Portland Ghost Tour

A guided tour of Portland, Oregon for the Living-Challenged

Although links are provided to Michael P. Jones Shanghai Tunnel Tours, The Oregon Historical Society  and Old Town Pizza Company sites, the opinions expressed in this post are my own

In early 2001, I volunteered with a small group of friends from work, to assist Michael P. Jones and his organization, The Cascade Geographic Society, in excavating a section of the tunnels under the city of Portland. He is now leading tours through the cleared areas of the tunnel and hopes to open a Historical Museum to exhibit the artifacts we unearthed. I believe he is also writing a book, cataloging the experience and possibly validating claims that the tunnels were used during prohibition and beyond, to"shanghai" men and women.

My friends and I had volunteered for one night of digging, but a couple of us found it so interesting, we returned, week after week, to dig for historical "treasures" in the basement of Old Town Pizza. There was so much dirt in the basement, that even at 5'3", I had to duck under the pipes and beams that ran across the ceiling. With only work lamps and flashlights to illuminate the rooms, visibility was limited and the cleanup process was laborious and slow. But anyone with an eye for architecture would appreciate the masonry of the tunnel openings and archways. Some of the brick work rivaled that of the buildings above. Each week we sifted through and filled five gallon buckets with the dry, powdery dirt. We carried the buckets up the narrow stairway to the street level, where we transferred the dirt to heavy duty contractor bags that were then loaded into a truck and moved to an area where it could be examined more carefully, under better lighting.

The large artifacts we found were carefully brushed off and secured in a small room in the basement. Some of them reminiscent of the brothel that existed in the upper stories of the building over 150 years ago. Other items seemed to confirm the tunnels jaded past, stories of men who were possibly drugged and imprisoned, and ultimately sold into involuntary servitude as sailors aboard sea vessels docked along the Willamette River waterfront. The most convincing of these, for me; were the trapdoor, a dead-fall, located next to the bar above; and the small brick prison cells built into the interior basement walls. We also found several small glass pharmaceutical bottles, piles of men's shoes and broken shards of glass scattered throughout the basement.

Before working in the basement, we were given a quick tour of the Pizza parlor above and told the seasoned story of a young woman named "Nina" who had died there. I enjoyed the story, but thought it to be nothing more than urban legend.

As the weeks passed, I became more at ease, the physical labor a formidable distraction from the legends and fears of the supernatural. One night, when only four of us were working in the basement, something happened that would make me call into question my beliefs. The quiet of the empty basement gave the dry air an eerie feel, so we made an effort to enter and exit in pairs, but were occasionally left alone in the darkened rooms. At the sidewalk entrance, we sometimes made a "bucket brigade," I passed my bucket up to the street and returned alone to the cleared basement room where the prison cells were. Although it seemed some of the shoes and medicine bottles had been moved, I dismissed the thought. Maybe someone was looking at them and set them down somewhere else.

It was getting late. The intensity of the labor, compounded by the difficulty of getting in and out of the basement made us decide to call it a night. We were standing together near the cells, relaxing and talking about our most recent finds, when suddenly, I was pushed from behind. I stepped forward to regain my balance, turned to look for someone behind me, some prankster, trying to spook me... nothing. I looked up at the pipes above, had something fallen? No. I wasn't hit, I was pushed, firmly and with such force that I lost my balance. The others asked if I was okay. I was fine, if only slightly unsettled, wouldn't you be?

On my drive home, I decided to stop and meet with friends at a restaurant. We gathered in the lounge area for a few rounds of karaoke. I snapped photos of my friends singing, finishing off the roll of film in a disposable camera I had been photographing the Portland basement with. I was anxious to see if I had captured a "presence" on film. Especially after my unexplained encounter earlier in the evening. When I got the film back from the pharmacy photo lab, I hurriedly thumbed through the prints. Pictures of me digging in the basement and holding artifacts, but mostly, pictures of what I believe to be hundred-year-old dust. It wasn't until I got to the photos of my friends at the restaurant that I froze. I pulled the negatives from the envelope to verify what I was seeing. Knowing the human brain is programmed to recognize familiar shapes in nature, I could swear I was looking at a human female figure next to my friend on stage. Nevertheless, I'm calling it an unusual pool of cigarette smoke, even though it seemed more dense, oddly shaped and nowhere near anyone who was smoking. I can't explain it. I'm not sure I want to. I haven't been back to that basement or the karaoke lounge in over a decade.

I had witnessed other phenomena that night, but I can only speak to my own physical experience.
    1. I was alone in the basement when the items were moved.
    2. I was pushed.