Wicked Portland

In its youth, Portland, Oregon, combined rough-and-ready logging camp with gritty, hard-punching deep-water port. Lusty lads dallied with hard-eyed beauties in dark alleys, and crimps and captains bartered in blood money for the drunk and drugged. From the seedy waterfront to the notorious North End, Portland’s sin sector offered vices packaged in pint glasses and perfumed corsets. Establishments like Nancy Boggs’s floating bordello and city police chief James Lappeus’s Oro Fino Saloon beckoned to the city’s wastrels and grifters, votes could be bought for the price of a pint and Bunco Kelly’s Mariner’s Rest fronted a shanghai operation. Join Finn J.D. John of the “Offbeat Oregon” column as he reveals the roughest, most colorful era of Portland history, when the Rose City developed an international reputation for violence and lawlessness.