Old Town Portland / Skidmore Historic District · Shanghai Tunnels
Ghost City Tours operates ghost walking tours in dozens of U.S. cities, with Portland among its programs advertised as running since 2012. In Portland the company runs three separately ticketed products: the family-friendly Ghostly Shadows of Portland Tour, open to all ages; the 16-and-up Dark Below Ghost Tour; and the 21-and-up Portland Haunted Pub Crawl.
All three tours are walking tours through Old Town Portland and the historic Skidmore District, staying entirely on public streets and sidewalks. Per the operator's own FAQ, none of the tours enter the historic Shanghai Tunnels themselves — most of the original tunnel system is privately owned or inaccessible, so guides instead walk the streets above the tunnel network and point out surface locations tied to it while narrating its history.
None of the three Portland tour pages discloses a named meeting-point landmark. Each product page lists the meeting point only as 'TBD, Portland, OR 97204' and states the exact address and photos are sent in the booking confirmation email. The operator recommends rideshare or public transit over driving, citing limited downtown parking.
Sources
- https://ghostcitytours.com/portland-oregon/
- https://ghostcitytours.com/portland-oregon/dark-below-ghost-tour/
- https://ghostcitytours.com/portland-oregon/ghostly-shadows-tour/
- https://ghostcitytours.com/portland-oregon/haunted-pub-crawl/
ApparitionsUnexplained SoundsFeelings of Being Watched
The Dark Below Ghost Tour is built around the Shanghai Tunnels, which the operator's copy describes as a network of passageways linking basements, saloons, and the Willamette River waterfront, used from the 1850s into the early 1900s for 'shanghaiing' unsuspecting men onto outbound ships. The operator's FAQ states the tunnels themselves are not entered on the tour — guides walk the surface streets above the tunnel system — and separately states that 'shanghaiing in Portland is absolutely historical fact, though some tunnel legends have been exaggerated over time.' The operator's broader Portland content also references Chinese immigrants targeted by exclusion-era laws and persecution, and Prohibition-era speakeasies connected to the same tunnel network, framed as historical background for the tour rather than named stops.
The Portland Haunted Pub Crawl is framed by the operator around pioneer-era saloon history and 'documented hauntings' at Portland's old bars, without naming the four specific bars visited on its own booking page. The operator's general Portland content separately describes the White Eagle Saloon, built in 1905, as 'one of the country's most haunted' bars, though the operator's own FAQ does not confirm it as a fixed stop on any specific tour route ('specific stops may vary').
All of this is the tour operator's own marketing and narrative material, not documented history verified independently for this listing. It is included here as a description of what the tours cover and claim, not as an endorsement of any specific historical claim — including the shanghaiing narrative, which remains a debated topic among Portland historians outside Ghost City Tours' own materials.
