Portland, Oregon
Portland is the most populous city in the U.S. state of Oregon. Located in the Pacific Northwest at the confluence of the Willamette and Columbia rivers, it is the 28th-most populous city in the United States, sixth most populous on the West Coast, and third most populous in the Pacific Northwest with a population of 652,503 at the 2020 census. The Portland metropolitan area, with over 2.54 million residents, is the 26th-largest metropolitan area in the nation. Almost half of Oregon's population resides within the Portland metro area. It is the county seat of Multnomah County, Oregon's most populous county.
The Portland area was shaped by massive ice-age floods. It was inhabited by the Chinookan peoples. European American settlers arrived in the 1840s. Following a coin toss, Portland was named after Portland, Maine, which was itself named after England's Isle of Portland. In the 19th century, Portland became a major port and lumber center and gained a reputation for saloons and crime. The 20th century saw population growth, World War II shipbuilding, Japanese-American internment, organized crime, and a hippie/counterculture movement. Since the 1990s, it has experienced growth in the technology sector and rising housing costs.
Portland is located near volcanic features such as Mount Tabor and is also close to active faults. The city is divided into six addressing sectors and comprises diverse neighborhoods. The city’s economy is driven by technology, athletic and outdoor brands, shipping, and craft industries. Social issues include homelessness and property crime, although recent trends indicate a low violent crime rate. The city prioritizes urban planning, sustainability, and diverse transportation options, while managing growth with an urban growth boundary. Portland also has numerous schools and universities, media outlets, healthcare facilities, and global sister-city connections.
The city operates with a mayor–council government system, guided by a mayor and 12 city councilors, as well as Metro, the only directly elected metropolitan planning organization in the United States. Its climate is marked by warm, dry summers and cool, rainy winters. This climate is ideal for growing roses, and Portland has been called the "City of Roses" for more than a century. Portland is known for its vibrant music and performing arts scene, extensive parks including Forest Park, and professional sports teams such as the Trail Blazers, Timbers, and Thorns.
History
Before European settlement
During the prehistoric period, the land that would become Portland was flooded after the collapse of glacial dams from Lake Missoula, in what would later become Montana. These massive floods occurred during the last ice age and filled the Willamette Valley with of water.Before American settlers began arriving in the 1800s, the land was inhabited for many centuries by two bands of indigenous Chinook peoplethe Multnomah and the Clackamas. The Chinook people occupying the land were first documented in 1805 by Meriwether Lewis and William Clark. Before its European settlement, the Portland Basin of the lower Columbia River and Willamette River valleys had been one of the most densely populated regions on the Pacific Coast.
Establishment
Large numbers of pioneer settlers began arriving in the Willamette Valley in the 1840s via the Oregon Trail with many arriving in nearby Oregon City. A new settlement then emerged ten miles from the mouth of the Willamette River, roughly halfway between Oregon City and Hudson's Bay Company's Fort Vancouver. This community was initially referred to as "Stumptown" and "The Clearing" because of the many trees cut down to allow for its growth. In 1843, William Overton saw potential in the new settlement but lacked the funds to file an official land claim. For 25 cents, Overton agreed to share half of the site with Asa Lovejoy of Boston.In 1844, Overton sold his remaining half of the claim to Francis W. Pettygrove of Portland, Maine. Both Pettygrove and Lovejoy wished to rename "The Clearing" after their respective hometowns. This controversy was settled with a coin toss that Pettygrove won in a series of two out of three tosses, thereby providing Portland with its namesake. The coin used for this decision, now known as the Portland Penny, is on display in the headquarters of the Oregon Historical Society. At the time of its incorporation on February 8, 1851, Portland had over 800 inhabitants, a steam sawmill, a log cabin hotel, and a newspaper, the Weekly Oregonian. A major fire swept through downtown in August 1873, destroying twenty blocks on the west side of the Willamette along Yamhill and Morrison Streets, and causing $1.3 million in damage, roughly equivalent to $ today. By 1879, the population had grown to 17,500 and by 1890 it had grown to 46,385. In 1888, the first steel bridge on the West Coast was opened in Portland, the predecessor of the 1912 namesake Steel Bridge that survives today. In 1889, Henry Pittock's wife, Georgiana, established the Portland Rose Society. The annual Portland Rose Festival" is held here in June. The movement to make Portland a "Rose City" started as the city was preparing for the 1905 Lewis and Clark Centennial Exposition.
