Sight #4: County Coroner's Office

A grave undertaking

Scanned image of handwritten page of Record of Coroner's Investigations. The entries are from 1894 and include details, such as name of the deceased, their age, gender, residence, death date and place, the date of the inquest, the cause of death, etc.

County Coroner records, Record of Coroner's Investigations, Multnomah County Archives, Portland (Or.).

From 1854 to 1965, the Multnomah County Coroner investigated suspicious deaths that occurred in the County. The Coroner's Office also held inquests to determine the cause of deaths. Most County Coroners were undertakers. By 1913, a physician was serving in the position. In September that year, a report for the Taxpayer's League of Portland recommended that the position not be an elected office. It wasn’t until 1965 that the functions of the County Coroner became the province of the Multnomah County Medical Examiner.

Few records survive from the County Coroner’s Office. Those that do are often microfilm copies. Pictured here you see one of the few examples of an original handwritten record, the Record of Coroner’s Investigations, 1894-1923. The Coroner's Office used this bound volume to record the name of the deceased, their age, gender, residence, death date and place, the date of the inquest, the cause of death, and the jury verdict, as well as other information when available. Among the murders the Coroner investigated in 1894, on page 3, was that of G.W. Sayers, murdered by unknown Parties on September 26, 1894. Sayers was an opium smuggler whose former business partner was Bunko Kelly, the Kidnapping King of Portland. Kelly was found guilty of Sayer's murder.