Real Estate

How the "Great Renumbering" Tamed the Chaos of Portland Streets

In the 1930s, the city's new address stem brought sense, order, and jobs.

03/31/2021 By Margaret Seiler

Fashion History

A Stitch in Time

A look at three centuries of Portland's fashion scene and its impact on the world.

03/22/2021 By Eden Dawn Illustrations by Sarah Donofrio

Footnotes

LISTEN: Police Violence, Civil Rights, and Black and Latinx Movements

In this interview from July 2020, Oregon State professor Joseph Orosco talks about how Black and Latinx/Chicanx movements of the past intersect in the wake o...

01/29/2021 By Gabriel Granillo

Extremism

A Sociologist’s Take on the Capitol Siege

“They had pipe bombs, they had zip ties, they brought guns with them. It wasn’t just people caught up in the moment.”

01/17/2021 By Margaret Seiler

Feature

What If You Solved the Zodiac Killer Mystery and No One Believed You?

Tom Voigt thinks he knows who was behind the crime of the century.

12/16/2020 By Jordan Michelman

True Crime

The Zodiac Crimes and ‘Zynchronicity’

In the codes and on the calendar, here is just some of the Zynchronicity around Richard Gaikowski, a suspect in the Zodiac killings.

12/16/2020 By Jordan Michelman

Feature

The Rise and Fall of Kah-Nee-Ta

The once-darling vacation spot is practically a ghost town. What happened?

10/10/2020 By Juhea Kim

Podcasts

New History Podcast Investigates a Famous Murder in Montana

Portland writer Zach Dundas helped produce Death in the West.

10/06/2020 By Margaret Seiler

Basketball

When Portland's WNBA Team Lit Up the Rose Garden

Kansas connections (and fast food) fueled the short-lived Portland Fire.

10/06/2020 By Jarrett Van Meter

Oregon, Whose Oregon?

Oregon’s 1920s-Era State Song Is Nakedly Racist

After nearly a century, is this the year “Oregon, My Oregon” will finally get a rewrite?

10/05/2020 By Gabriel Granillo and Julia Silverman

History

The Possums, the Police, and the Burger Barn

Looking back at the infamous 1981 incident.

09/26/2020 By Marty Patail

History

Sad, Bad Times: A Look at the Darker Side of Portland’s Past

Not everything in the Rose City has been rosy.

09/06/2020 By Sam Pape

Portland Protest History

Remembering the #ShellNo Protest 5 Years Later

Activists dangled from the St. Johns Bridge to put themselves in the way of an Arctic-bound oil drilling support vessel.

07/31/2020 By Steve Nichols

What Now?

An Oregon Historian on What We Can Learn From the 1918 Flu Epidemic

“This is a historical truism for pandemics. Pausing, reflecting, obfuscating, lying, or just not being decisive is always a lot worse. Tell the truth, close ...

06/01/2020 Edited by Marty Patail