Portland, Oregon’s Early Tattoo Traditions
Researched & Written by Carmen Nyssen
As with many a tattoo hub throughout history, Portland Oregon’s tattooing traditions hearken back to the city’s seafaring foundations—pioneered by expert navigator and merchant speculator, Captain John H. Couch.
It was in the 1850s, when Capt. Couch and his brother-in-law, George Flanders, established their shipping wharf and warehouse on Couch’s square-mile land claim along the Willamette River, that the city’s notorious skid-road element sprang to life. In catering to the coming-and-going seamen, as well as neighborhood workingmen such as dock hands and lumberjacks, shrewd saloonkeepers set-up drinking dens and card rooms by the dozens, immediately west of the river on Couch’s platted land. In time, this area on Burnside Street and to the north, dubbed the North End, was rife with every imaginable vice—from beer guzzling and gambling and prostitution to shanghaiing, murder, and more mayhem. Though little detail has been written on the subject, starting in the latter 1800s, this seedy sector of town also became the backdrop for Portland’s tattoo scene.
Portland’s First Named Tattooers
In past histories, Portland’s very earliest tattooing traditions are mostly vague remembrances treated as incidental to the overall picture. In his 1938 book Holy Old Mackinaw, about Pacific Northwest lumberjacks, historian Stewart H. Holbrook, describes all “Bowery-like skidroads” as “composed of the same things as elsewhere,” and offers a generic description of tattooing, as such:
“a tattooing parlor might be next to a show window in which were displayed perhaps a basket of China tea, a bottle of American ink, a carton of soap, and some advertising cigarettes.”
Yet, references of late 1800s and early 1900s hint that Portland’s bustling riverport hosted a diversity of tattooers. On June 4, 1892, the Oregonian reported that a Japanese tattooer was in town to adorn the locals with his art. Then, there was runaway sailor “tramp tattooer,” 18-year-old Herbert Ashley Schoellhorn, who upon his return home, in 1904, contemplated opening a tattoo shop in one of the Willamette’s riverside warehouses.
As for the later characters that defined Portland’s tattoo scene, they weren’t as forgettable as the slight references suggest. They were a lusty breed that simultaneously blended into and created the atmosphere that flavored the raucous North End. In fact, the first tattooer to draw real attention in city reports found himself fully entangled in the scandalous skid-road activities.
Tattooer “Sailor” D.C. Kelly
When tattooed-from-head-to-feet, Irish-born seaman, “Sailor” D.C. Kelly (1874-?) arrived in Portland, in 1905, he settled right into the North End scene. As noted in an Oregon Journal advertisement, “Prof. Kelly, expert tattoo artist” opened-up at “275 North Fourth Street;” this was without a doubt a mixed-up address for one of several No. 275 corner saloons at either Burnside, or one of the streets just north, that intersected with 4th. (Kelly’s hangouts were nearest here and there was no such address as 275 “North” Fourth Street. See map further down showing saloons as well as the postscript explanation).
Though it wasn’t unusual for tattooers of this era to set-up in saloons, it was the standard in Portland’s skid-road area. At his tattoo stand, Kelly did his skin-etching amongst and on a slew of imbibing, gambling, rabble-rousing saloon frequenters—some of whom were more scandalous than others and escalated the chaos. Not long after Kelly’s arrival in town, his associations with a questionable saloon character certainly manifested into undue mayhem.
During his short while tattooing in the city and carousing the North End establishments, “Tattoo” Kelly, as he was otherwise known, became acquainted with 19-year-old Henry “Hiney” Rassman. The young hooligan, a sometimes worker at the Midway Saloon at nearby 269 Everett, convinced Kelly to help with a saloon hold-up.
On the evening of December 15th, 1905, the duo put their plan into action—Kelly wearing gloves to cover his heavily tattooed hands, and each wearing masks they had made from an umbrella in the backroom of Billie Brown’s Palm Saloon (at 4th and Couch).
The two only intended to rob the payday till at the Centennial Hotel’s saloon (481 Sherlock, by the docks), and pocket some extra cash, but all went awry. While they fled the hold-up scene, an old sailor named Thomas Flemmings tried to stop them. Allegedly, it was Kelly who fired shots behind them, killing Flemmings and injuring another man, L. G. Roush. The two assailants afterward met back at the Palm Saloon to split their money ($100-$125) before going their separate ways.
