Car Show

            The new book I am working on with J.B. Fisher will chronicle the impact of car culture on Portland in a variety of ways.  In this blog post I introduce some of the issues we will explore in the book, focusing on the beginnings of car culture and driving in Portland.

By the time of the Great War automobiles had made a permanent mark on Portland. The 1909 Portland Auto Show was a turning point for "car culture."

            The “horseless carriage” was an exciting rumor in Portland before the first automobile appeared in town.  Starting around 1895 stories began to appear in local newspapers about automobile races in France and automobiles appearing on the streets of New York City.  In 1896 a rumor that a “horseless carriage” had been seen in town threw the reporters of the Oregonian into a frenzy of activity as they tried to track it down, before their source admitted it was a hoax.  The first actual automobile arrived in town three years later.  In the spring of 1899 a consortium of “automobile men” got together in New York City and organized automobile companies in seventeen states, including the Oregon Automobile Company (OAC).  A representative of the OAC arrived in Portland in November with the city’s first automobile.  He drove around town for a few weeks drawing crowds whenever he stopped.  He regaled the excited spectators with the wonders of the horseless carriage and suddenly everyone wanted one of their own.

            The steam-powered, gasoline-burning vehicle was not only loud and dangerous, but expensive.  It cost forty cents a day, not counting repairs, to maintain the car and about two cents per mile to operate it, about three times the expense of a team of horses.  Few people in Portland could afford an automobile and those that could were skeptical about the models that were available.  In 1901 Fred T. Merrill added a line of automobiles for sale at his downtown bicycle shop and soon they were a regular feature of Portland traffic.  Although still a toy for the rich, cars soon beat out the bicycle in popularity and by 1905 there were enough driving enthusiasts – known as autoists – to form the Portland Automobile Club (PAC).

Sol Blumauer, first president of the Portland Auto Club, driving the second automobile sold in Portland at the end of one of the PAC's regular auto races at Irvington Park.  The money raised by the races was used to spread oil on dirt roads to improve driving conditions.

            The first president of the PAC was Sol Blumauer, the second Jewish child born in Oregon (his brother Louis was the first) and the second car buyer in Portland.  Blumauer, the scion of one of Portland’s largest pharmacies –- Blumauer and Frank – and a prominent whiskey distiller – his company produced the popular Old Kentucky Home brand – was a tireless booster and a strong advocate for the construction of paved roads.  The newly formed club began to make regular “group runs” to destinations outside of Portland. The Baseline Road, now SE Stark Street, was the most auto-friendly road in the region and many of the club's trips used it.  Politically the club threw their support behind the state law that set a speed limit of 25 mph outside of city limits, but they protested that the limit of eight mph inside city limits was not practical.  They also began a loud campaign calling for paved roads to Mt. Hood and Astoria. The PAC began holding regular auto races at Irvington Park in order to raise money for their street oiling campaign.  Oil was spread on the dirt of Linnton Road and Section Line Road (now Division Street) in order to keep the dust down and make the roads usable for automobiles.

            The PAC had other influential members who gave them political clout.   Robert Inman, president of Inman-Poulson Lumber, was the club’s first vice president.  As an ex-State legislator and State senator he had numerous political connections and the economic importance of his business gave him considerable influence.  Fred T. Merrill, the northwest Bicycle King, was an enthusiastic autoist as well.  In 1901 he added Oldsmobile, Toledo Steam and Waverly Electric cars to the stock at his downtown bicycle store becoming the city’s first auto dealer.  As a member of the City Council Merrill led the fight to increase the speed limit to 12 mph inside Portland city limits; a bill that passed in 1904.  P.A. Combs, a partner in Portland’s first Auto Supply Dealership (Archer, Combs & Winters), became a leader in the Portland Auto Dealers’ Association (PADA), organizer of the 1909 Auto Show and the first autoist to drive from Portland to Astoria in 1910.  The one hundred and five mile journey took four days.    Combs later went into partnership with Portland inventor J.A. Friddle to produce the Beaver Six automobile.  In 1912 they formed the Beaver State Motor Co, producing the Beaver Six and the 1916 Oregon model.

