48 Fun Facts About Portland

The coin used to name Portland, known as the Portland Penny, was minted in which year?

The Portland Penny is an 1835 US copper cent, a decade older than the 1845 toss it decided; it is displayed at the Oregon Historical Society in Portland.

Portland sits at the confluence of the Columbia River and which other river?

The Willamette flows north into the Columbia at Portland's northern edge; Lewis and Clark passed the site in 1805, and Clark explored the lower Willamette in April 1806.

Portland's early nickname 'Stumptown' came from what?

Stumptown mocked the stumps left standing as trees were cut to build the town; the site had been called 'The Clearing', and at its 1851 incorporation Portland had just over 800 people.

Portland's 'Rose City' nickname dates to 1888, but in what year did the city make it official?

The council formally adopted 'City of Roses' in 2003; Georgiana Pittock, the Oregonian publisher's wife, had founded the Portland Rose Society in 1889, and the first Rose Festival ran in 1907.

Pioneer Courthouse Square, opened in 1984, occupies the block once home to what?

Pioneer Courthouse Square, opened in April 1984 with bricks sold to donors by name, covers the block where the Portland Hotel stood from 1890 until 1951, then a parking lot.

How much of downtown Portland does Powell's flagship bookstore take up?

Powell's City of Books fills a full city block on West Burnside, about 68,000 square feet; Walter Powell founded it in 1971, and the flagship has nine colour-coded rooms.

Roughly how wide is Mill Ends Park, once Guinness's world's smallest park?

Mill Ends Park is a circle about two feet across; Oregon Journal columnist Dick Fagan planted flowers in an empty lamppost hole in 1948 and claimed leprechauns lived there.

Portlandia is the second-largest copper repoussé work in the US after which one?

Only the Statue of Liberty is a larger hammered-copper figure; Raymond Kaskey's 1985 Portlandia, based on the city seal, came up the river by barge to the Portland Building.

Which two doughnuts did Voodoo Doughnut stop selling by 2006 after a warning from health officials?

The NyQuil Glazed and Pepto-Crushed-Tums doughnuts were dropped after health officials warned against medicating pastries; founders 'Cat Daddy' Pogson and Tres Shannon kept the pink boxes and the in-shop weddings.

The 'Keep Portland Weird' slogan was borrowed from which other US city?

Austin's 'Keep Austin Weird' campaign inspired it; Music Millennium owner Terry Currier brought the slogan north, and the mural faces Voodoo Doughnut in Old Town.

Roughly how many acres does Forest Park, one of America's largest urban forest reserves, cover?

Forest Park covers more than 5,100 acres, about 5,200, along the Tualatin Mountains west of downtown; roughly 27 of the Wildwood Trail's 30 miles run through it.

The International Rose Test Garden in Washington Park was set up in 1917 to protect what?

It is the oldest continuously operating public rose test garden in the US, with more than 10,000 bushes of some 650 varieties.

Which architect designed the Portland Japanese Garden's Cultural Village, added in 2017?

Kengo Kuma, the Tokyo architect of the Japan National Stadium, designed the Cultural Village that opened in April 2017; the garden itself dates to 1967 in Washington Park.

The Trail Blazers won their only NBA championship in which year?

Portland beat Philadelphia in six games in June 1977, with Bill Walton as Finals MVP, in only the franchise's seventh season; that title run also started the 814-game home sellout streak.

In the 1984 NBA draft the Trail Blazers picked Sam Bowie second overall, one spot ahead of which player?

Portland took Bowie second and Chicago grabbed Michael Jordan third, behind Houston's Hakeem Olajuwon; the Blazers repeated the pattern in 2007, taking Greg Oden ahead of Kevin Durant.

The Trail Blazers' 814 consecutive home sellouts, 1977 to 1995, set a record for what?

It began in the 1977 championship season, decades before the arena was renamed the Moda Center; the Red Sox later ran a longer streak.

What does the Timbers' mascot Timber Joey do each time the team scores?

Timber Joey chainsaws a slab off a log after every Timbers goal and hands it to the scorer; he took over from Timber Jim in June 2008, three years before the club joined MLS.