Kelly and Rassman weren’t identified until later, and Kelly presumably returned to tattooing in one saloon or the other. But people from the various saloons they patronized, including another unnamed tattooer, said they had seen them together at key times. Additionally, Kelly took some money from the register of the Queen Annie Saloon (at 4th and Burnside) and left a note stating he needed protection. With all these clues, authorities first caught Rassman, and he outed Kelly as the one who fired the fatal shots. The ensuing trial, which had skid-road ruffians and legal authorities pointing fingers in all directions, created quite a stir. Although Kelly protested his innocence throughout, the luck of the Irish wasn’t on his side. He was ultimately found guilty of second-degree murder and sentenced to life in the Oregon State Penitentiary.
According to a January 29, 1906 autobiography in the Oregon Journal, for the past 24 years “Sailor” D.C. Kelly had experienced the vagaries of life at sea and the wildest port cities around the world. By his own description, tattooing and making a living in Portland’s rough-and-tumble North End was in line with his seasoned existence; except that finally, here, the shady happenings overtook him and brought his adventures to an end.
Tattooer “Sailor” Gus Franso
A less controversial, yet still apt, character among Portland’s earliest tattooers was Sailor Gus Franso (real name Carl Augustus Fransen) (1871-1919). “The World Known Electric Tattooer in Ten Colors” appeared on the scene in 1907, after a several-year stint in Chicago at the Congress and Clark Street dime museums.
For more of Carmen Forquer Nyssen’s Sailor Gus the Tattooer Buzzworthy articles see:
Tales of Tattoo Wars & Troublemakers, Prof. Walter M. Lyons. Also, see her article on the Great Lakes Tattoo website, Chicago Dime Museum Tattooer: Sailor Gus
Like Kelly, Gus settled into a North End saloon straight away—one of the posher ones with an adjoining theatre, located at 2nd and Burnside and operated by Fred Fritz and his partner Jim Russell. Fritz and Russell’s establishment attracted ample business because of their nicer amenities and their willingness to bend laws by selling liquor on Sundays and serving beer during theater shows. Gus added to the place’s allure with his dandy two-sided, 4×3, white muslin tattoo sign out front, boasting his credentials:
“Stop and See Prof. Franso The Only Professional Tattoo Artist in the City.”
Within a couple years of practicing his craft with such flair, Gus became a “well-known North End character” with a respectable tattoo following. Tattoo customers were apparently plentiful during his days in the city (c.1907-1915), as a number of other tattooers alighted town with their needles, including Charles Louis Morgan (1886-1937), Charles Wesley “Red” Gibbons (1879-1964), and Hugo Jules Spitzer (1871-1942)—one or all possibly even partnered with him.
It so happens that at least several Portland tattooers are documented as working with Ol’ Gus. In 1909, he was joined by a “Thomas Franso” in the grandest saloon of them all—Erickson’s, at 243 Burnside, across the street from Fritz and Russell’s place.
Erickson’s Saloon—which had since passed hands from its original owner, Augustus “Gus” Erickson, to Hugo Fritz, then the team of Fred Fritz and James Henry Russell—was a lucrative spot for a couple of ink-slingers. “The blazing center,” as it was nicknamed, sat on an entire city block between 2nd and 3rd, with three ornately decorated entrances leading to dance halls, men’s clubs, gambling dens, and a 684-foot bar spanning the interior. Local lumberjacks and salty sea dogs from ports the world over partook in Erickson’s festivities, sometimes around the clock, and most definitely sought out tattooers to etch their skin with keepsakes of their revelry.
To help with the abundance of tattoo patrons—by the following year when he’d moved to nearby 23 Third Street—Gus had brought on, at different times, shipbuilder-tattooer Charles Thomas Western (possibly the real name of Thomas Franso) (1871-?), Christ Mickelson, and James E. Grady (1871-?).
For all his prosperity in tattooing, however, Ol’ Gus wasn’t immune to the foibles of the neighborhood. He was a frequenter of Erickson’s saloon himself, a vice that won out his better judgement. In December of 1910, he was caught giving a 17-year-old boy a whiskey and a 13-year old girl a beer. His arrests, and the confusion regarding improper citation and fines, prompted a new city ordinance, and built-up a lot of bad press. He ended up leaving for Salt Lake City, where he tattooed and took up bronco-riding, though inevitably, the excitement of Portland beckoned him back.
In 1913, he was again the city’s premier tattooer set-up in Fritz and Russell’s Saloon (this time he ditched the “Gus Franso” alias for his birth name Carl A. Fransen). He only finally moved on to California after Fritz & Russell’s 240 Burnside location closed its doors in 1914, and around the time the prohibition of both shanghaiing (1915) and alcohol (1916) hampered business and stole away a bit of the city’s skid-road essence.
