X-Nico

62 unusual facts about Portland, Oregon


2016 IAAF World Indoor Championships

The 16th IAAF World Indoor Championships in Athletics will be held in 2016 in Portland, Oregon, United States.

AeTopus

Between 1987 and 1997, he played bass guitar in local Blues, Reggae, Funk, and Punk bands in Moscow, Idaho (where he earned a B.F.A. in Fine Arts/Painting at University of Idaho in 1989), Portland, Oregon, and his current home of Bellingham, Washington.

Alexander Mezhirov

Although Mezhirov had publicly stated that his patriotism for Russia was so intense that, unlike other Russian Jews, he could not immigrate, he suddenly left Russia for the United States in 1992, settling first in New York, then in Portland, Oregon.

Ameriflight

On August 13, 1997, Flight 262 from Portland to Seattle, which was operated using a Beechcraft 1900 (registered N3172A) was damaged in a crash, landing at Seattle–Tacoma International Airport and destroyed in a fire that had erupted from spilled fuel.

Béla Tomka

He has been invited by several research institutes and universities in Europe and North-America as research fellow and visiting professor, including Amsterdam, Mannheim, Berlin, Oxford, Edinburgh, Portland (OR) and Jena.

Bhai Parmanand

He accompanied Hardayal on a speaking tour to Portland in 1914 and wrote a book for the Ghadar Party called Tarikh-I-Hind.

Brian Jean

Jean has a Bachelor of Science degree from Warner Pacific in Portland, Oregon, a Master of Business Administration degree and a Bachelor of Laws degree from Bond University in Gold Coast, Queensland, Australia.

CatchingYourClouds

It has been noted at this time that Drake lived in a fairly dysfunctional household, which eventually led to him moving across the country at 16 to live with Rose and her mother in Portland, Oregon.

Charlene Fernetz

Fernetz was born on a large farm in the center of Saskatchewan, Canada, and studied Journalism at the British Columbia Institute of Technology; but in 1990 it was while doing regional theater in Portland, Oregon, that she caught the eye of a Manager from Los Angeles, and within months she was a guest on the Showtime series, Kurt Vonnegut's Monkey House.

Cheat on Me

'Curse This English Rain' and 'So Hot Now', the CD single and seven inch vinyl one b-sides, came from the same sessions as the rest of the album, with additional recording completed at Mastan Music, Portland, Oregon by Jeremy Wilson.

Conservation of painted turtles

Portland, Oregon built an undercrossing, for $160,000, which the turtles have learned to use.

Corrina Repp

Corrina Repp is a vocalist, guitarist, songwriter, and maker of quiet music based in Portland, Oregon.

Cris Moss

Cris Moss is a curator and multimedia artist based in Portland, Oregon.

He has exhibited both nationally and internationally, including The Melbourne International Arts Festival, Australia, Nottdance, UK, Display Gallery in Prague, Maccarone Inc. in New York City, Swiss Institute - Contemporary Art in New York City, Elizabeth Leach Gallery Portland, Oregon, Whatcom Art Museum, Bellingham, Washington, and Yellowstone Art Museum, Billings, Montana.

Curotek

Curotek is an American company based in Portland, Oregon that provides technology for community-based care settings such as assisted living communities and group home settings serving those with Dementia, Alzheimer's, Mental Retardation and Developmental Disabilities and other disabilities that cause safety risks associated with freedom of movement and personal autonomy.

Daniel A. Grout

Grout first served in Portland, Oregon as the principal of North Central School from 1892 to 1895.

Daniel Menche

Daniel Menche (born December 4, 1969) is a musician from Portland, Oregon.

Danny Bruno

He currently lives in Portland, Oregon and has a recurring role as Bud Wurstner in the NBC fantasy drama Grimm.

Dat'r

Dat'r is an Electronic music band consisting of Matt Dabrowiak and Paul Alcott, from Portland, Oregon.

Defence Scheme No. 1

According to the plan, Canadian flying columns stationed in Pacific Command in western Canada would immediately be sent to seize Seattle, Spokane, and Portland.

Dutch Savage

He later became an administrator for his official website (Dutch Savage.com) and hosted a program called "Dutch's Corner", where he taught King James Scripture, on Public-access television out of Portland, Oregon.

Fiskars

The business areas of Fiskars Brands include Outdoor Recreation, Portland, Oregon, USA; Fiskars School, Office, and Craft, Madison, Wisconsin, USA; Fiskars Garden and Outdoor Living, Sauk City, Wisconsin, USA; Fiskars Europe, Brussels, Belgium; and Fiskars Corporation and Fiskars Housewares, Helsinki, Finland.

Francis Moraes

He became interested in the heroin subculture in Portland, Oregon – the number two most vibrant heroin city in the United States, at that time (according to DEA statistics).

Geno Arce

Geno Arce, born in Portland, Oregon, started playing bass in the clubs at age 16 opening for bands like Black 'n Blue and Fire Eye.

Glen Coffield

The artist Kemper Nomland was at Camp Angel, and attempted to capture Coffield's creativity in a painting donated to the Lewis and Clark College in Portland, Oregon.

Her Friend the Bandit

From The Oregonian in Portland, Oregon (June 14, 1914): "The Keystone players will offer 'Her Friend, the Bandit', one of those rough and ready fares that make everybody laugh."

Hutch Harris

Hutch Harris is an American songwriter and musician, and the lead guitarist/vocalist of Portland, Oregon rock band The Thermals.

James A. O'Neil

Wyeth’s party arrived in 1834 at the confluence of the Columbia and Willamette rivers at present day Portland, Oregon.