President Blumauer of the PAC was a well known whiskey distiller who distilled the popular whiskey Old Kentucky Home.  Many of the officers of the PAC were influential businessmen with strong political connections.

            The number of automobiles grew slowly until there were about 550 in Portland at the beginning of 1909.  The 1909 model year was important because the cars released that year included the latest technological features, such as pneumatic tires and the first self-starters were available on some models, eliminating the dangerous process of cranking an engine to life.  The cost of cars came down significantly that year as well.  From the economical White Steamer, $750, and the Ford 5 Passenger Touring Car, $950, to the top-end Renault which sold for a whopping $7,000 the purchase of an automobile was accessible to a wider number of people than ever before.  The first Portland Auto Show, held at the Armory in March 1909, proved that Portland was ready for the automobile.  More than 3,000 vehicles were sold during the six days of the show.

            The Portland Auto Show was meticulously planned and nearly as influential on the development of the city as the 1905 Lewis & Clark Centennial Exposition.  The space for dealers to show cars was so popular that the organizers of the event had to limit rentals to local dealers only, a policy that encouraged several automakers, such as Auburn, to open new Portland dealerships so they could get in on the opportunity.  When the show opened on March 7 there were one hundred and two different models of automobile on display from manufacturers such as Cadillac, Pierce-Arrow, Buick, Oldsmobile, Maxwell, Packard, Studebaker and many others.  The Armory was decorated with special lighting, a huge number of flowers and a bandstand, with a rotating line-up of bands, provided music for the event.  The show was attended by thousands of visitors and many of them bought cars.

            One tradition of Auto Shows started very early, Auto Girls.  Attractive young women, sometimes dressed in skimpy (for the time) outfits were used to call attention to specific cars, but they were also available for “joy rides” with prospective car buyers, or any visitors who had money with them.  Many of the visitors who enjoyed the company of auto girls, left with considerably lighter pockets.  Andrew Johnson, who visited Portland from Rockford, Illinois was relieved of $190 while on an automobile ride with Gladys Frazier and T.L. Dennis.  Gladys, who “professed a sudden devotion for him,” put her arms around his neck, kissed and called him pet names, while her partner rifled his pockets and relieved him of his cash.  “Rolling” drunks and other visitors was a time-honored Portland tradition, but the automobile added a new twist to the crime.

            P.A. Combs, who organized the auto show with support from the Portland Auto Dealers Association (PADA) and the Portland Auto Club (PAC), and other auto dealers were very happy with the event.  Each of the one hundred and two car models sold between twenty and thirty units and more than 3,000 drivers took to the roads of Portland in their new cars.  That summer saw one of the worst periods of auto safety that Portland has ever experienced. Sixteen major auto accidents occurred between June and September as inexperienced drivers took to the roads in flimsy, fast-moving vehicles with no safety features.  During that time there were seven fatalities, most of them pedestrians run down on public streets.  Pedestrians became so fearful at the sound of an automobile approaching that one of them, 74-year old Mrs. Mary Wrightman, dropped dead from fear when she heard a car coming behind her. 

The summer of 1909 showed the city how important it was to enforce the traffic laws. The next year the motorcycle "speed squad" was created by the Police Bureau and in 1913 the first traffic signal appeared on Portland streets.

            It was clear that automobiles presented a new danger on the streets.  Several traffic laws, including speed limits and right lane driving, had already been passed at both the state and local level, but no provisions had been made to enforce the laws.  With support from the PAC the Police Bureau created the first “speed squad” consisting of three officers on motorcycles whose main duty was enforcing traffic laws.  Cars were here to stay and Portland would never be the same.

