Some Random Facts about Portland

I’m here at the airport in Portland getting ready to go down to Sac then it’s east to Auburn. As it would turn out PDX Airport has free internet. How nice of them.

I thought I would leave Portland in style by giving you a little bit of random information. Hope you like it. I found the first one to be the most interesting.

1. Portland was almost “Boston, Oregon”!

   Portland was named by the flip of a coin by its two original settlers, Asa Lovejoy and Francis W. Pettygrove. Lovejoy wanted to name the new settlement after his hometown of Boston; Pettygrove wanted to name it after his hometown of Portland, Maine. Pettygrove won the coin toss, best two out of three.

2. Portland’s Two Rivers:

   The Willamette River (pronounced “will-AAAAAH-met”) divides Portland into its east and west sections; “Downtown” is technically only the part on the west side of the river. About seven miles north of downtown, the mighty Columbia River divides the state of Oregon and the state of Washington.

3. No Sales Tax

   Oregon is one of those rare states that has no sales tax (except on hotels and car rentals). We do make up for it by having a fairly high income tax (9%). However, when you weigh the overall tax burden of Oregon, we usually come out about average of all the 50 states.

4. Can’t pump your own gas.

   Oregon is one of only two states (New Jersey is the other) where ordinary people can’t pump their own gas – you must have an attendant do it. I’m not kidding!!! Native Oregonians seem to love this tradition and every attempt to get rid of this rule has been defeated. It is kind of nice in the winter time when it’s cold and you don’t want to stand in the rain and pump your gas or just don’t want to get your hands dirty.

5. White city:

   Portland is the whitest big city in the US, according to recent census data (over 70% white). Today Portland is considered liberal and tolerant – although it’s easier to be “tolerant” when most people are of the same race. But, Portland has a racist past that consigned blacks to a few neighborhoods in NE Portland. For better or worse, today those black neighborhoods are becoming more and more white (“gentrified”) as housing prices skyrocket in Portland’s urban neighborhoods, enticing poor and middle class homeowners in these neighborhoods to sell out.

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