The Timbers won the 2015 MLS Cup 2-1 against which club, thanks to the fastest goal in MLS Cup history?

Diego Valeri scored 27 seconds in against the Columbus Crew at Mapfre Stadium on December 6, 2015, and Rodney Wallace added the second; Portland held on 2-1 for its first MLS Cup.

The Portland Thorns' recognised supporters' group goes by what name?

The Rose City Riveters, formed when the Thorns launched in 2013, occupy the north end of Providence Park; the Thorns won the inaugural NWSL title that year.

The Steel Bridge, opened in 1912, is the only bridge in the world with what feature?

Its double decks lift independently, the lower rail deck telescoping into the upper, a design found on no other bridge; it replaced an 1888 span that was the West Coast's first steel bridge.

Tilikum Crossing, opened across the river in 2015, is unusual among big US bridges because it bans what?

Tilikum Crossing carries MAX trains, buses, streetcars, cyclists and pedestrians but no private cars; its name is Chinook Jargon for 'people', and it was the metro area's first new river bridge since the Fremont in 1973.

The St. Johns Bridge, built in 1931, is a suspension bridge in which architectural style?

David Steinman's 1931 St. Johns Bridge is Gothic revival, with pointed-arch steel towers about 400 feet tall painted 'St. Johns green'; Cathedral Park beneath it takes its name from those arches.

Portland lies on top of a dormant volcanic zone with what name?

The Boring Lava Field, named for the town of Boring east of the city, holds dozens of small Plio-Pleistocene vents; Mount Tabor, an extinct cinder cone in the southeast, rises to 636 feet.

Mount Hood, the peak that dominates Portland's eastern horizon on clear days, is how tall?

Mount Hood stands 11,249 feet, Oregon's highest peak, an active stratovolcano named in 1792 for British admiral Samuel Hood by Lieutenant William Broughton of Vancouver's expedition.

Timberline Lodge on Mount Hood served as the exterior of the Overlook Hotel in which film?

Stanley Kubrick used Timberline Lodge's exterior for the Overlook Hotel in The Shining (1980), changing the fateful room number from 217 to 237 at the lodge's request; the WPA built the lodge in 1936-37.

What destroyed Vanport, briefly Oregon's second-largest city, on Memorial Day 1948?

A Columbia River flood breached a 200-foot section of railroad berm at about 4:05 p.m.; 15 people died and some 18,000 lost their homes, and Delta Park and Portland International Raceway later rose on the site.

The college that refused to close after the Vanport flood and reopened downtown became which institution?

The Vanport Extension Center, set up in 1946 for returning veterans, reopened downtown after the flood and became Portland State College in 1955 and Portland State University in 1969.

Which Portland-built ship is the most decorated in US naval history for one action?

USS Liberty, launched at Portland's Oregon Shipbuilding yard in 1945 as a Victory ship, was attacked by Israeli forces on June 8, 1967; its crew's honours include a Medal of Honor for Captain William McGonagle.

Roughly how many blocks did Portland's Great Fire of 1873 destroy?

The fire of August 2, 1873, burned about twenty blocks (22 by most counts) of the waterfront district and did $1.3 million in damage; the city nonetheless grew to 46,385 people by the 1890 census.

Portland's bronze four-bowl drinking fountains are named after which lumber baron who paid for the first 20?

Simon Benson, a teetotal timber millionaire, gave $10,000 in 1912 for the first 20 fountains, partly to keep loggers out of saloons; 52 four-bowl Benson Bubblers stand downtown, and one went to sister city Sapporo.

Which Portland mayor (1985-92) had earlier posed in a raincoat for the 'Expose Yourself to Art' poster?

Bud Clark, the tavern keeper who owned the Goose Hollow Inn, flashed a statue in the 1978 poster and upset the establishment in 1984 to win City Hall, where he cycled to work and cried 'Whoop, Whoop!'

Portland's Pittock Mansion was nearly demolished after damage from which 1962 event?

