Starting in the 1870s, Portland and surrounding areas became infamous for a practice called “crimping.” Crimping, commonly known as “shanghaiing” was the act of kidnapping and selling people to ship captains, men as free labor and women as prostitutes. This supposedly was done largely through Portland’s “Shanghai Tunnels,” a system of tunnels under Portland . In the prime of crimping along the Willamette River, bars and restaurants in the Chinatown area were riddled with trap doors leading into the tunnels, facilitating the seamless disappearance of a drunken bar patrons. While exploring the tunnels on a tour one will see a once functioning opum den and evidence of a human trafficking’s ring.  If that is not enough? Who knows, Maybe you will experience one of several shanghaied tunnel sprits yourself?

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