“Welcome to Erickson’s Saloon,” the bartender’s voice boomed out, “Come sit down and have a shot of whiskey. The first drink is on the house.” This was an invitation that young Sam Morgan could not refuse. Morgan couldn’t believe his good fortune on his first visit to Portland. The offer of a free drink, the scent of a freshly grilled steak, and the lure of the unknown drew Morgan into the world-famous social establishment like a magnet.
The twenty-two-year-old had arrived in the northwest several months earlier, following his sense of adventure, old-growth timber, and the employment it offered. The vast timber stands of his native Wisconsin had been “cut out,” leaving many timber workers jobless.
Morgan, a strapping physical specimen from his timber tramp existence, was looking forward to celebrating the arrival of 1907 with the throng of revelers in Portland’s “cathedral of the working stiff.” With his first paycheck in his back pocket, he was thankful to be away from the snow-covered hillsides of the Coast Range of Oregon, and was determined to “eat, drink and be merry.”
His head still spinning from the first shot of whiskey, Morgan is quietly joined by a bearded stranger. The usual small talk ensued, the stranger offering Morgan advice about suitable accommodations and things to see and do while in Portland. Morgan’s new friend escorts him to a less crowded area of the bar and treats him to a steak dinner, accompanied by cold beer and a view of the onstage entertainment. Morgan’s senses began to dull as he finished his steak, likely the effect of the drinks and knockout drops furnished by the bartender.
Although his new friend encouraged him to have one more beer to wash down his dinner, Morgan began to feel sleepy, wishing he could lay his head on the bar and rest for just a few minutes. Morgan was so out of sorts that he didn’t hear or feel the trap door open as he plunged into the darkness below. Within seconds, Morgan was wrestled from the floor below and the trap door once again secured.
The upscale and trendy image of the modern day “City of Roses,” with its Victorian houses, microbreweries, and vast expanses of finely manicured parks, belies the tragic and shameful past of its waterfront district. Shanghai, when used as a verb means, “to put aboard a ship by force,” and is likely derived from the final destination of many of the sailing ships in the late 1800s and early 1900s.
Morgan was dragged to a waiting dungeon, stripped of his shoes, and left to his misery. The removal of his footwear was intended to remove any temptation to escape over the floor that was completely covered with broken glass. In the rare event of a prisoner escaping from his cell, the bloody footprints would aid his captors in tracking and capturing him.
The prisoner was left incapacitated until his services were required when he would be sold to the skipper of a sea-going sailing ship. He was transported through the underground network that connected the city to the waterfront.
The practice was originally called crimping; crimp was a British slang term for agent, but came to refer specifically to the middle men who provided crews for sailing ships. Crimping, a most lucrative yet questionably legal racket run by evil men who rubbed elbows with local politicians and civic leaders, gave the Columbia River ports of Astoria and Portland an internationally renowned vile reputation, and left behind tales of brutality and shame.
The crimps sought out able-bodied men like Sam Morgan – loggers, cowboys, construction workers, and ranch hands; men who were young, strong and vulnerable. These men were kidnapped and forcibly held in underground cells until they were sold to sea captains and forced to work aboard their ships without pay.
The tunnel system, a vast Channel network of subterranean passageways that connected building basements, had both legitimate and nefarious uses. It is likely that as many freight deliveries traveled through to the docks disguised as enslaved crew members bound for the high seas.
New Yeats Eve 2006 was dark, cold and gloomy in downtown Portland. Hobo’s Bar, our rendezvous for the evening’s activities, is perhaps not unlike the drinking establishments found here a century ago. We add our names to the list and shortly afterward we meet in the near-freezing garden just outside the back door to begin our adventure. The steel door in the sidewalk opens to a stairway that leads down into a new world. The temperature is at least 10° warmer as we descend the stairs, the light dims and a musty odor permeates the air. The Portland Underground Tour is officially underway.
Michael Jones of the Cascade Geographic Society started the public tours in 2000. They cover several blocks of the original network of tunnels that included miles of subterranean passageways. A mysterious encounter could make the tour even more memorable.
The Portland Underground has been called one of the “ten most haunted places in the United States” by a team of researchers from the Travel Channel. Numerous tour participants have reported sighting one of two resident ghosts and the scent of a particular perfume.
Tour participants view several of the cells, the original steel bars still intact, and can only imagine the heartbreak and despair felt by the imprisoned men. A pile of old shoes and work boots, excavated from the ruins of the tunnels, give testament to the isolation and helplessness that must have gripped the prisoners.
An original trap door or death fall, reconstructed and relocated, dropped a mannequin from above to demonstrate the effective capture technique. Legends of this once forgotten era are shared throughout the tour. The audience hears the names of James Turk and Joseph “Bunco” Kelly, the most notorious crimps on the West Coast. One of Turk’s sons followed in his father’s footsteps, and Turk is alleged to have crimped another one of his sons.
Legend tells us that he came upon a group of men who had broken into the basement of what they thought was a tavern, imbibed in the spirits found in the underground cache, most never learning they had actually ingested embalming fluid from beneath a funeral parlor. Kelly got a bonus for this crew, telling the ships captain he had to go to extra expense to get them “dead drunk”.
Another tale recounts the events of an evening when Kelly was one crew member short and used a wooden cigar store Indian wrapped in a tarp to complete the crew. Kelly was infamous for concocting “Kelly’s Knockout Drops” which were used extensively in the shady craft.
As if attempting to deny their very existence, the city of Portland repeatedly denied access to Jones and his associates to the underground area, usually citing violations of the fire code as the excuse to stop the excavation and restoration of the tunnels. The last few years, however, has seen cooperation from city officials in Jones quest to keep this part of Portland’s past from being literally buried under the city streets.
The tour ends as we ascend the same stairway to the cold and darkness of the city streets. We rest easily that night however, safe in the knowledge we are free to come and go as we please, confident that we will not meet the same fate as Sam Morgan did only 100 years ago.
Published 2007
It Happened in Oregon... 