Portland’s unofficial motto is “Keep Portland Weird” something stolen from Austin, Texas. And Portland certainly marches to the beat of its own drum. One place that is helping keep Portland weird is the Skeleton Key Odditorium, a 2,500 square foot museum filled with oddities, spooky treasures, and best of all, a spirit board collection.

Visitors pass through dark rooms filled with art, supernatural artifacts, death masks, uranium glass and radium clocks, Victorian mourning items, sideshow oddities and more. One of the more unique items I saw was a piece of vivianite, a blue-green phosphate mineral that forms in decomposing bodies that are exposed to iron and water. Some highlights of the sideshow area were a cyclops goat, a product of a congenital condition called cyclopia, and an autographed photo of conjoined twins Violet and Daisy Hilton.

Looming over one of the larger rooms was a painting of an elegant brick mansion located in nearby Grants Pass. Painted in 1913 by George McNeil O’Brian, it is dubbed “House of Tragedy” and depicts the residents who met their untimely ends on the property. According to the museum, after their first home burned to the ground, the Heberlie family built this home. In 1901 husband Louis and wife Lizzie welcomed a son, Lou, but just a few years later the county voted in favor of prohibition, financially damaging Louis’ saloon. He later invested in a grocery company, but it went bankrupt. Then Lou was killed by a delivery truck in front of their home. Distraught, Louis hanged himself in the home. Lizzie carried on until she was attacked by a cat in 1933 and died of an infection.

Locked away in a display case is a green dress, worn by the only safe thing to wear it, a mannequin. Beginning in the 1770s arsenic and copper were used to create a lush and desirable green pigment. It found its way into wallpaper, books, paint, and clothing. But eventually those who manufactured it, lived around it, and wore it became ill, and some even died. Eventually the pigment was used for insecticide.

Green continued to be deadly into the 20th century, but this time thanks to radium, a radioactive element that was used in paint to create self-luminous clocks. The green glowing aspects of these dials were hand-painted, typically by women. To ensure the finest point on their bushes, they would place the brushes between their lips, known as “pointing” and slowly infecting them. The results were terrifying; loss of teeth, becoming anemic, infertility, ulcers, and more. In 1928 five women sued their employer, the Radium Dial Company. They settled out of court, with the women receiving an initial payment, and then a payment each year for the rest of their lives, although none lived for very much longer. While not one of the five, it is believed the last woman to die as a result of painting radium face clocks, died in 1959.

Step into the world of the macabre at the Skeleton Key Odditorium if you dare at 939 SW 10th Avenue in downtown Portland. Learn more about admission and hours on their website.