Unwrapping Portland…

For those of you who have never been to Portland I thought

it would be fun to tell you a wee bit about our city. 

 I grew up in a small town south of Portland.  I left to go to college.  There I met my husband and over the years we have been the pastors of churches in different parts of our state.  Twelve years ago we moved back to Portland, which felt to me like coming home.

Portland is called the City of Roses because the climate here makes it easy to grow roses.  That is the whole unromantic truth about that.

It is also often called Stumptown. The reason for this is the early settlers cut down the trees to make a clearing for the town, so the landscape used to be dotted with stumps.  The original clearing is downtown on the waterfront and is marked with a plaque.

Portland is divided into east and west by the Willamette River.  If you cannot pronounce the name of this river correctly, it’s a dead giveaway you are not from here.  Say will-a (as in apple)-met.  And just for the record our state is  pronounced Orygun, not Orygone.  The east and west sides of the city are connected by nine bridges over the Willamette.

Portland is bordered on the north by the beautiful Columbia River. 

The Columbia separates Oregon from Washington state.

(looking across the Columbia from Vancouver, Washington toward Portland)

The downtown area of our city is on the west side of the Willamette.  In the heart of downtown is Pioneer Courthouse Square, also known as Portland’s living room.

 

The tallest building in Portland is nicknamed Big Pink.

Beverly Cleary, famous children’s author, was a librarian at Multnomah County’s main library in downtown Portland.

Portland is a very environmentally conscious city.  We have a commuter light rail system connecting all areas of town.

We also recycle everything we can.  Personally, I think some people take it just too far1

Happy Tuesday!

Elizabeth

I’m linking to  TuesdaysUnwrapped at chatting at the sky.