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The Shanghai Tunnels

Today Portland is renowned as one of America's most livable cities, but just a short century and a half ago, it was infamously regarded as one of the most dangerous port cities on the West Coast, if not the world. Why? The answers, and many more questions, lie in a part of Portland that few people know about and even fewer have laid eyes on: the Portland Underground, a.k.a. the Shanghai Tunnels.

In Portland's Victorian heyday in the second half of the 19th century, the neighborhoods near the waterfront saw the seedier side of the city's activities, with saloons, bordellos, and boardinghouses catering to the sailors and other working folk who passed through Portland looking for a night of relaxation after a day or month of hard labor. But a night of drinking turned into an ongoing nightmare for thousands of unsuspecting young men, when they woke up the next morning on a ship bound for Asia. They had been Shanghaied.

That is, their drink had been drugged, and their unconscious bodies carried through a series of underground tunnels leading to the waterfront, where they were sold to a ship's captain as slave labor, not to awaken until they were at sea, with no way to escape, and no options but to work or die. It might sound like a far-fetched legend told to wide-eyed children to keep them away from the unsavory parts of town, but this cautionary tale is no myth. If it helps to prove it, you can take a tour of the very tunnels into which unwitting victims vanished.

Historian Michael Jones has worked for many years to discover, explore, restore, and preserve the labyrinth of underground passageways that still exists under the stores, restaurants, and apartment buildings of Old Town, Chinatown, and Downtown Portland. Working with the Cascade Geographic Society, he provides guided tours of the "Shanghai Tunnels," where visitors can see the tunnels, holding cells, and trap doors through which victims were literally dropped from a saloon or boardinghouse into the underground. The underground used to extend all the way to Northwest 23rd, but a large portion is inaccessible today; what is clearly evident, however, is that all tunnels eventually led to the waterfront, where the inconspicuously transported bodies were passed between the hands of the "crimp" and the sea captain, who paid upwards of $50 per head -- not a bad price for a sailor who, to ever return to Portland, would have to work for at least six years (the duration of two full passages).

Not surprisingly, this subterranean haven of abduction, abuse, and corruption has piqued the interest not only of history buffs but enthusiasts of the tales of the supernatural as well. Where better than in the musty, abandoned, underground sites of century-old kidnappings to discover apparitions of the undead? Indeed, Northwest Paranormal Investigations has declared the Shanghai Tunnels to be the most haunted place in Oregon. For those interested in the creepier side of an already creepy place, the Cascade Geographic Society offers the "Shanghai Tunnels Ghost Tours" in addition to the standard "Heritage Tour."

All tours must be booked in advance by calling the Cascade Geographic Society (tel. 503/622-4798). Tours depart from Hobo's Restaurant, cost $11, and last about an hour and a half.

By Sarah Kennedy

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