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1880s & 1890s
Members of the Throckmorton family begin staking claims in Alaska Territory and in the Western Yukon. One scion, Josias Poe Throckmorton, gets phenomenally rich and begins buying up land in Clatsop and Tillamook Counties, Oregon.
1905 At the Lewis & Clark Centennial Exposition in Portland, Josias Poe Throckmorton exhibits his plat drawings for the original Ravensgate. His family begins selling plots of land to interested settlers. 1909 Work begins to dig the canal system and divert the Nehalem River. 1914 Twenty-two thousand residents vote to incorporate as the City of Ravensgate, approve the city charter, elect Josias Poe Throckmorton its first mayor, secede from Tillamook County, and incorporate Nehalem County. Effective date of all of the above: August 13, 1915, a Friday. 1917 The Ravensgate canal system is completed. Also, the Ravensgate Blackbirds join the Northwest League as the city’s first professional baseball team. 1921 Josias Poe Throckmorton’s eldest son, Jericho, begins work on a “time machine.” He also designs and builds the Al-Amarja Shrine Temple in the Peak City neighborhood. 1922 Increasingly dissatisfied with Mayor Throckmorton’s enforcement of Prohibition, the populace elects bottling-plant tycoon Guillermo “Bottle Bill” d’Ambrosio to replace him. 1923 Mayor d’Ambrosio creates the Bureau of Police, the forerunner of the Ravensgate Bureau of Public Safety (RBPS), because of the Nehalem County Sheriff’s diligence in enforcing Prohibition. 1925 Mayor d’Ambrosio enacts a public ordinance that prohibits wearing a mask in public except during the evenings of Mardi Gras and Halloween. The ordinance targets the mayor’s two chief headaches—-the KKK and the first costumed “men of mystery.” 1927 Jericho Throckmorton goes insane and is confined in Throckmorton Sanitarium. 1933 The Tillamook Burn devastates Ravensgate. Mayor d’Ambrosio immediately organizes reconstruction. 1942 A Japanese submarine shells Ravensgate Island, damaging the Al-Amarja Shrine Temple and knocking over six trees in Corben Bluffs State Park. 1944 An influx of steel-industry and shipbuilding jobs brings the first significant groups of African-Americans to Ravensgate. In a city that previously segregated along white-Asian lines, segregation became more stratified. Mayor d’Ambrosio reacted by desegregating municipal buildings and firing those city employees who protested. 1948 “Bottle Bill” d’Ambrosio dies in office and is replaced by Lucretius “Luke” Throckmorton. 1955 Rumor has it that the first nuclear reactor at Throckmorton Polytechnic University melted down, but that the Throckmortons covered it up. 1966 A freak power outage interrupts the mayoral and Assembly elections as Luke Throckmorton’s lead narrows. Polls close early. 1969 Sometime in late February, someone abandons a baby on the steps of the St. Hubbins Orphanage in the Rust City neighborhood. The nun who discovers the baby names him Victor O’Neill Charlton—-after, in order, a saint, the local monsignor and a brand of cigarettes. 1969-1971 Superheroes Massdriver, The Frozen Ghost, Paladin and Romanyi first appear in public. 1972 The City of Ravensgate votes unanimously for Richard Nixon for President—-yet state and federal investigations turn up no evidence of wrongdoing. Also, Team Hyperion forms, and Philip Snow joins the Bureau of Public Safety as a rookie patrolman. 1974 Luke Throckmorton retires. His son Nehemiah is elected mayor by a landslide. 1978 A consortium of local brewing companies purchases the Ravensgate Blackbirds minor-league baseball team and petitions for entry into the Pacific Coast League. The team will begin play in 1980 as the Ravensgate Brewers. 1981 The City of Ravensgate has grown to the point that it makes Nehalem County government redundant. The first of five ballot measures to merge the city and county fails at the polls. 1985 The fifth ballot measure to merge the city and county passes. All county bureaus—-except the District Attorney’s Office—-merge with their city counterparts and eliminate redundant positions via attrition. County DA Delbert Yoakham and four successive Ravensgate City Attorneys would spend the next 17 years squabbling over territory and how to merge their departments. 1989 First appearance of The Somnambulist. Also, maverick educator Joshua Caine starts Collegium Caine in one wing of Devereaux Manor; its mission is to teach super-powered children right from wrong and to serve the greater good. 1991 Team Hyperion adds Brother Knight. The team also investigates local police corruption, but with little or no results. Romanyi decides to press her investigation. 1993 Team Hyperion’s airplane explodes under mysterious circumstances. The crime would go unsolved for nine years. 1994 Brother Knight, now known as Paladin Noir, forms a new Team Hyperion with the aid of Halitosis and The Somnambulist. Paladin Noir also pushes for the City Assembly to name something in town after Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. The Assembly relents, despite Assemblyman Orville Ketchum’s protests, and renames the Grand Channel after the civil rights leader. Within the year, Imp, a new Brother Knight and Caballera join Team Hyperion. 1997 In efforts to maintain public order, the City Assembly amends “Bottle Bill” d’Ambrosio’s forgotten no-masks-in-public law to prohibit “the unregistered practice of superheroism.” It exempted “registered” superheroes from the law, required violators of the law to be registered (and publicly known to the community) as “potentially dangerous super-powered criminals,” and carried a mandatory penalty of one year in jail. Passage of the ordinance makes Joshua Caine suspicious, and he begins training some of his students in the arts of superheroism and subterfuge. 1998 Nehemiah Throckmorton names as his new chief of staff his niece Salome Throckmorton-d’Aubaine, supermodel and daughter of Ravensgate Oregon Journal publisher Jean-Pierre d’Aubaine. 1999 Extremely violent copycat WTO riots in Ravensgate result in 1500 police-brutality complaints, $700 million in property damage, three deaths, 400 injuries, 600 arrests, and mass firings at the top of the police command chain. Philip Snow becomes Superintendent of Public Safety. Also, a man from the future named Maximillian Morell arrives in Ravensgate and becomes a student of Joshua Caine. 2000 Nehemiah Throckmorton dies in office. The City Assembly appoints his niece to replace him. 2001 Superintendent of Public Safety Philip Snow announces his mayoral candidacy, Mayor Salome Throckmorton-d’Aubaine announces hers, the mayor amasses a $10-million campaign fund, the events after 9-11 call Paladin Noir away to duty in the War Against Terrorism, and voters pass a referendum to merge the County DA and City Attorney into the Office of the Metropolitan Prosecutor. 2002 See also Government, Media Archive and Our Story for details. A group of Joshua Caine’s students begin their superhero careers as “unregistered vigilantes” wanted by the police—-until they turn up evidence of widespread corruption up to and including the mind-controlling of the current Team Hyperion and the near-massacre of its predecessors. To protest investigations into police corruption, 31 top police brass resign out from under Superintendent Philip Snow and the Ravensgate Police Guild goes on strike. These events lead up to the Rust City Massacre and the April Fool’s Day Riots. |