The Columbus Day Storm of October 12, 1962, tore off part of the roof; residents raised money toward the city's $225,000 purchase in 1964, and the restored mansion opened to the public in 1965.

Which Sleater-Kinney musician starred in Portlandia with Fred Armisen?

Carrie Brownstein, Sleater-Kinney's guitarist, co-created and starred in Portlandia across eight seasons from 2011; Kyle MacLachlan played the city's fictional mayor, and the show won a Peabody.

Which Simpsons character is named after a street in Matt Groening's native Portland?

Ned Flanders takes his name from NW Flanders Street; Lovejoy, Powell, Quimby and Kearney are Portland streets too, while Homer, Marge, Lisa and Maggie come from Groening's own family.

Nike, headquartered near Beaverton in the Portland metro area, was founded in 1964 under what name?

Bill Bowerman cooked the first waffle sole on his wife's waffle iron in 1971, the same year Carolyn Davidson's Swoosh first appeared.

The famous teal carpet at Portland International Airport, installed in 1987, represents what?

The 1987 design by SRG Partnership shows the airport's crossing runways as seen from the control tower at night; when it was torn out in 2015, fans put it on socks, beer labels and tattoos.

The Oregon Zoo began in 1888 when pharmacist Richard Knight kept what behind his drugstore?

Knight kept two bears, a grizzly and a brown bear bought from sailors, in a cage behind his downtown pharmacy and gave them to the city in 1888; the zoo's elephant Packy, born in 1962, became its star.

Portland's Grand Floral Parade is the second-largest all-floral procession in the US after which event?

Only Pasadena's Tournament of Roses parade is a larger all-floral procession; Portland's Rose Festival began in 1907 and has crowned a queen from local high schools since 1930.

Portland is Oregon's largest city, but which city is the state capital?

Salem, about 45 miles south of Portland, has been the capital since 1851 apart from a brief 1855 move to Corvallis; Oregon became the 33rd state on February 14, 1859.

Until August 2023, what were Portland drivers legally not allowed to do at a gas station?

Oregon barred drivers from pumping their own gas from 1951 until House Bill 2426 took effect on August 4, 2023; the new law lets stations offer self-service at up to half their pumps.

The city of Portland, Oregon was named after Portland, Maine, whose Latin motto 'Resurgam' means what?

'Resurgam', Latin for 'I will rise again', was adopted by Portland, Maine, after repeated fires; the Great Fire of July 4, 1866, destroyed most of its commercial buildings and half its churches.

Maine's Portland Head Light was completed in 1791 on the orders of which president?

George Washington ordered the tower finished with a $1,500 congressional appropriation of 1790; lit in January 1791, Portland Head Light was the first lighthouse completed by the federal government and is Maine's oldest.

Portland, Maine sits on a peninsula in which bay?

Portland, Maine, occupies a peninsula jutting into Casco Bay, dotted with the Calendar Islands; it is Maine's most populous city and the birthplace of poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.

The Portland Building, completed in 1982, is a landmark of which architectural style?

Michael Graves's Portland Building, completed in 1982 as city offices, was among the first major postmodern public buildings, with its teal tiles, oversized keystone and garlands; Portlandia stands at its entrance.

Portland's regional government, Metro, is unique in the US for what reason?

Metro, created by voters in 1978 and home-rule chartered in 1992, is the only directly elected metropolitan planning body in the US, with a council president and six councillors elected by district across three counties.

Clusters of Portland food carts sharing a single lot are known locally as what?

Food cart pods, clusters of carts parked on one lot with shared seating, are a Portland institution; the city counted several hundred carts by the 2010s, with big pods on SE Hawthorne and downtown.

What was removed in 1974 to make way for Tom McCall Waterfront Park along the downtown riverfront?

Harbor Drive, a four-lane highway along the seawall, was closed and torn out in 1974, the first such freeway removal in the US, and Tom McCall Waterfront Park opened on the land in 1978.

Which Portland mayor became the city's first openly gay mayor in 2009?

Sam Adams, a former chief of staff to mayor Vera Katz, took office in January 2009 as the first openly gay mayor of a major US city and served a single term.