Have you heard about the seedy, sordid history of the Portland underworld? I am a bit of a history buff, not because it’s our task, just because I love it, but i learn lots of books, plus spend a lot of time doing deep-dive research on the laptop; Between the libraries plus Google I regularly have more information than I can possibly handle; After moving to Portland, Oregon a few months ago, I started to focus our studying on local history, plus found a treasure trove of fascinating stories.
- In the 1940s plus 1950s, Portland was a notorious hub of criminal activity, but under the stern hand of a local gangster named Jim Elkins, Portland was the center of a sizable underground criminal organization that went up plus down the seaboard! Elkins drew a lot of scrutiny on a national level for Portland, however the funny thing is that it didn’t seem to hurt the city’s image at all; That same period of criminal activity was also a sizable boom in the local economy of Portland.
There have been numerous books written about Elkins plus the Portland mob, however actually the most famous version of it is a movie called Portland Expose made in 1957. It is not an simple movie to track down, however anyone interested in Portland history should check it out. Soon after Elkins is when the hippies migrated to Portland from down south, plus brought with them the cannabis that helped make this city famous in later years. Of course cannabis isn’t a criminal offense in Portland, Oregon, however it used to be.