One year ago to the day, I made a call out to everyone interested in The Shanghai Tunnels. The call to action was simple – please send me any information you have have, as tenuous as it may be, that might substantiate this theory that dudes were drug through subterranean tunnels to waiting ships on the Willamette River in Portland, Oregon.
And the silence was deafening…
Not one first hand account was submitted to me. Not one passing reference in a dusty, tattered newspaper. Not one “iffy at best” blog post. Not one goddamn shred of anything – evidence or gossip – that might help to substantiate this Tunnel Business. And you know why I didn’t receive anything?
Because it’s all BULLSHIT…
Maybe you’re not yet hip to The Straight Shit that we brought you a year ago [You can find our two podcasts about this Shanghai Tunnel Bullshittening here and here.]. We are not arguing that shanghaiing didn’t occur. It most certainly did. What we are arguing is this assertion that it occurred in a network of tunnels, that were dug under our fair city, and that that were used to drag drugged up loggers and canners and hobos to awaiting ships on the river.
As the Shanghai Tunnel Tour Guide told us when we went on a tour:
“Eventually what developed was a deliberate network used primarily for shanghaiing.”
There are a few folks in our fine town that have made a SHIT TON of money perpetuating this myth. That pay Old Town Pizza for the opportunity to take tourists down into their dusty basement to stand around as they spin these yarns. And, don’t get me wrong – it is a Kick Ass Fable! And some of these tour guides claim that they have documentation that supports their outlandish assertions. They claim that they are holding these documents until the release of some book or something (one has been claiming “a forthcoming book” for literally decades). Well, we call bullshit on all of that! Let’s see it now – because nothing, nothing I have run across in my exhaustive research on the topic substantiates one tiny piece of these crazy claims. As I stated on the podcast…
I hope I’m wrong. I really do. As long time listeners to this broadcast will tell you, there is nothing I love more than a home-grown Oregon Kick Ass Tale. And it just doesn’t get much more Kick Ass than drugging some poor bastard logger, keeping him in a cage for a few nights, and dragging him through some subterranean tunnel to a sailing vessel gently bobbing on the shit filled Willamette, ready to take this poor, barefoot and bearded soul to China, Australia, or France. It is a fucking awesome story, and it has evolved over the decades into a truly identifiable yarn in Portland’s heritage. But what I really yearn for with Kick Ass Oregon History is TRUE tales, and I just can’t find much documentation on this legend that we are now encumbered with.
I do look forward to someone proving me wrong, and if they do, I will fully recant this trepidation I have with embracing this fantasyful romance. When presented with convincing documentation of something akin to a planned, designed and engineered system of tunnels created for the purpose of ferrying unconscious folks to ships, I will cheerfully craft a Special Edition Kick Ass Oregon History podcast, and let everyone know how these myths are substantiated, and then why they should now be considered a part of the historical record. Hell, I’ll even blog about less-than-convincing documentation that we invite you to pass along. If there is any validity to these tales, any at all, let’s take them out of the shrouded darkness, in the basements and the shadows, and bring them to the light of day – for everyone to enjoy. In a podcast, baby! But unfortunately, and quite sincerely do I say it, unfortunately, until that point, I think we have to lump the Shanghai Tunnels into the same category of “history” as Bigfoots and UFO Oregon Coast monoliths and other oddities of unsubstantiated Oregon History…
I’ve shown you mine. Now it’s your turn to show me yours…
Anyone?
Daughter of Resident Historian with her ghost finder thingy, at the epicenter of The Bullshittening (The Basement of Old Town Pizza. Please note the cans of tomato sauce in the background). She really, really enjoyed the Shanghai Tunnel Tour. Too bad it was all bullshit…
