The ‘Shanghai Tunnels’ of Portland, Oregon —Kidnappings and Forced Labor in the City Centre
By: Richard Bruschi
Tags: History, Portland, Crime, United States, Human Trafficking

The ‘Shanghai Tunnels’ of Portland, Oregon —Kidnappings and Forced Labor in the City Centre

Old town has a network of underground tunnels used in the past for stocking, furnaces, illegal activities, and human trafficking

One of the countless sections of the underground tunnels. Unknown author, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.

Overview

Portland is a neat city with rapid growth in a very natural region. It was founded in 1845 on the west bank of the Willamette River, a tributary of the Columbia River, in what came to be the state of Oregon of the United States of America (USA).

The city’s connection to the Willamette and Columbia rivers, as well as to the adjacent Tualatin Valley heavily used for farming, turned it into a busy deepwater port with rapid growth. It remained the main port of the Pacific Northwest (an area that roughly spans from Northern California to Southern Alaska) until the 1890s, when Seattle’s deepwater port and harbour got their rail terminal, connecting them to the rest of the mainland.

As it has previously happened to port cities, Portland became rough and gritty as it also hosted a large number of miners and loggers. The Oregonian described it, in 1889, as “the most filthy city in the Northern States” for the lack of an adequate urban sanitary infrastructure. At the turn of the 20th-century, some considered Portland one of the most dangerous port cities in the world, known for its large number of brothels and saloons as well as widespread gambling.

Illegal activities and premises were numerous and varied such as prostitution, gambling, opium dens, and thievery of every shape and form. Most of these were not, of course, carried out in the open or at street level, but in the lower levels of the buildings of the Old Town.

A ship being towed along the Willamette River in the proximity of Portland, Oregon in 1906. Brück & Sohn Kunstverlag Meißen, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons.

The underground tunnels

Since the city’s foundation and for many decades afterwards, everything revolved around the docks, aligned one after the other on the banks of the Willamette River. Portland’s Old Town was, and is, a slim stretch of buildings along the banks. These buildings included up to three levels below the ground. This was very practical because they had tunnels directly connected to the docks as well as additional space for the warehouses and businesses upstairs, either as storage or for other purposes (e.g.: the furnace room for heating, for the few that had it). Some estimate you could get as far as Northwest 23rd Street, more than a mile away.

At some of the buildings, the first lower ground can still be entered from the road, as it was never meant to be secret. It’s a common sight in American cities: two metal doors flat on the floor, as a section of the sidewalk along the building’s side, usually not far from one of the entrances. To this day, they are routinely used as access to the basement annex rooms of a business — such as a restaurant, hotel, or gym. The tour I attended entered the underground world precisely through one of these doors, opening onto a steep and narrow timber ladder that disappeared in the dusty darkness.

Inevitably, these spaces and the even lower levels came to be used for activities that needed to be carried out in the shadows — literally. The tunnels would have been (most still are) pitch-black unless for the flamelight of lanterns, candles, or matches.

The tunnels had many levels and most were interconnected from building to building by crossing under the roads above. It was literally a maze of everchanging rooms and corridors’ size, width, height, condition, and occupation. Here is where opium dens, gambling tables, prostitution premises, and crime gangs’ hideouts were found. Furthermore, there were also human trafficking holding cells.

An internal shot of the infamous White Eagle saloon. MSN Local, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.

Shanghaiing

Human trafficking has sadly existed throughout all of human history. In modern times, one of the most common purposes of this practice is forced prostitution. It happened in Portland as well. Women would be kidnapped and kept in the lower grounds of the buildings in basically body-tight prison cells, in complete darkness, and verbally, psychologically, and physically abused until they broke.

In one of the tours led by Portland Tunnels, the tour guide explained to the group — which I was part of — what those sordid people did and he showed some of the premises where it happened. In this dark low-ceiling room built out of rough concrete stood a wooden box, because it was essentially a box. Barely big enough to fit a sitting person, with bolts and a lock to secure it, it was described as the way to break the women who had been kidnapped from around the city. It was hard to see it and think about the nightmare those women had to endure.

