History of Portland, Oregon - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

The history of Portland, Oregon
Portland, Oregon
Portland is a city located in the Pacific Northwest, near the confluence of the Willamette and Columbia rivers in the U.S. state of Oregon. As of the 2010 Census, it had a population of 583,776, making it the 29th most populous city in the United States...

, began in 1843 on the Willamette River

Willamette River

The Willamette River is a major tributary of the Columbia River, accounting for 12 to 15 percent of the Columbia's flow. The Willamette's main stem is long, lying entirely in northwestern Oregon in the United States...

in what was then called Oregon Country

Oregon Country

The Oregon Country was a predominantly American term referring to a disputed ownership region of the Pacific Northwest of North America. The region was occupied by British and French Canadian fur traders from before 1810, and American settlers from the mid-1830s, with its coastal areas north from...

. In 1845 the name of Portland was chosen for this community and on February 8, 1851, the city was incorporated. Portland has continued to grow in size and population, with the 2010 Census showing 583,776 residents in the city.

Early history

The land today occupied by Multnomah County was inhabited for centuries by two bands of Upper Chinook Indians. The Multnomah people settled on and around Sauvie Island

Sauvie Island

Sauvie Island, in the U.S. state of Oregon, originally Wapato Island or Wappatoo Island, is the largest island along the Columbia River, at 26,000 acres , and the largest river island in the United States...

and the Cascades Indians settled along the Columbia Gorge. These groups fished and traded along the river and gathered berries, wapato

Sagittaria

Sagittaria is a genus of about 30 species of aquatic plants whose members go by a variety of common names, including arrowhead, duck potato, iz-ze-kn, katniss, kuwai , swan potato, tule potato, and wapato...

and other root vegetables. The nearby Tualatin Plains

Tualatin Plains

The Tualatin Plains are a prairie area in central Washington County, Oregon, United States. Located around the Hillsboro and Forest Grove areas, the plains were first inhabited by the Atfalati band of the Kalapuya group of Native Americans. Euro-American settlement began in the...

provided prime hunting grounds.

Founding

The site of the future city of Portland, Oregon

Portland, Oregon

Portland is a city located in the Pacific Northwest, near the confluence of the Willamette and Columbia rivers in the U.S. state of Oregon. As of the 2010 Census, it had a population of 583,776, making it the 29th most populous city in the United States...

, was known to American, Canadian, and British traders, trappers and settlers of the 1830s and early 1840s as "The Clearing," a small stopping place along the west bank of the Willamette River

Willamette River

used by travelers en route between Oregon City

Oregon City, Oregon

Oregon City was the first city in the United States west of the Rocky Mountains to be incorporated. It is the county seat of Clackamas County, Oregon...

and Fort Vancouver

Fort Vancouver

Fort Vancouver was a 19th century fur trading outpost along the Columbia River that served as the headquarters of the Hudson's Bay Company in the company's Columbia District...

. As early as 1840, Massachusetts sea captain John Couch

John H. Couch

John Heard Couch was an American sea captain and pioneer in the Oregon Country in the 19th century. Often referred to as Captain Couch, he became famous for his singular skill at navigation of the mouth of the Columbia River. He is one of the early residents and founders of Portland,...

logged an encouraging assessment of the river’s depth adjacent to The Clearing, noting its promise of accommodating large ocean-going vessels, which could not ordinarily travel up-river as far as Oregon City, the largest Oregon settlement at the time. In 1843, Tennessee

Tennessee

Tennessee is a U.S. state located in the Southeastern United States. It has a population of 6,346,105, making it the nation's 17th-largest state by population, and covers , making it the 36th-largest by total land area...

pioneer William Overton

William Overton (Portland founder)

William Overton was a pioneer of the Oregon Country in the Pacific Northwest region of North America. In the mid-1840s he purchased the land claim, along with Asa Lovejoy, for the site which would become Portland, Oregon. Overton sold his share shortly thereafter to Francis Pettygrove.According to...

and Asa Lovejoy

Asa Lovejoy

Asa Lawrence Lovejoy was an American pioneer and politician in the region that would become the U.S. state of Oregon. He is best remembered as a founder of the city of Portland, Oregon...

