Nettie Connett: The Woman Who Became a Legend

An unforgettable figure in the history of Sandy Oregon

A logger, moonshiner, midwife, and a mountain force—Nettie Connett lived by her own rules

In the hills above Sandy, Oregon, one woman carved out a reputation unlike any other. Nettie Connett was a logger, trapper, midwife, cattle rancher, bootlegger, card player, and—for a time—the most notorious moonshiner in the state. She lived life on her terms, with a rifle in one hand and a comeback in the other.

Born March 5, 1880, in Independence, Oregon, Nettie Loraine Connett was one of ten children. Her father was a woodsman, and the forest was always in her blood. At 18, she ended a brief and abusive marriage, took her baby and $80, and left for Portland determined to “make her mark.” She did. By her early 20s, she was running restaurants and managing the Ohio Hotel, which she eventually owned outright. But city life didn’t suit her for long.

In 1910, Nettie sold her hotel and homesteaded 80 acres in the heavily timbered Aims district, east of Sandy. Land was cheap, and she saw its value. Over the next 50 years, she bought and sold over 2,000 acres, raised livestock, cut telephone poles, and logged saw timber. She drove teams of horses, operated a gasoline Caterpillar, and worked side-by-side with the toughest men in the woods. And she usually did it wearing jeans, boots, a wool shirt, and her signature red felt hunting cap.

Queen of the Moonshiners

Nettie didn’t just harvest timber—she harvested liquor. In 1919, two months before Prohibition took effect nationally, she was arrested for running one of the largest and most elaborate stills ever found in Oregon. Hidden in her farmhouse, the setup included a mash room with a tin-lined floor and a 30-foot pipe feeding the still in her basement.

She greeted the federal agents with a grin: “Walk right in and take a look.” Nettie was fined $100 in local court, but the feds weren’t done. Her hogs—stumbling and squealing after eating spent mash—had tipped off hired hand A.W. Brewer. He testified that Nettie had shown him the still, given him whiskey, and asked him to stir the mash. At trial, the press ran with it: “Pigs Get Soused on Mash; Squeal and Walk Zig Zag.”

She was convicted in federal court in 1920, fined $500, and sentenced to six months in jail. Nettie appealed, then promptly got caught again—this time with liquor in her car. Months later, officers discovered a second still, this one hidden in an underground cave with a tunnel entrance, piped creek water, and 500 gallons of mash. By now, the press was calling her “Queen of the Moonshiners.”

Despite the headlines, she joked her way through it all. When told another bootlegger’s still was being raided next, she asked to come along—“Just to compare setups.”

Eventually, she ran out of appeals and served her six-month sentence in 1921. After that, she left the moonshine business—or got better at hiding it.

Hunter, Healer, Hellraiser

The rest of Nettie’s life was no less legendary. She hunted deer, bear, bobcat, and cougar with a .30-30, even after losing her trigger finger in a roping accident. On the first day of hunting season, she was usually the first to return to Sandy with a carcass in the back of her battered green Studebaker pickup. Kids would run outside the school to see her latest trophy. Teachers only asked that she refrain from using her “logger talk.”

Irene’s Tavern in Sandy, which she called “my office,” was her second home. There, she met loggers, made deals, bought drinks, and—well into her 70s—stood on her head on a barstool to prove she still could. She swore like a logger and chewed tobacco, but locals also remembered her for bringing food to families in need and quietly helping neighbors. She was said to have performed over 20 births as a midwife, and often left anonymous donations of food or cash.

With Dr. Walter Noehren, she co-founded the Nettie Connett Medical Care Foundation, donating $500 of her own money to help provide medical care to Sandy’s elderly and poor. When asked about her success, she simply said: “I worked, you know.”

The Final Ride

Nettie’s driving was the stuff of legend. She’d plow through town in the middle of the road, taking out the occasional fence post. As one local said, “Kids used to jump in the ditch when they saw her coming.” In 1964, at age 84, she pulled onto Proctor Boulevard without looking and was struck by a logging truck. She died five months later in a Portland nursing home.

She was buried at Cliffside Cemetery in Sandy. Her survivors included her son, W.R. Dempsey, a grandchild, two great-grandchildren, and a sister. Soon after her passing, Sandy named a street after her: Nettie Connett Drive. What would she have thought about having a road named in her honor? “She would have loved it,” said one local. “She liked attention.”

And when people asked her about the wild stories that followed her everywhere, Nettie always gave the same answer: “They’re all true. Whatever they say about me is so.”

If you enjoyed this story about Nettie Connett, you may also like:

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• Howard’s Hotel and the Lost Town of Sharon Springs
• Cal Calvert: Postcard Photographer and Aviation Dreamer

Sources

• The Oregonian, June 28, 1922 — “Moonshine Still Discovered Near Bull Run; Woman Arrested.”
• The Oregonian, July 1, 1922 — Coverage of Nettie Connett’s conviction and sentencing.
• The Oregon Journal, June 1922 — Articles on the Bull Run moonshine raid.
• The Oregon Journal, July 1922 — Reports on Nettie Connett’s court appearance.
• The Oregonian, October 21, 1964 — Obituary of Annette Loraine “Nettie” Connett.
• U.S. Census Records, 1900–1940 — Connett family, Polk County, Portland, and Bull Run listings.
• Multnomah County Court Records — Divorce proceedings of Nettie Connett and William Dempsey (restoration of maiden name).
• Portland City Directories, early 1900s — Listings for Nettie Connett’s hotel and restaurant operations, including the Ohio Hotel.
• Sandy Historical Society Archives — Oral histories and anecdotes about Nettie Connett’s later life in Sandy.