Portland's access to the Pacific Ocean via the Willamette and Columbia rivers, as well as its easy access to the agricultural Tualatin Valley via the "Great Plank Road", provided the pioneer city with an advantage over other nearby ports, and it grew very quickly. Portland remained the major port in the Pacific Northwest for much of the 19th century, until the 1890s, when Seattle's deepwater harbor was connected to the rest of the mainland by rail, affording an inland route without the treacherous navigation of the Columbia River. The city had its own Japantown, for one, and the lumber industry also became a prominent economic presence, due to the area's large population of Douglas fir, western hemlock, red cedar, and big leaf maple trees.
Portland developed a reputation early in its history as a hard-edged and gritty port town. Some historians have described the city's early establishment as being a "scion of New England; an ends-of-the-earth home for the exiled spawn of the eastern established elite." In 1889, The Oregonian called Portland "the most filthy city in the Northern States", due to the unsanitary sewers and gutters, and, at the turn of the 20th century, it was considered one of the most dangerous port cities in the world. The city housed a large number of saloons, bordellos, gambling dens, and boarding houses which were populated with miners after the California gold rush, as well as the multitude of sailors passing through the port. By the early 20th century, the city had lost its reputation as a "sober frontier city" and garnered a reputation for being violent and dangerous.
20th-century development
Between 1900 and 1930, the city's population tripled from nearly 100,000 to 301,815.Portland enjoyed an economic and industrial surge during World War II. Ship builder Henry J. Kaiser had been awarded contracts to build Liberty ships and escort carriers, and chose sites in Portland and Vancouver, Washington, for shipyards. During this time, Portland's population rose by over 150,000, largely attributed to recruited laborers. The wartime shipbuilding boom in Portland also drew a large influx of African American migrants. This migration significantly expanded the city’s Black population and laid the foundation for new community institutions, even as workers often faced discrimination in hiring and job assignments. The most decorated ship for a single action in US naval history, the USS Liberty, was constructed in Portland during the boom. Her keel was laid down on 23 February 1945, under a Maritime Commission contract at Oregon Shipbuilding Corporation.
During World War II, Portland also housed an "assembly center" from which up to 3,676 people of Japanese descent were dispatched to internment camps in the heartland. It was the first American city to have residents report thus, and the Pacific International Livestock Exposition operated from May through September 10, 1942, processing people from the city, northern Oregon, and central Washington. General John DeWitt called the city the first "Jap-free city on the West Coast".
At the same time, Portland became a notorious hub for underground criminal activity and organized crime in the 1940s and 1950s. In 1957, Life magazine published an article detailing the city's history of government corruption and crime, specifically its gambling rackets and illegal nightclubs. The article, which focused on crime boss Jim Elkins, became the basis of a fictionalized film titled Portland Exposé.
During the 1960s, an influx of hippie subculture began to take root in the city in the wake of San Francisco's burgeoning countercultural scene. The city's Crystal Ballroom became a hub for the city's psychedelic culture, while food cooperatives and listener-funded media and radio stations were established. A large social activist presence evolved during this time as well, specifically concerning Native American rights, environmentalist causes, and gay rights. By the 1970s, Portland had well established itself as a progressive city, and experienced an economic boom for the majority of the decade; however, the slowing of the housing market in 1979 caused demand for the city and state timber industries to drop significantly.
Since 1990
In the 1990s, the technology industry began to emerge in Portland, specifically with the establishment of companies such as Intel, which brought more than US$10 billion in investments in 1995 alone. In the late 1990s, the Portland area was rated the fourth-least affordable place in the United States to purchase a new home. After 2000, Portland experienced significant growth, with a population rise of over 90,000 between 2000 and 2014. The city's increasing reputation for culture established it as a popular city for young people, and it was second only to Louisville, Kentucky, as one of the cities to attract and retain the highest number of college-educated people in the United States. Between 2001 and 2012, Portland's gross domestic product per person grew by fifty percent, more than any other city in the country.The city acquired a diverse range of nicknames throughout its history, though it is most often called "Rose City" or "The City of Roses". Another widely used nickname by local residents in everyday speech is "PDX", the airport code for Portland International Airport. Other nicknames include Bridgetown, Stumptown, Rip City, Soccer City, P-Town, Portlandia, and the more antiquated Little Beirut.