, a lawyer from Boston, Massachusetts, filed a 640-acre (2.6 km²) land claim with Oregon's provisional government that encompassed The Clearing and nearby waterfront and timber land. Legend has it that Overton had prior rights to the land but lacked funds, so he agreed to split the claim with Lovejoy, who paid the 25-cent filing fee.

Bored with clearing trees and building roads, Overton sold his half of the claim to Francis W. Pettygrove of Portland, Maine

Portland, Maine

Portland is the largest city in Maine and is the county seat of Cumberland County. The 2010 city population was 66,194, growing 3 percent since the census of 2000...

, in 1845. When it came time to name their new town, Pettygrove and Lovejoy both had the same idea: to name it after his home town. They flipped a coin to decide, and Pettygrove won. On November 1, 1846, Lovejoy sold his half of the land claim to Benjamin Stark

Benjamin Stark

Benjamin Stark was an American merchant and politician in Oregon. A native of Louisiana, he purchased some of the original tracts of land for the city of Portland. He later served in the Oregon House of Representatives before appointment to the United States Senate in 1860 after the death of...

, as well as his half-interest in a herd of cattle for $1,215.

Three years later, Pettygrove had lost interest in Portland and become enamored with the California Gold Rush

California Gold Rush

The California Gold Rush began on January 24, 1848, when gold was found by James W. Marshall at Sutter's Mill in Coloma, California. The first to hear confirmed information of the gold rush were the people in Oregon, the Sandwich Islands , and Latin America, who were the first to start flocking to...

. On September 22, 1848, he sold the entire townsite, save only for 64 sold lots and two blocks each for himself and Stark, to Daniel H. Lownsdale

Daniel H. Lownsdale

Daniel Lownsdale was one of the founders of Portland, Oregon, United States.Coming from Kentucky sometime before 1845, Lownsdale established the first tannery near the current location of Jeld-Wen Field just west of downtown. He served as a member of the Provisional Legislature of Oregon in 1846...

, a tanner. Although Stark owned fully half of the townsite, Pettygrove "largely ignor[ed] Stark's interest", in part because Stark was on the east coast with no immediate plans to return to Oregon. Lownsdale paid for the site with $5,000 in leather, which Pettygrove presumably resold in San Francisco for a large profit.

On March 30, 1849, Lownsdale split the Portland claim with Stephen Coffin, who paid $6,000 for his half. By August 1849, Captain John Couch

John H. Couch

and Stark were pressuring Lownsdale and Coffin for Stark's half of the claim; Stark had been absent, but was using the claim as equity in a East Coast-California shipping business with the Sherman Brothers of New York.

In December 1849, William W. Chapman

William W. Chapman

William Williams Chapman was an American politician and lawyer in Oregon and Iowa. He was born and raised in Virginia. He served as a United States Attorney in Iowa when it was part of the Michigan and Wisconsin territories, and then represented the Iowa Territory in the United States House of...

bought what he believed was a third of the overall claim for $26,666, plus his provision of free legal services for the partnership. In January 1850, Lownsdale had to travel to San Francisco to negotiate on the land claim with Stark, leaving Chapman with power of attorney

Power of attorney

A power of attorney or letter of attorney is a written authorization to represent or act on another's behalf in private affairs, business, or some other legal matter...

. Stark and Lownsdale came to an agreement on March 1, 1850, which gave to Stark the land north of Stark Street and about $3,000 from land already sold in this area. This settlement reduced the size of Chapman's claim by approximately 10%. Lownsdale returned to Portland in April 1850, where the terms were presented to an unwilling Chapman and Coffin, but who agreed after negotiations with Couch. While Lownsdale was gone, Chapman had given himself block 81 on the waterfront and sold all of the lots on it, and this block was included in the Stark settlement area. Couch's negotiations excluded this property from Stark's claim, allowing Chapman to retain the profits on the lot.