Tattooer “Sailor” George Fosdick
Portland’s next premier artist, “Sailor” George Fosdick, is the one most recognized in tattoo history, due to his top-notch artistry and his longstanding years in the city (c. 1912-1946). For an experienced seaman like Fosdick—who had already galivanted the globe to distant lands, and run the gamut of life at sea braving seedy port cities and learning the sailor’s art—Portland’s tattoo scene was a natural draw. Although the addresses of his earliest tattoo spots in this vice-ridden sailor and workingmen’s haven are unknown, he undoubtedly joined the ranks of North End saloon-tattooers, perhaps even partnering with a few, while honing his electric tattooing skills on the raucous clientele. By World War I, at least, he had partnered with one of the city’s familiar tattooers, Charles “Red” Gibbons, at 275 Burnside, during a period when “thousands of doughboys and marines” were getting tattooed. But times were transitioning then.
In the earlier days of tattooers Sailor Kelly and Sailor Gus, 275 Burnside was the Queen Annie Saloon, operated by Alfred Boutillier. By the time Fosdick and Gibbons settled into this location, in 1918, the city’s crusade against alcohol and other “immoral” activities had succeeded in implementing Prohibition, and the one-time saloon had become a soft drink stand—variously owned by Ed Donovan and Albert Wohlers, then K. Hirabayashi, all of whom sold illegal liquor and were apprehended for it. The city cracked down hard on such bootleg cases, somewhat diluting the North End’s wild scene and changing the face of tattooing. In 1920, when Fosdick moved into his next location a couple doors down, at 269 ½ Burnside, his tattoo shop was a nook adjoining a barbershop, and he was the sole mainstay tattooer in Portland.
Up to this time, Fosdick was still partially leading a workingman’s life, intermittently going out to sea or toiling as a lumberman in his hometown Tacoma. However, with the lessened competition in Portland, he settled into his new place, at 269 ½ Burnside, ready to make his mark in tattooing. When the young Bert Grimm (see Bert Grimm bio) arrived in town from Chicago, in 1923, Fosdick had at his call a plethora of dedicated customers, upon whom the two inked some of the most beautifully composed bodysuits of the era. The artistically etched bodies of Jesse Lester “Jay” Gage (1897-1971) and Sailor Carl G. Lindquist (1896-1954) are two of their creations that are well-documented in photographs.
“The ending of the war slowed up the art, of course; still last year [1923] was on the biggest I’ve ever had…”
-Sailor George Fosdick. The Oregonian. July 27, 1924. Pg. 18
Another customer, tattooed by at least Fosdick in this same era, was Max Bohm (1892-1964), whose frontside was adorned with a vivid rendition of ‘Pharaoh’s Horses,’ a ‘cowgirl and horses design,’ and delicate rose filler-work honoring Portland, the “Rose City.” Along with Gage and Lindquist, Bohm had also picked up tattooing and plied his needle on the carnival circuit, and like the others, he had a workingman’s job to fall back on—laboring in the prolific Pacific Northwest lumber trade.
Portland’s newly crowned premier tattoo artist continued working his tattoo magic along Burnside Street for years—a guaranteed rite of the North End in an increasingly transforming scene. In 1924, when real estate investor Morris Taylor, started construction on a new building at No. 269 ½, Fosdick moved his business over to 267 1/2 Burnside in the Neppach House building, where he worked briefly with Fred Marquand (1905-1988). By the close of the 1920s, however, he had returned to No. 269 1/2.
In his brand new shopfront, outfitted with a professional “Tatto” globe to catch the eye of potential customers, he endured the start of the Great Depression that had ensued after the 1929 Stock Market Crash.
C. 1928-1929 zoomed-in view of Sailor George’s 269 1/2 tattoo shop. Note the “Tatto” Globe out front.
The c. 1928-1929 photo below depicts the corner of 3rd and Burnside. Sailor George’s 269 1/2 Burnside tattoo shop is just to the left of the Neppach House building (see zoomed-in view above). His old location at 267 1/2 Burnside was next door, at the leftmost end of the Neppach House. Sailor Gus Franso’s 23 3rd Street tattoo shop, c. 1910, had been in the same building around the corner, under the rightmost “Drugs” sign in this photo, to the right of the “Union Clothing Co.” sign.
A view of the same intersection, c. 1928, looking down Burnside from 3rd. Fosdick’s tattoo shop was located under the “Drugs” sign on the righthand side of Burnside in this photo. Sailor Gus Franso’s c. 1910 tattoo shop had been located on 3rd, rightmost in this photo, under the “Bromo-Beltz” sign.
When the city voted to widen Burnside Street in the early 1930s, and disrupt business even more by taking several feet of all storefronts, Fosdick left the city to find work; he applied for another Seaman’s Certificate and also tattooed around the Pacific Northwest, in Seattle, Tacoma, and Spokane, then down the West Coast as far south as Los Angeles. During his absence (c. 1933-1939), Charles “Red” Gibbons, “Sailor” Walter Larsen (1904-1957), Wayne Davis (1911-1982) and possibly Frank Kramer (1899-1988), took turns at the No. 269 ½ tattoo shop.
