️ Be weary of the man named Wizard living in John’s Landing walking the Willamette river path handing out books on karma…

[@patricialong5767]

A whole lot of the river or ocean side towns share a very similar past. If you don't believe me, check it out for yourself!

[@shirleysmith9421]

So in this country if you were poor you were considered a slave didn't matter what race white, black, Chinese,native American Horrible history of American History. Shameful.😢😢😢😢😢😢😢😢😢😢

[@RobertGeers-xu1hb]

Is Block Chain the work of an Oregonian? Why not?

[@patricialong5767]

They did not call Portland Stumptown for nothing! There was Gus's saloon at which I dined with my family as a twelve year old and on into the future. The food was unmatchable and the solid wooden bar ran clear across the building so I'm quite sure it could rival Erickson's bar just about anytime! LOL

[@terenceflanagan1225]

That's not where the name came from

[@JuliaClark]

Until Portland's horrific past is addressed and robustly warned about Portland will not evolve beyond scandalous.

[@JuliaClark]

Human trafficking is a huge issue in Portland.

[@AnchoringHighFrequency]

@@JuliaClarkso is black magic… the witches and warlocks of those very secret societies behind said human trafficking…

[@plumbi-fungi6280]

Imagine being arrested for "disorderly praying".

[@StyleFruit2]

3:51 upvote if you can think of any certain group of people or place in the world that it would NOT be huge news for ~30 ppl to die in 2023 :(

[@braedenh6858]

42 people were shot, 7 fatally, in Chicago just last weekend. If 42 wounded and dead don't make headlines, I doubt 30 would.

[@josephbradshaw5353]

Really nothing has changed here it’s just our leaders got better at hiding the crimes and their own.

[@user-fh1yt1xo4h]

I was told about this older guy who was a logger and had a old diary of what he did and his logger guys he had worked with about being with each other and partners who were forced to do male prostitutes or were young and ended up being couples

[@chumpmu1]

"It wasn't desirable to be next to the river, people thought of it as a sewer." So, how is that different from today w/ the "Big Pipe"??!

[@thePrisoner1000]

Huge difference and with a tiny amount of research: The East Side Big Pipe is a large sewer line and tunnel in Portland in the U.S. state of Oregon. It is part of a combined sewer system of pipes, sumps, drains, pumps, and other infrastructure that transports sewage and stormwater run-off to the city's Columbia Boulevard Wastewater Treatment Plant. The East Side Big Pipe project, begun in 2006 and finished in 2011, was the largest of a 20-year series of projects designed to nearly eliminate combined sewer overflows (CSO)s into the Willamette River and the Columbia Slough. The combined projects were completed on time, and they reduced CSOs into the river by 94 percent and into the slough by more than 99 percent.

[@nanzyz]

Conclusion: Unfettered Capitalism sucks.

[@dave8k9hohnjmdavez57]

Unfettered honest and good will...with out capitalism you could not watch this vid nor comment

[@jeffpetrie7744]

Today the blocks along Portland's waterfront seem to be a brutalist waste of concrete. It could be SO MUCH MORE. That park is really just a waste of space at this point.

[@ambermclaughlin3852]

WAS.... past tense

[@cinnamongirl5410]

Sordid PAST?? Helloooooo...

[@justrosy5]

Ok, no such thing as "disorderly praying," but "disturbing the peace" would have been a valid charge.

[@robertafierro5592]

No joke about being Shanghaied. People don't realize how easy it is to switch drugs and dose women at bars..it happens all the time in Manhattan. T& victims are too embarrassed to report the crimes

[@createa.googleaccount713]

😄

[@turkred5275]

1

[@user-ho2pf5mj5g]

🖤🤍❤️ 💙

[@chumpmu1]

The pompous nature of these "historians" language is laughable. I guess it doesn't take any "skill" do work in the farm fields, or forests....got it.

[@terenceflanagan1225]

You know this practice of pointing at the more questionable parts of history to excuse your current 40 year democratic run fiasco isn't very clever. And frankly you cherry picked events. You also really left out most of early Portland's history

[@rcnyoplait]

Well if you are relying on the media for facts...😅

[@davidanderson5767]

Cynicism, if that's what it is, is pointless and cheap.

[@airgunfun4248]

@@davidanderson5767 Blind following of propaganda causes mass murder

[@sherylcrowe3255]

Neo Portland Noir

[@duanedragon2]

What about their white privilege?

[@AnchoringHighFrequency]

Just half of the Masonic checkerboard… the pawns change while the game stays the same…

[@mikestanavech7858]

Stories are told that most history of Portland was canceled so this whole video is suspect.

[@negativex6026]

Seems like the same kind of scumbags still live there .

[@francesbernard2445]

I am sure there is more large cities in North America with a similar history. When it comes to MEthamphetamines too there is no grey area. You either believe in it or you don't. You cannot be only leukwarm about much of anything that has been for a long time called illegal. Like when adding things you should not be to fermented liquid which people make to drink in a tavern made to look like what royals would dine in. Queen Victoria outlawed one such mix once.

[@wonder7798]

Immigrants refugees children

[@williamclark1091]

This is just a prolonged edition of revisionist history. Go fact checking yourself.

[@jamescarter3196]

So you don't really know anything about this subject at all. You're not a source of facts.

[@chumpmu1]

So, it's just myth/legend if something is done off the books - got it, so laughable

[@jamescarter3196]

Dude you are just sad

[@janejones5362]

Portland has NEVER been a "clean" town, and I'm 64. Beaverton is nicer.