Portland

Portland, Oregon

existed in the shadow of Oregon City, the territorial capital 12 miles (19 km) upstream at Willamette Falls

Willamette Falls

The Willamette Falls is a natural waterfall on the Willamette River between Oregon City and West Linn, Oregon, in the United States. It is the largest waterfall in the Pacific Northwest and the eighteenth largest in the world by water volume. Horseshoe in shape, it is wide and high with a flow...

. However, Portland's location at the Willamette's confluence with the Columbia River

Columbia River

The Columbia River is the largest river in the Pacific Northwest region of North America. The river rises in the Rocky Mountains of British Columbia, Canada, flows northwest and then south into the U.S. state of Washington, then turns west to form most of the border between Washington and the state...

, accessible to deep-draft vessels, gave it a key advantage over its older peer. It also triumphed over early rivals such as Milwaukie

Milwaukie, Oregon

Milwaukie is a city in Clackamas County, Oregon, United States. A very small portion of the city extends into Multnomah County. The population was 20,291 at the 2010 census. Founded in 1848 on the banks of the Willamette River, the city, known as the Dogwood City of the West, was incorporated in...

and Linnton

Linnton, Portland, Oregon

Linnton is a Portland, Oregon neighborhood located between Forest Park and the Willamette River along U.S. Route 30 , close to the agricultural community of Sauvie Island. It borders the neighborhoods of Northwest Industrial on the south, St. Johns and Cathedral Park via the St...

. In its first census in 1850, the city’s population was 821 and, like many frontier towns, was predominantly male, with 653 male whites, 164 female whites and four “free colored” individuals. It was already the largest settlement in the Pacific Northwest, and while it could boast about its trading houses, hotels and even a newspaper—the Weekly Oregonian

The Oregonian

The Oregonian is the major daily newspaper in Portland, Oregon, owned by Advance Publications. It is the oldest continuously published newspaper on the U.S. west coast, founded as a weekly by Thomas J. Dryer on December 4, 1850...

—it was still very much a frontier village, derided by outsiders as “Stumptown” and “Mudtown.” It was a place where “stumps from fallen firs lay scattered dangerously about Front and First Streets … humans and animals, carts and wagons slogged through a sludge of mud and water … sidewalks often disappeared during spring floods.”

Late 19th century

In 1889, The Oregonian
The Oregonian
The Oregonian is the major daily newspaper in Portland, Oregon, owned by Advance Publications. It is the oldest continuously published newspaper on the U.S. west coast, founded as a weekly by Thomas J. Dryer on December 4, 1850...

called Portland "the most filthy city in the Northern States", due to the unsanitary sewers and gutters. The West Shore reported "The new sidewalks put down this year are a disgrace to a Russian village."

Portland was the major port in the Pacific Northwest

Pacific Northwest

The Pacific Northwest is a region in northwestern North America, bounded by the Pacific Ocean to the west and, loosely, by the Rocky Mountains on the east. Definitions of the region vary and there is no commonly agreed upon boundary, even among Pacific Northwesterners. A common concept of the...

for much of the 19th century, until the 1890s, when direct railroad access between the deepwater harbor in Seattle and points east, by way of Stampede Pass

Stampede Pass

Stampede Pass is a mountain pass through the Cascade Range just south of Snoqualmie Pass in Washington.-Discovery of the Pass:The pass was discovered by Virgil Bogue, a civil engineer working for the Northern Pacific Railway...

, was built. Goods could then be transported from the northwest coast to inland cities without the need to navigate the dangerous bar at the mouth of the Columbia River

Columbia River

.

The city merged with Albina

Albina, Oregon

Albina is a historical city which was consolidated into Portland, Oregon in 1891.Albina was laid out in 1872 with a plat for the new town filed in April 1873 by Edwin Russell, William Page, and George Williams. Albina was named after Mrs. Albina Page, the wife of William Page. Settlement began in...

and East Portland

East Portland, Oregon

East Portland was a city in the U.S. state of Oregon that was consolidated into Portland in 1891. It was founded on a land claim by James B. Stephens in 1846, who bought a land claim from John McLoughlin of the Hudson's Bay Company...

in 1891.

