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While McMenamins White Eagle Saloon & Hotel’s rich history makes it one of Portland’s most notorious haunted bars, it is certainly not the only spooky watering hole in town.
We asked Houston Oldland, who guides Portland Ghost Tours through Old Town, for some of his best dirt. Oldland’s walking tours are run by national travel company Tourismo; he estimates only about 10% of his guests are locals.
But Oldland is always trying to enhance his Old Town pub crawls by doing more research on the neighborhood and interviewing bartenders and even Royal Rosarians about Portland history and hauntings.
Here are some other places to get creeped out while enjoying a pint.
Kells Irish Pub (112 SW 2nd Ave., 503-227-4057, kellsportland.com) is housed in the 1889 Glisan Building, which was known for being a place that businessmen and managers networked at the turn of the century. One such boss who was known to enjoy the pub was David Campbell, a Portland fire chief who died in the line of duty in 1911. Oldland says that the ghost of Chief Campbell has been spotted at many businesses near Ankeny Alley. Supposedly, the floodlight under the P in Kells Irish Pub turns on and off when Chief Campbell is trying to communicate with the living.
The name of Shanghai Tunnel Bar (211 SW Ankeny Ave., 503-946-8277, shanghaitunnelbarpdx.com) refers to the network of tunnels underneath downtown Portland, in service until the early 1940s. The tunnels were used for easy transport of goods and, possibly, people, though using the term “getting Shanghai’d” to refer to kidnapping and put aboard a ship is offensive. Oldland has seen the ghost of a little boy playing with a Matchbox truck in the corner of Shanghai Tunnel Bar. “When you go down there, there’s a commotion of energy,” he says. “It can be dead and it still feels like it’s jumping.”
Old Town Pizza & Brewing (226 NW Davis St., 503-222-9999, otbrewing.com) located in the Merchant Hotel is Oldland’s favorite haunting on the tour. The most sighted ghost at Old Town Pizza is that of Nina (pronounced nigh-na) Rose, a prominent madam when the Merchant Hotel served as a brothel but who was then murdered. Her ghost is typically wears a white dress and leaves behind the scent of lavender, Oldland says, and she has been known to lock men in the restroom.
Paddy’s Bar & Grill (65 SW Yamhill St., 503-224-5626, paddys.com) says it is Portland’s oldest Irish pub and offers more than 600 spirits on its massive liquor wall. Oldland used to work there before he became a tour guide and says the back banquet room is haunted. He used to hear spirits rustling around back there when he was closing the bar, though he never sighted one: “It feels creepy the second you walk back there.”