The same torturers also kidnapped and sold men of any age or provenience, although in a less vicious way. They sold them to ship captains headed for long-haul trips. The practice is known as ‘crimping’ and the perpetrators were called ‘crimps’.

In the mid-19th-century, an exodus of mariners joining the California Gold Rush was one of the reasons for a significant shortage of skilled sailors. Inevitably, kidnappings cases spiked. It was at this time that ‘crimping’ started being referred to as ‘Shanghaiing’ on the West coast as traffic from the Pacific Coast to Asia was considerable and increasing.

Portland surpassed San Francisco in Shanghaiing in the mid-1800s. There were many unsavory people involved in this human trafficking practice— from full-on crime gangs controlling few city blocks and its saloons, to “freelance” men collaborating with the owner of an opium den — but one person infamously stood out: the “King of the Crimps”, Joseph “Bunko” Kelly. In his own words, he kidnapped and sold 2,000 men and women over a 15-year span. Not only was his volume of kidnappings unmatched, but his cons were too. He once managed to sell a sailor which actually turned out to be a wooden statue of a tobacconist store. Another time, he sold 22 men, most of whom turned out to be dead by embalming fluid intoxication. Another time, he “collected” 52 men in three hours. He sold every and each one of them for $50 or more.

One of the countless sections of the underground tunnels. Unknown author, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.

Portland’s Shanghai Tunnels

So how did the crimps kidnap people in Portland? Various ways, including simply taking away passed-out people found anywhere — the streets, brothels, or opium dens. Although simple, this route still carried risks for the crimps of being caught. Saloons became the prime spots for crimping, as there was a constant flux of people and ideal conditions to enact a well-tested plan. It was also safer (again, for the crimps) and therefore overall more lucrative.

Most people on the premises were either drunk, dealing with other men or women, or simply minding their own business in the dark, loud, and smoky room. They wouldn’t have noticed something happening to the targets who were mostly drunk men sitting at the saloon counter.

They would get drunk without extra help, although pills could have been used to make them unconscious, or perhaps all it was needed was simply an extra pint of beer “on the house.” Patrons would sit for a long time since they didn’t even have to get up to relieve themselves, as counters had the necessary equipment for that.

The SS Wheeler in 1938. US Army Corps of Engineers, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.

The bartender, a key figure in the scheme, would either signal the “go” to his accomplices or activate himself the trap-door under the patron’s stool, who would plunge to the first lower level on something that softened the fall, like a pile of rugs. I saw this mechanism in action at the beginning of the guided tour. The trapdoor, like many other similar ones, can still be seen today and it remains perfectly functional.

Landing unconscious, or made unconscious, the victim would then be taken to another room and stripped of his shoes, because even if he somehow managed to get out of the makeshift cell, the corridors were carpeted with broken glass.

At some point, usually within a few hours from the kidnapping, the man would have been transported to the ship. A rough awakening awaited him. He would come around, with a hangover, on a ship out at sea. His confusion and protests meant nothing, as the officers showed him his signature on a contract binding him for a round-trip voyage to a far-away location, one probably never heard of before to the unfortunate soul. This trip might have taken up to six years.

The Shipping articles for a small vessel headed to Boston, USA in 1786. Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.

Of course, the signature was a forgery. It didn’t matter. The boarding masters, “brokers” who helped muster a ship’s new crew in one way or the other including Shanghaiing, made sure the signatures were done and the deal set.

Furthermore, on top of the “finding” fee, they might have taken the sailor’s first few months of wage too. These were usually given to the boarding masters to buy the necessary equipment for the sailor to start the journey. As you can imagine, the fraudster often bought the bare minimum and kept the rest of the money.

It is estimated that at least 1,500 people were Shanghaied every year in Portland for decades.