Early 20th century

In 1905, Portland was the host city of the Lewis and Clark Centennial Exposition

Lewis and Clark Centennial Exposition

The Lewis and Clark Centennial Exposition, commonly also known as the Lewis and Clark Exposition, and officially known as the Lewis and Clark Centennial American Pacific Exposition and Oriental Fair, was a worldwide exposition held in Portland, Oregon, United States in 1905 to celebrate the...

, a world's fair

World's Fair

World's fair, World fair, Universal Exposition, and World Expo are various large public exhibitions held in different parts of the world. The first Expo was held in The Crystal Palace in Hyde Park, London, United Kingdom, in 1851, under the title "Great Exhibition of the Works of Industry of All...

. This event increased recognition of the city, which contributed to a doubling of the population of Portland, from 90,426 in 1900 to 207,214 in 1910. In 1915, the city merged with Linnton

Linnton, Portland, Oregon

and St. Johns

St. Johns, Portland, Oregon

St. Johns is a neighborhood of Portland, Oregon, United States located in North Portland on the tip of the peninsula formed by the confluence of the Willamette River and the Columbia River....

.
July, 1913, saw a free speech fight when, during a strike by women workers at the Oregon Packing Company, Mayor Henry Albee declared street speaking illegal, with an exception made for religious speech. This declaration was intended to stop public speeches by the Industrial Workers of the World

Industrial Workers of the World

The Industrial Workers of the World is an international union. At its peak in 1923, the organization claimed some 100,000 members in good standing, and could marshal the support of perhaps 300,000 workers. Its membership declined dramatically after a 1924 split brought on by internal conflict...

in support of the strikers.

On June 9, 1934, approximately 1,400 members of the International Longshoremen's Association

International Longshoremen's Association

The International Longshoremen's Association is a labor union representing longshore workers along the East Coast of the United States and Canada, the Gulf Coast, the Great Lakes, Puerto Rico, and inland waterways...

(ILA) participated in the West Coast waterfront strike, which shut down shipping in every port along the West Coast. The demands of the ILA were: recognition of the union; wage increases from 85 cents to $1.00 per hour straight time and from $1.25 to $1.50 per hour overtime; a six-hour workday and 30-hour work week; and a closed shop with the union in control of hiring. They were also frustrated that shipping subsidies from the government, in place since industry distress in the 1920s, were leading to larger profits for the shipping companies that weren't passed down to the workers. There were numerous incidents of violence between strikers and police, including strikers storming the Admiral Evans, which was being used as a hotel for strikebreakers; police shooting four strikers at Terminal 4 in St. Johns; and special police shooting at Senator Robert Wagner

Robert F. Wagner

Robert Ferdinand Wagner I was an American politician. He was a Democratic U.S. Senator from New York from 1927 to 1949.-Origin and early life:...

of New York as he inspected the site of the previous shooting. The longshoremen resumed work on July 31, 1934, after voting to arbitrate. The arbitration decision was handed down on October 12, 1934, awarding the strikers with recognition of the ILA; higher pay of 95 cents per hour straight time and $1.40 per hour overtime, retroactive to the return to work on July 31; six-hour workdays and 30-hour workweeks, and a union hiring hall

Hiring hall

In organized labor, a hiring hall is an organization, usually under the auspices of a labor union, which has the responsibility of furnishing new recruits for employers who have a collective bargaining agreement with the union....

managed jointly by the union and management – though the union selected the dispatcher – in every port along the entire West Coast.

Mid-20th century

In the 1940s and '50s, Portland had an extensive network of organized crime

Organized crime

Organized crime or criminal organizations are transnational, national, or local groupings of highly centralized enterprises run by criminals for the purpose of engaging in illegal activity, most commonly for monetary profit. Some criminal organizations, such as terrorist organizations, are...