           We are just starting on the process of creating this new book so it will be a while before you will be able to read it.  In the meantime stay tuned to this blog and the Slabtown Chronicle as J.B. and I will be sharing some of our findings here before the book is completed.  If you find this work interesting or valuable please consider supporting the blogs here.  Remember history isn't free. Support your local historian.

Keep Growing Wiser

The Hoot Owls was the first local radio program to become a hit, both in Portland and regionally.  The popular show made radio sales boom and proved that radio was a highly effective advertising platform.  It was broadcast on KGW radio from 1923 until 1933.

            March 30, 1923. Fifteen year old Melvin Blank, a student at Lincoln High School and part time newsboy on the streets of South Portland, stayed up late to listen to the Keep Growing Wiser Order of Hoot Owls on KGW radio.  The ninety minute variety show, which premiered in January 1923, aired from 10:30 to midnight on Fridays.  The sounds of the Hoot Owl “degree team” came tinnily through the headset of Mel’s homemade crystal radio set.  Few people had manufactured radios, but enough were making their own in 1923 that regular commercial broadcasting was already well established in Portland.  The Hoot Owls were the first hit radio show in Portland and within two years would be the first regional hit radio show with listeners as far away as San Francisco, Seattle and Calgary, Alberta.  The Hoot Owls, who all swore a membership pledge vowing to “scatter sunshine at night and scatter it good,” fulfilled this pledge by filling their variety program with ritualized zaniness, interesting performers of all kinds, funny, long winded stories and ethnic humor. The unrestrained hilarity inspired the young musician, who was on the verge of starting his career as a performer; Blank premiered as a singer on KGW radio in June, 1923.  Each weekly meeting of the Hoot Owls included a formal portion in which the “degree team” inducted new members.  On this particular night Mel Blank took the oath along with nearly 200 other regular listeners.  Four years later Blank joined the cast of the Hoot Owls as Grand Snicker.

I promise to sleep all day and hoot all night: I will hoot till the limb breaks and then get on a higher limb: to a brother owl in distress I will give at least two hoots, and I will scatter sunshine at night and scatter it good. I also promise to attend the meetings every Friday night at 10:30 o’clock Pacific Time. – The Hoot Owl Pledge

            The Hoot Owls was the brainchild of Charles F. Berg, a San Francisco retailer who settled in Portland in 1912 and owned the high-tone women’s shop in the lobby of the Portland Hotel.  Berg, who was also a powerful force in the Portland Ad Club, was interested in the potential for radio advertising and when he discovered that station KGW, owned by the Oregonian newspaper, was having trouble filling the airwaves late on Friday night, he was excited to run the experiment.  Berg, a committed Mason and a member of several fraternal organizations such as the Elks and Rotary Club, turned to his brothers, especially those with businesses to advertise, for help.  Late in January 1923, KGW and the Oregonian, announced the formation of the tongue-in-cheek order of Keep Growing Wiser (KGW) Hoot Owls.  They held their first formal meeting on January 29.  Everyone with a crystal set was listening and soon sales of radios and radio parts boomed as people equipped themselves to hear the Hoot Owls.

            The variety show mildly spoofed the growing popularity of fraternal groups such as the Masons and the Ku Klux Klan with their zany rituals.  Charles Berg presided as Grand Screech; changed from Grand Imperial Eagle which sounded too much like the KKK. His son Forest was Grand Squeek. Attorney Barnett “Barney” Goldstein gained local fame as a raconteur and humorist as Grand Schmoos. Frank Sardam, an insurance agent, may have been popular for the way he laughed as Grand Scream. Oregonian cartoonist Edward S. “Tige” Reynolds threw in his two cents and did the artwork. Dean Collins, of the Portland Telegram, and Cliff Engle of KGW made sure the show got excellent press as Grand Sonnet and Grand Scribe.  Much of the humor of this time is difficult for post-Americans to understand or to accept, the rest of it often seems “corny.”  But it was a completely new concept for the listeners who flocked to the program in droves, taking the pledge to attend every meeting.  The program’s first charity drive was an effort to give crystal radio sets to people confined at home from illness, injury or disability, known then as “shut-ins.”  The drive was very successful as Hoot Owl listeners bought new radio sets and donated their old crystal sets. Soon every identifiable shut-in in Portland had a crystal set and people started donating new manufactured radios to the program. 

