Portland Underground

The Shanghai Tunnels

Useful Information

Location:	Old Town Pizza & Brewing, 226 NW Davis St, Portland, OR 97209. There are several parking lots in the city. Generally (45.524478, -122.673058)
Open:	All year Wed-Sun 12-19. Exact times very complicated, see online booking. Online booking mandatory. [2026]
Fee:	Adults USD 40.28, Children (13-20) USD 37.10. [2026]
Classification:	Cellar
Light:	Electric Light
Dimension:
Guided tours:	D=90 min, MinAge=12.
Photography:	allowed
Accessibility:	no
Bibliography:
Address:	Haunted Underground Shanghai Tunnels Tour, 226 NW Davis St, Portland, OR 97209. E-mail: Cascade Geographic Society. E-mail: Museum of the Shanghai Tunnels, 213 Northwest Couch Street, Portland, OR 97209.
As far as we know this information was accurate when it was published (see years in brackets), but may have changed since then. Please check rates and details directly with the companies in question if you need more recent info.

History

1930s	The writer Stewart Holbrook publishes spectacular stories about old Portland in newspaper articles.
1970	Michael P. Jones offers guided tours and turns the tunnels into a tourist attraction.
1979	Cascade Geographic Society founded which is doing research, renovation, and guided tours.
1992	Portland Underground tour offered by non-profit organization Cascade Geographic Society.
2013	Museum of the Shanghai Tunnels opened to the public, is part of the tour.
2024	after the owner changed the tours are discontinued.
2024	Shanghai Tunnels Underground Tour™ offered by Old Town Brewery around the corner.
2026?	new tours by Cascade Geographic Society?

Description

The Portland Underground are networks of underground tunnels, which were once used to hide and transport kidnapped people. This process was called shanghaiing, as the victims often were sold to ships sailing to Shanghai. The name Portland Underground was given to this tour some decades ago, also the name The Shanghai Tunnels. The operator was named Cascade Geographic Society and started at Hobo’s Restaurant, which seems to be closed now.

Today the tour is named Shanghai Tunnels Underground Tour™ by the current operator [2026]. As far as we understand the operator is the local brewery Old Town. The tours start around the corner, at Old Town Pizza & Brewing. And there are now two different tours, the family friendly tours over the day, where children older than 12 are allowed, and the tours which include beer tasting, and thus require an age of 21, starting with the 16 tour. America is the great country where you are allowed to drive and go to the army under 18 but not to drink a beer until you’re 21. The new tours must be booked online, and actually the tour times differ greatly, so its mandatory to use the online booking. There are days, where only 21+ tours are offered.

Ships in the harbour of Portland always were in need of sailors. Many captains had no problem to buy their shipmen in an illegal way, if they were cheap enough. Once on sea, they were not able to flee and had to work if they wanted food and water. Some bartenders satisfied this demand, by kidnapping drunken guests. Late in the night, when nobody in the bar was noticing, the drunken men were disappearing through trap doors, known as "deadfalls". They fell down on paillasses, were confined in cells, and then sold to the ships.

One of those bars is the eponymous Shanghai Bar aka Shanghai Tunnel Underground Bar on Ankeny Street, which is partly built into one of these tunnels. This gives the bar a special atmosphere. So this is another, quite simple, way to see a glimpse of the tunnels, which does not require online booking.

However, the tunnels were not built for shanghaiing, they were actually the basements of bars and hotels, cellars, and storage rooms. The specialty was that they were connected and thus allowed to cross the city, unseen and secretly, underground. And they were used for various illicit deeds, like selling women into prostitution or underground opium dens, and speakeasies during prohibition. They were also used as secret exits from gambling dens and houses of prostitution that might experience police raids. Obviously this went not unnoticed, and so Portland was considered one of the most dangerous ports in the world, between 1850 and World War II, and earned the moniker "Forbidden City of the West."

On the other side most of the fantastic stories are actually urban legend. And the current operator is actually stressing on those spectacular "facts", including a ghost named Nina. The Cascade Geographic Society still exists, but as their access is gone, they only offer virtual tours. But they worked for years on this and planned to reopen the Museum Of The Shanghai Tunnels in 2026, and probably again offer tours. When we last checked they had not reopened, but feel free to visit their website below for updates. Their tours are based on research and history, not on ghost stories.