, largely dominated by Jim Elkins

Jim Elkins (Oregon criminal)

James Butler Elkins was a famous crime boss in Portland, Oregon in the mid-20th century.Elkins was involved in numerous illegal activities for several decades in the mid-20th century, running gambling rackets and nightclubs like the 8212 Club, and was known for his brutality...

. The McClellan Commission determined in the late '50s that Portland not only had a local crime problem but also a situation that had serious national ramifications. In 1956 Oregonian reporters determined that corrupt Teamsters

Teamsters

The International Brotherhood of Teamsters is a labor union in the United States and Canada. Formed in 1903 by the merger of several local and regional locals of teamsters, the union now represents a diverse membership of blue-collar and professional workers in both the public and private sectors....

officials were plotting to take over the city's vice rackets.

Late 20th century

During the dot-com boom

Dot-com bubble

The dot-com bubble was a speculative bubble covering roughly 1995–2000 during which stock markets in industrialized nations saw their equity value rise rapidly from growth in the more...

of the mid- to late 1990s, Portland saw an influx of people in their twenties and thirties, drawn by the promise of a city with abundant nature, urban growth boundaries

Urban growth boundary

An urban growth boundary, or UGB, is a regional boundary, set in an attempt to control urban sprawl by mandating that the area inside the boundary be used for higher density urban development and the area outside be used for lower density development.An urban growth boundary circumscribes an...

, cheaper rents, and opportunities to work in the graphic design

Graphic design

Graphic design is a creative process – most often involving a client and a designer and usually completed in conjunction with producers of form – undertaken in order to convey a specific message to a targeted audience...

and Internet

Internet

The Internet is a global system of interconnected computer networks that use the standard Internet protocol suite to serve billions of users worldwide...

industries, as well as for companies like Doc Martens, Nike

Nike, Inc.

Nike, Inc. is a major publicly traded sportswear and equipment supplier based in the United States. The company is headquartered near Beaverton, Oregon, which is part of the Portland metropolitan area...

, Adidas

Adidas

Adidas AG is a German sports apparel manufacturer and parent company of the Adidas Group, which consists of the Reebok sportswear company, TaylorMade-Adidas golf company , and Rockport...

, and Wieden+Kennedy

Wieden+Kennedy

Wieden+Kennedy is an independently owned American advertising agency best known for its work for Nike...

. When this economic bubble

Economic bubble

An economic bubble is "trade in high volumes at prices that are considerably at variance with intrinsic values"...

burst, the city was left with a large creative population. Also, when the bubble burst in Seattle and San Francisco, even more artists streamed into Portland, drawn in part by its relatively low cost of living, for a West Coast city. In 2000 the U.S. census indicated there were over 10,000 artists in Portland.

Shanghaiing

Like other west coast ports, Portland was home to frequent acts of shanghaiing

Shanghaiing

Shanghaiing refers to the practice of conscripting men as sailors by coercive techniques such as trickery, intimidation, or violence. Those engaged in this form of kidnapping were known as crimps. Until 1915, unfree labor was widely used aboard American merchant ships...

. There has been speculation that tunnels under the city blocks were used for this practice. Documents in City Hall state that the connecting tunnels were built for legitimate business reasons. The system of open basements connected to other open basements by brick tunnels became known as shanghai tunnels

Shanghai tunnels

The Shanghai Tunnels, less commonly known as the Portland Underground, are a group of passages running underneath Old Town/Chinatown down to the central downtown section of Portland, Oregon, United States. The tunnels connected the basements of many downtown hotels and bars, to the waterfront of...

because of their purported use in such kidnappings. Portland was unique because trap doors (known as "deadfalls") were used to drop the unsuspecting victims into the tunnels where they were held in cells until the ship was ready to set sail.

Art in the 21st century

Starting in the mid-1990s, Portland experienced what some consider a renaissance

Renaissance

The Renaissance was a cultural movement that spanned roughly the 14th to the 17th century, beginning in Italy in the Late Middle Ages and later spreading to the rest of Europe. The term is also used more loosely to refer to the historical era, but since the changes of the Renaissance were not...

in the local art scene.

