(Excerpt from Barney Blalock's writings on PortlandWaterfront.org.)

A Metropolis Rises on Sacks of Grain, Cans of Salmon, and the Backs of Indentured Sailors

Shanghaiers, Crimp Gangs, and Bunko Kelly Establish the City's Maritime Reputation Worldwide

With the great increase in the movement of cargo from the Willamette wharves by the year 1870 Portland saw the beginning of an evil era of maritime slavery, known as “crimping.” This unbelievably cruel and unjust practice would continue unchecked for the next 45 or 50 years, leaving a blot on the reputations of both Portland and Astoria that would last until long past the death of the last poor shanghaied sailor. The shanghaiers called themselves “sailor's boardinghouse keepers” but everyone else called them “crimps.” Here is how the Etymological and Pronouncing Dictionary published in 1879 defines the word, "crimp":

crimp, n. krimp (Dut. krimpe, a confined place in which fish are kept alive till wanted), one who unfairly decoys men into naval, military, or merchant seamen service --especially one who entraps sailors; one who ostensibly keeps a lodging house for sailors, but whose real occupation is to fleece the unwary of their wages: to decoy into naval service: crimp´ing, imp.: crimped, pp. krimpt.

The thirteenth amendment to the U.S. Constitution had outlawed slavery in 1865, but in a nation whose beginnings had been staffed by indentured servants from the home countries and captured slaves from Africa, the idea of slavery was not so abhorrent that the very lowest class of laborer, the seaman, could not be subjected to such abuses. Sailors were a pariah class conjuring in those days the same repugnance that in the present day is reserved for sex offenders. This gave rise to many opportunities to defraud and abuse them.

When tugs pushed a vessel up to one of the wharves along the Willamette, the crimps were there waiting. Sometimes they would use a hook and ropes to board the vessel from rowboats before it even came along dockside. The crimps would accost the inexperienced among the crew with spiked liquor and offers of better pay on a different vessel. If the crew was owed its pay, the captains were glad to see them go because oftentimes they could make money by keeping the wages owed (which desertion allowed them to do under maritime law) while obtaining fresh crewmen from the same crimps.

The crimps owned boarding houses where anyone wishing to avoid being jailed by the Portland Police for vagrancy could readily obtain a room “on credit,” the bill being paid at some date in the near future by a ship captain, their new boss. This trick was played year in and year out on many a wandering fortune seeker, would be gold miner, fun seeking cowboy, plow boy, logger, fisherman--anyone without any particular place to go wandering the streets of Portland, or looking for a good time in any number of establishments near the waterfront. If there was a large number of vessels in port needing fresh crews, the crimps were not above slipping someone a Mickey Finn, or going down to the “shape up,” where longshoremen were being hired, with a sap (blackjack) in one hand and a canvas tarp in the other to pick off some unwilling seamen from among the no-hires for that day. Ship captains were accustomed to having new crew members delivered wrapped in a canvas tarp.

The legend has it that one of Portland's cruelest and most infamous crimps, James “Bunko” Kelly, was given the moniker “Bunko” after he stole the cigar store Indian from in front of Wildmans Cigar Store, wrapped it in a tarp and sold it to a ship captain as a drunk sailor. Though this and many other legends of Bunko Kelly were repeated often enough to acquire the legitimacy of fact, the memoir Bunko penned while serving part of a “frame up” life sentence at the Oregon State Penitentiary in Salem repeats none of these tales, but mentions only how he was “a good man who never did harm to anyone.”

The lawlessness, corruption of local officials, and the colorful characters involved in the crimping business gave rise to many hair raising, and jaw dropping tales. During the latter part of the 19th century up into the early 1920s, just the names of the cities of Portland or Astoria carried with them a worldwide infamy. Much like Chicago in the gangster era of prohibition was known for its machine gun murders, bombings, and bribery, Portland or Astoria was synonymous with shanghaiing.

It took Portland a long time to overcome the bad name, and many of these tales died out with their eye witnesses, simply because the bad reputation was one that was not wanted by Portlanders, whether they were newspaper editors or anyone else. It was a long, terrible period of unholy cruelty and injustice, and one that was tolerated for over half a century by civil society. Add to this the fact that the city government of Portland was so notoriously corrupt for so many years that finally in the 1950s the U.S. House of Representatives in Congress opened up an investigation into city affairs, and one begins to see why the squeamishness exists, and the old stories are relegated to the dust bin.

For awhile, after some excavating in the 1970s, the papers carried some stories about Portland's “shanghai tunnels.” The excavating had turned up a system of tunnels leading to the Willamette with much evidence of them being frequented by humans. There was even a cage found, large enough for a grown man. Tours of these places are now offered to tourists, although it has become fashionable in Portland nowadays, that whenever the “shanghai tunnels” are mentioned in the press, to include a disclaimer that the whole “shanghai tunnels” thing is just a legend and these were actually never used to shanghai anyone. This in spite of numerous eyewitness reports and many an old timer's tale from yesteryear.

The practice of crimping had be used for centuries by the British Navy to obtain men for its large fleets of ships covering the entire world. By the early 19th century it had become fairly common practice on east coast cities and in New Orleans. In San Francisco the practice had become a necessity during the gold rush days with entire crews jumping ship to run off to the gold fields. By the 1870s in Portland it had become such a intrinsic practice in the port that the more successful crimps became men of substance who kept the police and the judges paid off. The new boom town port needed the practice just to keep booming, so as far as most people were concerned there was a “hands off” policy as far as crimps were concerned.

Some of the more respectable, and morally minded city fathers may have understood the necessity for such practices to keep their goods and cargoes flowing uninterrupted, but they did not just stand idly by. In1877 the Portland Seaman's Friend Society was formed, a society which, using their own words, was formed:

"to promote the temporal, moral and spiritual welfare of the Seamen, Steamboatmen and Longshoremen, visiting or belonging to this port. The means employed are a Mariner's Church, boarding house, library, reading room, visitation of ships including religious services on board, and the distribution of suitable literature."

On the board of directors of this new society were most of the prominent merchants and bankers of the time, H.W. Corbett, Geo. H. Chance. W.S. Ladd, E.B. Babbitt, etc.—the list read like a who's who of who was making money off of the shipping industry in Portland. That being said, they were good and upright citizens who were appalled by the injustice and cruelty they observed on the waterfront. In spite of their good intentions to provide an alternative to the so-called “boarding houses” of the crimps, with the Harbor Master, police and politicians on the side of the crimps, their efforts were fairly minimal. At one time the big time crimp, Larry Sullivan, was able to enlist the use of a new law to deny the Seaman's Friend Society continuation of its permit to operate a boarding house, insuring the legal monopoly held by the crimps. This monopoly held sway in both Portland and Astoria, with each city vying for the title of Most Dangerous Seaport in the World.

From the conservative point of view, it was a busy port with far more important things to attend to than the discomfort of the lowlifes being taken out of vagrancy and put to work on ships. By end of 1883 the Portland waterfront saw more vessels at one time than ever before in its history with up to 40 vessels at dock at one time. Keeping this commerce in motion was an enormous effort. That year the city had to start using its own dredges just to maintain the river channel for shipping. And that was the year that Portland was said to have displaced San Francisco as the main export center for inland commodities, due to its new railroad linkages.