The city that almost got named Boston
Portland has the name it does because of a coin toss. In 1845 the two men who owned the townsite — Asa Lovejoy of Boston and Francis Pettygrove of Portland, Maine — each wanted to name it after home, and Pettygrove won two flips out of three. The penny they used is on display at the Oregon Historical Society. The city has an odd relationship with scale. Forest Park covers more than 5,000 wooded acres inside city limits, one of the largest urban forest reserves in the country, while Mill Ends Park, a two-foot circle in a traffic median on Naito Parkway, holds the record for the smallest park in the world. Powell's takes up a full downtown block and shelves new and used copies of the same book side by side. The Rose City nickname is earned: the International Rose Test Garden has been trialing varieties on a hillside above downtown since 1917.