Edward S. "Tige" Reynolds, the popular editorial cartoonist from the Oregonian served as Grand Sketch for the Hoot Owls and provided their artwork. Thanks to

http://www.pdxhistory.com/html/hoot_owls.html

for the wonderful images.

             The KGW Hoot Owls continued to broadcast on Friday nights until 1933, always remaining the number one show in the region.  The only program that rivaled the Hoot Owls was Amos & Andy, which premiered on KFEC in 1928.  The Hoot Owls often hosted popular musical acts and celebrity guests, such as President Warren Harding in 1923; Samuel Gompers, head of the American Federation of Labor, in 1924; Babe Ruth in 1926; and, Col. Charles Lindbergh in 1927.  The success of the Hoot Owls, which became a fixture of Friday nights for listeners all over the Pacific Northwest, proved that radio was a very effective advertising platform.  It boosted revenues for the Oregonian and encouraged other radio stations, such as Meier & Frank’s KFEC to start broadcasting in competition.  The Hoot Owls was not only one of the most successful broadcasts of radio’s first golden age, it helped launch the career of Mel Blanc, the first west coast radio star.

Mel Blank started his career on KGW radio while he was still a student at Lincoln High School in 1923 and went on to a brilliant career in radio/TV and immortality as the voice of Bugs Bunny and hundreds of other iconic characters.  He joined the cast of The Hoot Owls in 1927 and changed his name to Blanc when the show ended in 1933.

            Blanc, who altered his name from Blank in 1933, joined the cast of the Hoot Owls in 1927 and soon the young comic/musician was the most recognized entertainer in Portland.  The “man of a thousand voices,” who gained immortality as the voice of two generations of cartoon characters, including Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck and Porky Pig, moved on to his own show in 1933.  Blanc and his wife, Estelle starred in a KEX program, Cobwebs and Nuts, which continued the zany humor of the Hoot Owls, in the same time slot, but six nights a week.  Loyal Hoot Owls listeners transferred their allegiance to the new program and the focus on Blanc soon caught the attention of Warner Brother’s studio and his career was made. Blanc moved to Los Angeles in 1935 and had a brilliant career in radio before going on to voice work in animated films.

The iconic Amos & Andy debuted in Portland in 1928 on the Meier & Frank owned KFEC.  It was the only program that could get close to the ratings of The Hoot Owls between 1923 and 1933.

            Mel Blanc’s career was not the only legacy of the Hoot Owls. They were also instrumental in creating the Police Bureau’s Sunshine Division, a charity organization that still provides food, clothing and financial aid to Portland families in distress.  Grand Schmoos, Barney Goldstein, Police Captain Harry Circle and the one-hundred man Police Vigilantes (later known as the Police Reserve) began collecting and distributing charity in December, 1923 with support from the Hoot Owls program.  The radio program was highly effective in soliciting donations and the Sunshine Division was soon well established.  Although Ku Klux Klan membership was secret and can be very difficult to document, it has been reported that all of the members of the Police Vigilantes were members in good standing.  Captain Circle may have been a member, as were as many as seventy percent of the Police Bureau.  Barney Goldstein, although ineligible for Klan membership because he was Jewish, possibly was a member of the KKK auxiliary, The Knights of the Red Robe, which might have had black members as well. The influence of the KKK was strong in the early days of the Sunshine Division when only “white” Portlanders could expect help.  The Sunshine Division eventually dropped its racial requirements and nearly one hundred years later is still a major source of help for Portlanders in need.

