The rat-infested dank catacombs under Portland, Oregon, concealed unthinkable illicit secrets for nearly a century beginning in 1850. If you were one of the lucky ones who fell through one of many trap doors, you didn’t wake up until after you had been drugged, kept with rats, and were hundreds of miles out to sea on your way to the Orient.
The practice called Shanghaiing thrived in Portland. Every building from China Town to the downtown area was connected and tied together in a series of basements, some separated by archways. The purpose of the underground originally lent itself to aid those delivering incoming shipments thereby expediting their arrival at each store by not having to travel through busy Portland streets.
However, ship captains loved the design of Portland’s underground because it enabled them to build their crews. Many waited in the Willamette River port at the opening of the tunnels, for hired middle-men (bar owners, Chinese, labor groups, opium den owners) to kidnap unsuspecting drunks. The drunks were usually given knockout drugs, shoved through trap doors, and placed in holding cells in the underground maze until ships came into ports. $50.00 a head became an attractive tradeoff for the risk of dealing in the trafficking.
Women were warned to stay away from saloons and dance halls, because they met similar fates. The only difference when they slipped through a trap door is no one ever saw them again. They became victims of white slave trade, changing their lives forever as they were delivered to one of the many brothels that operated under the streets or to one across the seas.
The tunnels have survived numerous floods over the years and serve as a backdrop for guided walking tours today – if you can tolerate the stigma of being stuck underground for 2 ½ hours with moldy walls and runaway rats. For more info on the tours contact: http://www.portlandwalkingtours.com/tours/underground_portland.php
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