In a few minutes we'll be in the Old North End, also once known as Whitechapel, like the infamous neighborhood in London England.
In nineteen thirteen, Portland's population was 276 thousand people. The city changed from its mud, blood, and beer dominated early days, to the newer, gentler Portland, with Benson Bubbler's and the sweet-smelling Rose Festival.
This great city that we know today was a river town, whose beginnings we often look upon as being nothing more than a humble Victorian settlement...
But this "split-personality" Portland was one of the busiest ports on the globe in the late 1800s and early 1900s, and it happened in spite of the colorful types who resided here...
Walking around today you would never know it, but the next time you're having a nice quiet pint, at Kelly's Olympian, Dan & Louis's Oyster Bar (up on the next block), Erickson's Saloon, or Hobo's, take a look around...
the place you're relaxing in was, not too long ago, THEE most dangerous place in America to go out drinking.
Today Portland is amongst the countries most desirous places, but it secretly harbors an underworld darker than you can possibly imagine...
The North End, or Whitechapel, was a dangerous place.
The year, was, eighteen eighty eight, Jack the Ripper in London England was running loose, and period descriptions detail a Portland population “swarming with holdup men, petty larcenists, bunco men and crooks of every description.”
Drunken men were often “rolled,” or beaten up, and all their money taken, particularly between the late hours of 1 and 5 a.m.
Many of these loggers, farm hands and other robust working men were not so fortunate as to just be rolled.
130 years ago, this vice filled city was a Wild West port town, and had more dark places than any medieval dungeon...
where gambling, drugs and murder were on every street corner, and you could be kidnapped and sold into slavery. It was easy to find a good time with Speakeasies, brothels and drug dens...
and you could get anything in one of the edgier neighborhood saloons --including shot, stabbed, clobbered, swindled, stupefied with opium, knocked out with chloroform, infected with syphilis, poisoned with bad moonshine...
or shanghaied by crimps with trap doors called 'dead-falls', used to kidnap unsuspecting victims...., then taken out to the awaiting ships.
FOLLOW ALONG WITH PICTURES
See Picture #, Shanghaied.
Let Phil know if you want to learn more about Portlands shanghaiing trade.
Our next stop is Erickson's Saloon in the North End
With many more
This great city that we know today was a river town, whose beginnings we often look upon as being nothing more than a humble Victorian settlement...
But this "split-personality" Portland was one of the busiest ports on the globe in the late 1800s and early 1900s, and it happened in spite of the colorful types who resided here...
Walking around today you would never know it, but the next time you're having a nice quiet pint, at Kelly's Olympian, Dan & Louis's Oyster Bar (up on the next block), Erickson's Saloon, or Hobo's, take a look around...
the place you're relaxing in was, not too long ago, THEE most dangerous place in America to go out drinking.
Today Portland is amongst the countries most desirous places, but it secretly harbors an underworld darker than you can possibly imagine...
The North End, or Whitechapel, was a dangerous place.
The year, was, eighteen eighty eight, Jack the Ripper in London England was running loose, and period descriptions detail a Portland population “swarming with holdup men, petty larcenists, bunco men and crooks of every description.”
Drunken men were often “rolled,” or beaten up, and all their money taken, particularly between the late hours of 1 and 5 a.m.
Many of these loggers, farm hands and other robust working men were not so fortunate as to just be rolled.
130 years ago, this vice filled city was a Wild West port town, and had more dark places than any medieval dungeon...
where gambling, drugs and murder were on every street corner, and you could be kidnapped and sold into slavery. It was easy to find a good time with Speakeasies, brothels and drug dens...
and you could get anything in one of the edgier neighborhood saloons --including shot, stabbed, clobbered, swindled, stupefied with opium, knocked out with chloroform, infected with syphilis, poisoned with bad moonshine...
or shanghaied by crimps with trap doors called 'dead-falls', used to kidnap unsuspecting victims...., then taken out to the awaiting ships.
FOLLOW ALONG WITH PICTURES
See Picture #, Shanghaied.
Let Phil know if you want to learn more about Portlands shanghaiing trade.
Our next stop is Erickson's Saloon in the North End
With many more
