50 Fun Facts About Portland

Asa Lovejoy lost the 1845 coin toss that named Portland, Oregon. What did he want to call it?

Pettygrove, from Portland, Maine, won two out of three tosses, and the copper cent they used is on display at the Oregon Historical Society Museum.

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

It turned up in a safe deposit box that Lovejoy left behind, a decade older than the toss itself.

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

The city was first documented for Europeans in 1805 by Lewis and Clark, who found the Multnomah and Clackamas bands of Chinook people living there.

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

Before that the site was simply called 'The Clearing', and by its 1851 incorporation the town had just over 800 inhabitants.

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

Georgiana Pittock, wife of the Oregonian publisher, founded the Portland Rose Society in 1889, and the first official Rose Festival followed in 1907.

According to the 2020 census, Portland ranked where among US cities by population?

It counted 652,503 residents, and its population had climbed by more than 90,000 between 2000 and 2014 alone.

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

Walter Powell founded it in 1971; the flagship has nine colour-coded rooms and more than 3,500 sections.

Mill Ends Park held a Guinness record as the world's smallest park. Roughly how wide is it?

Columnist Dick Fagan planted flowers in an empty lamppost hole in 1948 and claimed a leprechaun colony lived there.

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

Raymond Kaskey based the trident-holding figure on the city seal, and it was floated up the Willamette on a barge.

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

The shop, opened in 2003 by 'Cat Daddy' Pogson and Tres Shannon, still performs legal weddings and sells its wares in pink boxes.

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

Music Millennium owner Terry Currier brought it north in 2003, and the mural stands across from Voodoo Doughnut in Old Town.

Forest Park, one of the largest urban forest reserves in the country, covers more than how many acres?

About 27 miles of the Wildwood Trail run through it, past Pittock Mansion and its view of five volcanic peaks.

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?

The garden opened in 1967 in Washington Park and now covers 12.5 acres and draws about 400,000 visitors a year.

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

Bill Walton led that team, and it kicked off an 814-game sellout streak, the longest in American major pro sports.

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

The team 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?

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 it; the club competes with Seattle and Vancouver for the Cascadia Cup.

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

The Thorns won the very first NWSL championship in 2013 and set the league's attendance record of 25,218 at Providence Park in 2019.

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

More than 600 MAX light-rail trips cross it each weekday, and 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?

Its name is Chinook Jargon for 'people', and it was the first new bridge over the river in the metro area since the Fremont in 1973.

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

Its green towers helped earn Portland the nickname 'Bridgetown', which it carried for many decades.

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

Mount Tabor, an extinct cinder cone in the city's southeast, rises to 636 feet.

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

It is Oregon's highest mountain, an active stratovolcano named in 1792 after British admiral Samuel Hood, and draws about 10,000 climbers a year.

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

The Works Progress Administration built it during the Depression, and it offers the only year-round lift-served skiing in North America.

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

A 200-foot section of railroad berm gave way at 4:05 p.m., 15 people died and 18,000 were left homeless; the site is now Delta Park and Portland International Raceway.

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

Vanport had been built in 1942 to house Kaiser shipyard workers, and about 40 percent of its residents were African American.

The most decorated ship for a single action in US naval history was built in Portland. What was it?

Henry J. Kaiser's yards in Portland and Vancouver, Washington, turned out ships throughout the war.

The Great Fire of 1873 destroyed how many blocks of Portland?

It caused $1.3 million in damage, yet the city still grew from 17,500 people in 1879 to 46,385 in 1890.

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

His $10,000 gift was partly meant to keep workers out of saloons at lunch; 52 'true' four-bowl fountains survive downtown and one was gifted to Sapporo, Japan.

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

He owned the Goose Hollow Inn tavern, cycled to City Hall and was known for shouting 'Whoop, Whoop!'

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

Residents raised $75,000 and the city bought the estate for $225,000 in 1964; about 80,000 people tour it each year.

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

Kyle MacLachlan played the city's fictional mayor, and the show won a Peabody Award over its eight seasons.

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

Lovejoy, Powell, Quimby and Kearney are also Portland streets, while Homer, Marge, Lisa and Maggie are named after his 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.

Which company's $10 billion-plus 1995 investments powered Portland's 'Silicon Forest' boom?

Between 2001 and 2012 the city's GDP per person grew by fifty percent.

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

When a new pattern arrived in 2014, locals put the old design on socks, beer labels and even tattoos.

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

In 1962 the zoo's elephant Packy became the first born in the Western Hemisphere in 44 years and drew 1.2 million visitors that year.

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

The Rose Festival began in 1907, has crowned a queen from local high schools since 1930, and has run dragon boat races on the Willamette since 1989.

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

Oregon joined the Union on Valentine's Day 1859 as the 33rd state and remains one of only five states with no statewide sales tax.

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

The self-service ban had stood since 1951, and many stations still keep attendants on because they are not required to offer self-serve.

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

The Maine city adopted it 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?

Built with a $1,500 fund he established, it was the first lighthouse finished by the US government and is the oldest in Maine.

Portland, Maine sits on a peninsula in which bay?

It is Maine's most populous city and the place where the poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow got his start.

The land that became Portland, Oregon started as a 640-acre claim that William Overton agreed to split with Asa Lovejoy. Where was Lovejoy from?

By 1851 the town had a newspaper, the Weekly Oregonian, which Henry Pittock would later publish.

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

The city itself uses a mayor-council system with a mayor and 12 councillors.

A 2023 magazine ranking named Portland the nation's number one city for what?

Around 1,000 of them were operating in the city at the time; it also has 58 breweries within city limits.

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

Nearby Burnside Skatepark helps give Portland a claim to being 'the most skateboard-friendly town in America'.

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

Multnomah County was one of only two Oregon counties to vote against the 2004 same-sex marriage ban.