history
the
story
of john
running
Sellwood’s bootlegging
past and one of the lives
claimed in the wild times
of running whiskey
through Portland.
Finding an old horse ring on Portland’s curbs is harder these
days. Even more difficult is locating one of the iron bars that
braced the concrete curbs that hold Portland’s past. One of the
older neighborhoods in SE Portland is Sellwood, nestled by the
banks of the Willamette River. The intersection of Tacoma and
13th holds a ghost story from Portland’s history. The iron braces
were a testament to Portland’s early infrastructure for walkers
as Model T cars dashed through the busy streets of the 1930’s.
That intersection now hosts a bank, a credit union, a natural
healing center, and a Starbucks. The iron braces are gone now,
but not the whispers of the bootleggers, the speakeasy, the
model T’s, and a horrific accident on May 7th, 1934.
In 1934 in Portland, just as in other cities, the bootleggers
and speakeasy were still the source of the goods. Seattle had
been the center of the trafficking for the Pacific Northwest, but
with wooded areas around Portland, such as Forest Park and in
further east county of Portland, areas were ripe for stills and
rum running. The ghost that haunts the intersection of 13th
and Tacoma was a passenger in the Model T. He later died at a
Portland area hospital. The driver of the model T, identified in
The Morning Oregonian as L. Plymell, 48-years-old, survived
the crash.
by
kelly
running
26
Portland during prohibition had a city police department
that cracked down on establishments that sold alcohol and
the places where people could drink—the speakeasy. Portland
police allegedly confiscated the alcohol after an arrest and it
would be housed as evidence in police storage. It is believed
that large amounts of confiscated booze ended up in the hands
of political leaders. One account is that cases of the evidence
was driven up the old Columbia River Highway and dropped at
a local politician’s cabin.