After years of scrambling for work during the Depression era, the c. 1939 European War business boom finally brought Fosdick back to his North End haunt, where he tattooed a short time with Sailor Walter, again joined with a barbershop (No. 269 ½ was now 319 ½ with the street re-numbering).
The below 1933 photo (same view as the above shot) shows Burnside Street after the street widening. The No. 269 1/2 tattoo shop was just past the first building on the right, under the white awning.
Portland Oregon’s Tattoo Legacy
The Burnside district kept gradually changing, yet Sailor George’s tattoo shop, imbued with the essence of age-old tradition, stood as a vestige of a once rough-and-tumble North End–until his death in 1946 and for a few more years. Even today, though the area has seen much redevelopment, the ghosts of tattooing’s far back past still lurk in the shadows and live on through remembrances of those connected to Portland’s tattoo lineages.
Related History:
For related Buzzworthy Tattoo History articles, see the short George Fosdick and Bert Grimm bios for more of their history and those they worked with. Also see Tales of Tattoo Wars and Troublemakers for Ol’ Sailor Gus’ later exploits in San Diego with Walter M. Lyons and Jack Julian.
Read more about short-time Portland tattooer Hugo Spitzer on Buzzworthy here: Pacific Northwest Tattooers, Oregon Ben & Friends
Visit Great Lakes Tattoo for a short article about Sailor Gus Franso’s Chicago days of tattooing and other amazing Chicago related tattoo history presented by Nick Colella and his crew. Also check out his Instagram page Chicago’s Tattoo History
And always, always make sure to stop into the numerous tattoo shops throughout the Northwest (from Vancouver B.C. to Portland, Oregon and south, and over to Idaho) that encompass and uphold the region’s tattoo history and lineages in their shops.
And please don’t miss out on Doug Kenck-Crispin’s Kick Ass Oregon History site, a treasure trove of interesting history and insights into Portland’s past, with a bit of information on August Erickson and Fred Fritz’s saloons, and the North End district.
A big thanks to the City of Portland (OR) Archives and the Oregon State Archives for their resources.
Postscripts:
1) The streets on Capt. Couch’s plot of land running east to west were originally labelled “A, B, C, D, E, F” etc. The streets, in accordance with these letters, were later changed to the names of Portland’s founding pioneers, i.e. Ankeny, Burnside, Couch, Davis, Everett, Flanders, and so on.
2) In regards to the address of D.C. Kelly’s tattoo shop: Prior to the street renumbering in 1933, the street numbers on Fourth Street north of Burnside didn’t go as high as No. 275. On the west side of the block they stopped at No. 109; east at No. 112. (The numbered streets were also referred to as street rather than avenue until 1933). On the east and west running streets in the North End, such as Burnside, Couch, Davis, Everett etc, the NE corner address for each one with their intersection at Fourth was No. 275. As noted, No. 275 Everett was the address of the Surprise Saloon, No. 275 Couch was the Palm Saloon, and No. 275 Burnside was the Queen Annie Saloon, all at the NE corner of Fourth.
3) Bert Grimm often told the story of how he started tattooing in Portland, in 1909, with Sailor Gus and Charlie Western. There isn’t much evidence to support his tale though; his family lived in Missouri at that time. Most likely he assumed the story of these experiences from either his mentor Sailor George Fosdick or his friend Red Gibbons, since they both tattooed in the city at the same time as the two older tattooers.
4) Although tattooer Carl A. Fransen went by the moniker “Sailor Gus,” and
in a 1906 Chicago Inter-Ocean article told tales about serving aboard the U.S.S. Oregon during the Spanish American War, he had been dishonorably discharged from the U.S. Navy in 1898.
5) Historian Stewart H. Holbrook (1893-1964) was aware of Portland’s North End tattooers in his day. Writer Wallace Stegner (1909-1993), in his book interview Stegner: Conversations on History and Literature, recalls that Holbrook took him down to Burnside Street, where they spent the day getting “pie-eyed,” and Holbrook threatened to have him tattooed.
6) Early Pacific Northwest tattooers were unquestionably more abundant than we know: A December 18, 1891 Seattle Post-intelligencer advertisetment boasts: “Tattooing performed and removed by the celebrated tattooing artist, F.A. Davenport, 611 Fourth.” Could this have been the same F.A. Davenport who plied his needle in New York City?
Questions or Comments? Email:
carmennyssen@buzzworthytattoo.com
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