Barnett K. "Barney" Goldstein was the Federal Prosecutor who arrested the leadership of the Pullman Porter's Bootlegging Ring in 1918.  The operation then became the centerpiece of Portland's city run bootlegging operation for the next decade. Goldstein was a popular candidate for office and served in the State Legislature.  He was Grand Schmoos of the Hoot Owls and gained renown as a comic story-teller and donut dunker.

            The cast of the Hoot Owls changed over the years, but Grand Screech Charles Berg remained the leader and the nucleus of the group for nearly its entire run.  Grand Schmoos, Barney Goldstein, prosecutor, defense attorney and perennial political candidate, was an important member of the Hoot Owls from its beginning.  He left the program in 1927, but remained active with the Sunshine Division, Police Reserve, the Elks and the Eagles.  He kept the spirit of the Hoot Owls alive long after the program left the air as the Master of Ceremonies of the Portland Breakfast Club (aka The Ham ‘n Eggers).  Many of the original members of the Hoot Owls joined Goldstein at the regular meetings of the club, where he gained renown as a “donut dunker,” with his own personal two-handed dunking technique.  Goldstein and his friends continued to “scatter sunshine” well into the 1960s.

            The death of Charles Berg in 1932 meant the end of the Hoot Owls.  Even with the return of Mel Blanc, after the first LA radio station to lure him from Portland went broke, couldn’t save the show.  Without Berg, the Hoot Owls seemed to lose heart and the program made its final broadcast on January 6, 1933.  Although they made a special broadcast in December, to support the Sunshine Division’s Christmas Drive, it was the end of the Hoot Owls and the end of an era in Portland.
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Escape Artist: The Continuing Adventures of Jack Laird

Jack Laird was serving a life sentence in the Oregon State Prison for the 1918 murder of Frank Twombley in Portland when he escaped in 1934. Oregon State Archive.

            “Haven’t you learned yet that crime doesn’t pay?” Kate Michener asked her son Elliott, better known as Mickie, when he visited her shabby Spokane apartment in fall 1934.  Mickie told his mother that he had learned the lesson, but he was lying.  He and his partner in crime, Richard “Dick” Franseen, who had both been released from the Oregon State Prison less than a year before, had never stopped committing crimes.  Mrs. Michener didn’t believe her son and she didn’t trust him. When Mickie and Dick were ready to leave for Everett, WA to visit Mickie’s brother Ashley, they left his mother with a ten dollar bill to cover expenses.  The aging woman was afraid to spend the bill because she was sure that her son had gone into counterfeiting.

            She was right not to trust him. Just weeks before Mickie and Dick, who both had extensive printing experience from their time in prison, had held a Duluth, MN engraver at gunpoint and forced him to create a plate for printing ten dollar bills.  They most likely had a stack of fake tens in their luggage. The cash was for financing a prison break and the crime spree they planned once they sprung their friend Jack Laird from the prison in Salem.

            Jack Laird (real name John Giles) was serving a life sentence for the murder of Multnomah County Sheriff’s Deputy Frank Twombley during a botched robbery on the Interstate Bridge in 1918. After seventeen years Jack Laird was considered a “model prisoner.” Head of the prison print shop and editor of the institution’s magazine, Laird was also a trusty allowed to work unsupervised outside the prison grounds on survey jobs.  He was a meticulous, almost obsessive, planner and he had already agreed on an escape plan before Michener and Franseen were released after serving eight years each for armed robbery.

Elliott “Mickie” Michener and Jack Laird became close friends while in prison at Salem.  Together they wrote two dozen adventure stories which were published in pulp magazines.  Federal Prison Archive.

Richard “Dick” Franseen met Elliott Michener in the Idaho State Reform school when they were teenagers.  They became life-long friends and partners in crime. Federal Prison Archive.

    To read more about Jack Laird you will have to wait for my new book JD Chandler's Portland Rogues Gallery coming in 2020.

     If you enjoyed this story you might also enjoy my new book with Theresa Griffin Kennedy Murder & Scandal in Prohibition Portland.