City of Portland history

They spent a couple winters in the Pacific Northwest and they returned to Washington D.C. in 1806 to extol the virtues of the New World.

Shortly after Lewis and Clark led their historic expedition along the Columbia River, New Yorker John Jacob Astor founded the Pacific Fur Trading Company in 1810 and set an expedition to establish Fort Astoria in what is now Astoria, Oregon.

In 1825, the British Hudson’s Bay Company established a fur-trading camp at Fort Vancouver, across the Columbia River from modern-day Portland.

Once known as “The Clearing,” Portland was established in 1843, when two men beached their canoe on the banks of the Willamette River.

Portland got its name when Asa Lovejoy and Francis Pettygrove flipped a coin in 1845.

Further to the west, in the spring of 1847, the first land claim (comprising 640 acres of Beaverdam) located in what is now Beaverton was taken up by Lawrence Hall.

Before the construction of any of Portland’s notable bridges, James B. Stephens established the Stark Street Ferry in 1848 using a mule on a treadmill to power the boat’s paddle wheel and connect the east and west sides of the Willamette River.

Portland’s first Post Office opened in 1849, and the steam sawmill’s whistle could be heard as far away as Fort Vancouver.

Settling the land With the help of the Oregon Donation Land Claim of 1850, speculators and pioneers began to settle in Oregon.

When Portland was incorporated in January 1851, the city measured 2.1 square miles.

Portland, city, seat (1854) of Multnomah county, northwestern Oregon, United States The state’s largest city, it lies just south of Vancouver, Washington, on the Willamette River near its confluence with the Columbia River, about 100 miles (160 km) by river from the Pacific Ocean.

Oregon became the 33rd state to join the Union in 1859.

One such influential landowner was Henry Pittock, who took over The Oregonian in 1860, “the oldest continuously published newspaper on the United States west coast.” Beyond the paper, Pittock invested in real estate, railroads, steamboats, sheep ranching and silver mining.

Though the marshy, riverside terrain of the east side made it expensive to develop, the settlement of East Portland grew rapidly with the Oregon Central Railroad establishing in 1868 a line that stretched south to Salem.

Railroad history in Oregon began when Ben Holladay started building the Oregon & California Railroad in 1869.

By 1870, Stephens incorporated the City of East Portland with a population of 8,293.

The resourceful Ben Holladay’s horsecars began plying the rails in Portland on September 12, 1871.

After Holladay ran short of funds in 1872, Henry Villard took control of the project and got as far as Ashland.

50 of the United Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners, organized in September 1883, after the Northern Pacific Railroad arrived in Portland, along with another wave of Asian immigrants.

In 1885, Portland’s Chinatown was home to the largest population of Cantonese-Chinese outside of San Francisco and Vancouver, B.C. Old Town was also home to one of two Japantowns in Portland.

In 1887, the line was finally opened to California, after Southern Pacific took over construction.

In 1892, Portland began electrifying its streetcar system.

Portland’s Hollywood district started taking shape along Sandy Road around 1900.

The Portland Woolen Mills had originally been located at Sellwood, but after a disastrous fire in February 1904, they moved to St Johns and built a new plant.

Portland’s Lewis & Clark Exposition and World’s Fair attracted 3 million visitors in 1905.

Having been mass-produced in Germany using highly advanced methods of lithography, post cards became very popular at Coney Island in New York, where over 200,000 post cards were postmarked on a single day in 1906.

The town of Multnomah in Portland’s Southwest Hills got its name from the Oregon Electric’s Multnomah Station which was built in 1907 at what is now 35th and Multnomah Boulevard.

Early view of the newly opened Hotel Kenton as sidewalks were being constructed in 1908.

Built in 1910, the Hawthorne Bridge is the oldest vertical lift bridge still in operation in America.

A post office opened in Multnomah in 1912.

One of the longest drawbridges (and most bike-friendly) in the world, the Broadway Bridge was built in 1913 to connect North and Northwest Portland.

When the unpaved Columbia River Highway opened in 1915, it provided a way to drive to to the popular Chanticleer Inn.

The International Rose Test Garden (established in 1917), with hundreds of varieties of roses, is one of several cultivated green spaces throughout the city; there is also an arboretum, a botanic garden, and Chinese and Japanese gardens.

In 1926, after the Hollywood Theatre opened, the area was renamed Hollywood.

The silent version of The Road to Ruin was released in 1928.

St Johns Bridge Built in 1931, this historic green suspension bridge connects Northwest and North Portland.

Union Pacific Railroad made its way to Portland at the turn of the 20th century, and by 1935 launched the first streamliner between Chicago and the Pacific Coast.

The university was founded in 1946 as the Vanport Extension Center.

Pittock loved to hike and, today, many visitors hike the Wildwood Trail to reach the historic, 16,000 square-foot (1,486 sq m) mansion, which opened as a museum in 1965.

With the establishment of the urban growth boundary (UGB) in 1979, along with Oregon’s proactive land use policies, Portland acquired a reputation as a well-planned city.

Portland’s Chinatown Gateway, built in 1986, pays homage to the Cantonese-Chinese immigrants who came to Portland working the railroads or mining for precious metals in Eastern Oregon.

By the year 2000, the population began to rise very quickly, increasing its gross domestic product by over 50%, fueled by both college students and new technologies.

When Macy’s acquired Meier & Frank in 2006, Portland lost its largest and most wonderful department store ever to claim Portland as its home.

Oregon’s first Black winemaker, Bertony Faustin has been building community since 2007, when he launched his small-batch winery, Abbey Creek.