While visual arts

Visual arts

The visual arts are art forms that create works which are primarily visual in nature, such as ceramics, drawing, painting, sculpture, printmaking, design, crafts, and often modern visual arts and architecture...

had always been important in the Pacific Northwest, this time period saw a dramatic rise in the number of artists, independent galleries

Art gallery

An art gallery or art museum is a building or space for the exhibition of art, usually visual art.Museums can be public or private, but what distinguishes a museum is the ownership of a collection...

, site-specific shows and public discourse about the arts

ARts

aRts, which stands for analog Real time synthesizer, is an audio framework that is no longer under development. It is best known for previously being used in KDE to simulate an analog synthesizer....

. Several arts publications were born, and the city started to take art much more seriously. It was clearly during this decade that Portland went through a fundamental transformation into a city with a rich arts culture

Culture

Culture is a term that has many different inter-related meanings. For example, in 1952, Alfred Kroeber and Clyde Kluckhohn compiled a list of 164 definitions of "culture" in Culture: A Critical Review of Concepts and Definitions...

that translates internationally.

The Portland millennial art renaissance has been described, written about and commented on in publications such as ARTnews

ARTnews

ARTnews is an arts magazine based in New York, founded by James Clarence Hyde in 1902 as Hyde’s Weekly Art News. It is published 11 times a year.ARTnews covers all art, from ancient to Post-modernism...

, Artpapers, Art in America

Art in America

Art in America is an illustrated monthly, international magazine concentrating on the contemporary art world, including profiles of artists and genres, updates about art movements, show reviews and event schedules. It is designed for collectors, artists, dealers, art professionals and other...

, Modern Painters

Modern Painters (magazine)

Modern Painters is a monthly art magazine published in New York City by Louise Blouin Media. The magazine is published 10 times per year; it includes profiles on two international artists per issue; columns by international contributors; interviews with and articles by contemporary artists and...

and Artforum

Artforum

Artforum is an international monthly magazine specializing in contemporary art.-Publication:The magazine is published ten times a year, September through May, along with an annual summer issue...

and discussed on CNN

CNN

Cable News Network is a U.S. cable news channel founded in 1980 by Ted Turner. Upon its launch, CNN was the first channel to provide 24-hour television news coverage, and the first all-news television channel in the United States...

. Former Whitney Museum curator Lawrence Rinder

Lawrence Rinder

Lawrence R. Rinder is the Director of Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive , a position to which he was appointed in 2008.Previously, he was the Dean of the College at the California College of the Arts in San Francisco...

was a notable champion of Portland's transformation. Senior art critic for the Village Voice, Jerry Saltz

Jerry Saltz

Jerry Saltz is an American art critic. Since 2006, he has been senior art critic and a columnist for New York magazine. Formerly the senior art critic for The Village Voice, Saltz has been nominated for the Pulitzer Prize in Criticism three times. He was the sole advisor for the 1995 Whitney...

described the activity of the Portland art scene during a lecture at Pacific Northwest College of Art

Pacific Northwest College of Art

The Pacific Northwest College of Art is a private fine art and design college in Portland in the U.S. state of Oregon. Established in 1910, the art school grants bachelor of fine arts degrees and master of fine arts degrees and has an enrollment of about 550 students...

(PNCA) in January 2004 as "intimidating".

External links

Postcards and snaps from the past at PdxHistory.com
Historical Timeline at Portland City Auditor's Office
Wartime Portland at Oregon Historical Society
Portland page at Oregon History Project (Oregon Historical Society)
Capsule histories of years 1974–99 at Willamette Week
Transportation history, Portland Bureau of Transportation
A pictorial history of the Portland Waterfront

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.

Early history

Founding

Late 19th century

Early 20th century

Mid-20th century

Late 20th century

Shanghaiing

Art in the 21st century

See also

Further reading

External links