Town file
Alsea, Oregon
Alsea, Oregon (Benton County, Oregon) is the town in one episode of Small Town Murder, the comedy true-crime podcast: episode 407, "Attempted Threesomes, Russian Brides & Time Travel" (20 July 2023). In the spring of 2017 a twenty-six-year-old Russian woman named Anna Rapkina was shot in the back of the head and left on a remote logging landing in the woods outside Alsea, Oregon.
- Town
- Alsea
- County
- Benton County
- State
- Oregon
- Country
- USA
- Episodes
- 407
- Approximate location
- 44.382, -123.596
Episode 407 / 20 July 2023 / 176 min / full
Attempted Threesomes, Russian Brides & Time Travel
"We are going to Alsea, Oregon... It's in Benton County, area code 541." about 0:04:40
The case: Murder of Anna Rapkina (April 16th, 2017). Read the case file.
The figures, as told in 2023
- Population
- 82
- Median age
- 26
- Median household income
- $55,000
- Median home value
- $413,800
- Two-bedroom rent
- $1,130 a month
- Cost of living
- 88
- Religious
- 26.4%
- Property crime
- exactly average
- Violent crime
- ▼ about half the national average
History, in brief
- The original Alsea settlement first appeared as 'Alcia' or 'ALSEYA' on a General Land Office survey map in the late 1850s, with a Y between the E and A. about 0:06:00
- A few people from the east had moved out and taken donation land claims in the area. about 0:06:20
- The government set aside land for anyone who would come and improve it. about 0:06:28
- A post office was established in 1871. about 0:06:36
- Alsea was a small ranch and farm community, very isolated, and without the railroad nobody could easily get there. about 0:06:41
- After highways and trucks arrived, logging and foresting grew, and demand for lumber boomed after the Second World War. about 0:06:55
- Several small sawmills operated in the valley and almost all had closed by the 1970s. about 0:07:20
- The town prospered in the 1980s through heavy harvesting, until environmental restrictions and threatened species such as the spotted owl curbed the timber industry. about 0:07:28
- The ranger station closed in 1996 and about a hundred workers were moved to another Forest Service office. about 0:08:09
The reviews read out
4 stars
"The reviewer enjoys being close to small cities but outside their limits; farmers markets are abundant in spring and summer and a few last through autumn, but utilities are almost monopolised in each category, leaving little or no choice."about 0:08:42
1 star
"The reviewer left Corvallis in November 2020 and asks what happened to Benton County management; calls the police department ridiculous, says officers are about twenty-two and rude, and objects to a gun shop opening across from a school and health and mental care building."about 0:09:20
Nearest Small Town Murder towns
- Eddyville, Oregon20 miles
- Newport, Oregon28 miles
- Springfield, Oregon38 miles
- Dallas, Oregon40 miles
- Tillamook, Oregon75 miles
- Colton, Oregon79 miles
Everything here is as told in the episode, on the date it went out; figures and places may have changed since. Endings are covered: open an episode and use the spoiler switch to read them.