Oregon became the thirty-third state on February 14, 1859, but its history reaches far beyond statehood. Indigenous peoples had lived throughout the region long before Europeans arrived, with communities and traditions tied to the coast, forests, mountains, and rivers.
One of the earliest documented European explorations of what is now Oregon came in 1543, when Bartolomé Ferrelo continued north along the Pacific Coast on an expedition begun by Juan Rodríguez Cabrillo. Over the centuries that followed, Spain, Britain, and the United States all claimed interests in the Pacific Northwest. The United States and Great Britain agreed to jointly occupy the Oregon Country in 1818, and the Oregon Treaty of 1846 established the boundary between American and British territory. Oregon Territory was organized in 1848, followed by statehood eleven years later.
With forests that seem to go on forever, a rugged coastline, isolated lakes, old hotels, and communities with stories passed down for generations, Oregon has produced some wonderfully strange folklore. There are mysterious creatures, sea serpents, ghosts, and at least one monster who apparently decided that simply being a monster wasn't interesting enough.
He needed a name.
The Monster of Conser Lake
Near Millersburg in western Oregon is the setting for one of the state's strangest creature legends.
Stories of the Conser Lake Monster began circulating in 1960. Witnesses described a tall, white, Bigfoot-like creature with cat-like or pointed ears.
And then the story gets considerably stranger.
In one account, the creature was called Flix. The legend claims Flix wasn't simply some unknown animal hiding around the lake. He was supposedly a visitor from somewhere beyond Earth. One version of the story says a woman and a psychic encountered the creature and claimed it identified itself by that name.
That puts Flix in an unusual category. Depending on which version you hear, Oregon's mysterious white creature might be a Bigfoot relative, an unknown animal, or an extraterrestrial who happened to choose a lake near Millersburg as his new address.
No convincing physical evidence of Flix has ever surfaced, but the story has lasted for more than half a century.
For a creature that apparently wanted to remain hidden, Flix has done a rather poor job of being forgotten.
The Legend of Colossal Claude
Oregon's forests have their monster stories, but the coastline has a few of its own.
One of the best known is Colossal Claude, a name eventually attached to reports of a large sea creature seen near the mouth of the Columbia River and along the Oregon coast.
In March 1934, crew members aboard a ship near the mouth of the Columbia River reported seeing a mysterious creature. It was described as roughly forty feet long, with a long neck and large head.
More strange sightings followed along the Oregon coast during the 1930s. Witnesses described creatures with horse-like or camel-like heads, long necks, and bodies stretching thirty, forty, or even fifty feet.
Eventually, the name Colossal Claude became attached to the mysterious creature reported around the mouth of the Columbia and farther south along the Oregon coast. Reports continued for years before gradually becoming less common.
Then something curious happened.
In 1963, underwater cameras being used off the Oregon coast captured film of a strange animal. It appeared to be about fifteen feet long, with ridges along its body, and moved through the water with an unusual twisting motion.
That creature became known as Marvin the Monster rather than Claude, and nobody ever reached a firm conclusion about exactly what the film showed.
Was Claude an unknown sea creature? A whale or another known animal seen under unusual conditions? Several different animals whose sightings were eventually combined into one legend?
Nobody has produced an answer that ends the story.
And that's probably one reason Claude is still swimming through Oregon folklore.
Nina, the Ghost of Old Town Pizza
Ordering a pizza usually doesn't come with the possibility of meeting a ghost.
At Old Town Pizza in Portland, apparently it does.
The restaurant occupies part of the historic Merchant Hotel building, which dates to the 1880s. Over the years, the building included a hotel, bar, billiard hall, and other businesses before Old Town Pizza opened there in 1974.
According to the legend, a young woman named Nina worked in the building during its rougher days. She supposedly agreed to provide information to people trying to expose criminal activity in the neighborhood.
Soon afterward, the story says, Nina was killed and thrown down an elevator shaft.
There isn't good historical documentation proving all the details of Nina's life or death, so this is one of those stories where history and folklore have become tangled together over the years.
The ghost stories, however, haven't gone away.
Employees and visitors have reported seeing a woman dressed in black, sensing someone nearby when nobody is there, and occasionally smelling perfume. The old elevator shaft is still part of the building, which certainly doesn't hurt the atmosphere.
Maybe Nina is still wandering through the old Merchant Hotel.
Or maybe an old building, a dark elevator shaft, and more than a century's worth of stories are exactly the ingredients needed to create a lasting ghost tale.
Either way, you can still order the pizza.
The Ghosts of Wolf Creek Inn
If an old stagecoach inn is going to acquire ghost stories, Wolf Creek Inn has nearly everything required.
The inn in southern Oregon dates to the 1880s and is one of the oldest continuously operated hotels in the Pacific Northwest. Before automobiles changed the way people traveled, it served passengers making the long journey between California and Oregon.
It also accumulated an impressive list of visitors over the years.
Author Jack London stayed there and wrote while visiting the inn. Clark Gable also spent time there while fishing nearby, and other well-known travelers passed through as well.
With that much history inside one building, ghost stories were almost inevitable.
Jack London himself is among the spirits visitors have claimed to encounter. People have reported unexplained voices, strange footsteps, apparitions, and other unusual activity throughout the inn.
Another story sometimes connects Wolf Creek Inn with the legendary stagecoach driver One-Eyed Charley Parkhurst.
Charley was one of the West's famous stagecoach drivers. After Parkhurst died in California in 1879, it was discovered that the person who had lived publicly as a man for decades had been born female. Parkhurst also reportedly voted in the 1868 presidential election, years before women gained the right to vote nationwide.
There is, however, a problem with connecting Charley's ghost directly to Wolf Creek Inn.
Parkhurst died in 1879, while the present inn was built several years later.
So while later folklore sometimes identifies a ghost at the inn as One-Eyed Charley, the dates make that connection doubtful.
That doesn't ruin the story. Folklore often gathers pieces from different people, places, and periods until they become connected in local memory.
And Wolf Creek Inn hardly needs Charley to give it character. It already has stagecoaches, famous visitors, Jack London, more than a century of travelers, and enough reported ghosts to keep guests listening for footsteps after dark.
Not bad for an old roadside inn.
Oregon's Stories Are Still Out There
Oregon seems made for folklore.
A strange white creature appears beside a lake. Sailors report something enormous moving through the water. A woman in black wanders an old Portland building. Guests at a stagecoach inn wonder whether everyone they hear walking through the halls is actually staying there.
Are any of the creatures real? Are the ghosts still around?
That's for you to decide.
What we do know is that these stories became part of the communities that told them. They were repeated in newspapers, passed from one person to another, attached to real buildings and places, and kept alive long after the first witnesses were gone.
And somewhere in Oregon, someone is probably telling one of them again tonight.
Learn More
Oregon Secretary of State: Chronological Events, 1543–1850
https://sos.oregon.gov/blue-book/explore/Pages/chronology-1543-1850.aspx
The Oregon Encyclopedia: Sea Serpent Lore
https://www.oregonencyclopedia.org/articles/sea-serpent-lore/
City of Millersburg: The Local Legend, The Conser Lake Monster
https://www.millersburgoregon.gov/1452/The-local-legend–The-Conser-Lake-Monste
Old Town Pizza & Brewing: Haunted Past
https://www.otbrewing.com/haunted-past
Oregon State Parks: Wolf Creek Inn State Heritage Site
https://stateparks.oregon.gov/index.cfm?do=park.profile&parkId=74