James B. Stephens

Stephens refused Overton's offer to sell him his Portland land claim for 300 new salmon barrels because he planned to bid for another claim, which he secured in 1845 and on which East Portland was founded.

A cooper by trade, he operated one of the first ferries across the Willamette River at what was East Portland, Oregon.

Jimmy Ward

James William Ward (b. September 1, 1906 in Fort William, Ontario - d. November 15, 1990 in Portland, Oregon) was a right winger in the NHL from 1928 - 1939.

John Mahan

He fought Jimmy Carroll to 3 rounds at the Masonic Hall in Portland, Oregon on December 10.

John Moen

He has been an integral part of the music scene in and around Portland, Oregon since the 1980s.

KeyBank

It would create a $58 billion banking behemoth with a footprint that literally stretched from Portland, Maine to Portland, Oregon.

Lay Your Hands on Me

The video for this song was culled from performances at the Tacoma Dome in Tacoma, WA and the Memorial Coliseum in Portland, OR during The Jersey Syndicate Tour.

Leah LaBelle

In October 2004, LaBelle collaborated on a record album, Volume 7 of "Christmas in the Northwest" featuring singers and songwriters from the Pacific Northwest to benefit Children's Hospital and Regional Medical Centers in Seattle, Doernbecher Children's Hospital in Portland and Children's Miracle Network in Spokane.

Lucile Saunders McDonald

Born in Portland, Oregon, in 1898, her parents were Frank and Rose Saunders.

Marion Verbruggen

Verbruggen made her conducting debut recently with the Portland Baroque Orchestra in Portland, Oregon.

Matthew Dickman

Matthew Dickman (born August 20, 1975, Portland, Oregon) is an American poet.

Michael Yingling

Michael Yingling (born July 10, 1972 in Portland, Oregon) is an American actor and the official soundalike for the Disney character Stitch.

Mike Coykendall

After moving to Portland, Oregon in 1999, Coykendall set up a home studio, where he recorded such luminaries as M Ward, Richmond Fontaine, Beth Orton, Tin Hat Trio, She & Him, and Bright Eyes.

Mind Chaos

When Sony dropped the band before the album was recorded, Grubin and Reynolds moved to Portland, Oregon with percussionist Anthony Stassi and guitarist Brian White.

Morrie Lanning

Morris L. "Morrie" Lanning (born August 27, 1944 in Portland, Oregon) is a Minnesota politician and a member of the Minnesota House of Representatives representing District 9A, which includes portions of Clay County in the northwestern part of the state.

Natasha Wheat

She is the founder of Portland, Oregon based arts and urban farming project, Project Grow, an arts atelier for people with disabilities at the site of a factory.

Nigel Jaquiss

Jaquiss later broke the initial news of Portland mayor Sam Adams' affair with an intern who may have been underage at the onset of their affair, on President Barack Obama's Inauguration Day.

Nigel Jaquiss (born 1962) is an American journalist who won the 2005 Pulitzer Prize for investigative reporting, for his work exposing former Oregon Governor Neil Goldschmidt's sexual abuse of a 14-year-old girl while he was mayor of Portland, Oregon.

Ottawa Soccer Stadium

While the MLS commissioner gave positive comments about the Ottawa proposal, MLS eventually granted expansion franchises to other cities, including Portland, Oregon and Vancouver, British Columbia.

Paul deLay

Paul Joseph deLay (January 31, 1952 – March 7, 2007) was an American blues vocalist and harmonicist from Portland, Oregon.

Peter Hardeman Burnett

In 1844, he completed construction of Germantown Road between the Tualatin Valley and what became Portland.

Peter Ricq

His work has been exhibited in Montreal, Vancouver, San Diego and Portland and has been featured in several international magazines (Hemp, Under Pressure, CRUX), in Wallfarmers, a website dedicated on exposing new and established contemporary artists.

QPDX.com

qPDX.com is a news and events website dedicated to covering the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgendered communities of Portland, Oregon.

Rey Ramsey

After graduating from law school, Ramsey went to work for the Portland law-firm Stoel Rives.

Richard Meltzer

He moved to Portland, Oregon in the 1990s, but continued contributing to the San Diego Reader.

Sean Healy

Sean P. Healy is a multimedia artist based in Portland, Oregon.

Srilekha Parthasarathy

She also has a fan club "No One Noticed Srilekha" in Portland, Oregon, USA, the first for a Tamil singer in Oregon.

Stephen Wise Free Synagogue

In 1905, Rabbi Stephen Samuel Wise then serving a congregation in Portland, Oregon, was under consideration as Rabbi of Temple Emanu–El in New York City, but withdrew his name after learning that his sermons would be reviewed in advance by the synagogue's board of trustees.

Terry Gierke

Terry started officiating career in 1962 in Portland, Oregon and later moved to college football in 1966, working both Division II and III games.

The Von Steigers

The Von Steigers are best known for competing in Pacific Northwest Wrestling in Portland, Oregon between 1968 and 1973 but also competed in Tennessee, San Francisco, Stampede Wrestling, Australia, the American Wrestling Alliance and the Carolina territory.

Under Wildwood

The 576 page novel, the sequel to Wildwood: The Wildwood Chronicles, Book One, continues the tale of Prue McKeel and her adventures in the "Impassable Wilderness," a fantastical version of Portland, Oregon's Forest Park.

Vidoop

Vidoop LLC was a privately held company based in Portland, Oregon.

We Are the Tide

We Are the Tide is the second studio album from the Portland, Oregon indie group Blind Pilot.

Your Life Is a Lie

The band first premiered the song live at the Portland State Theater on April 30, and was later performed on following shows through North America as their spring 2013 tour.


Alfredo Escalera

Escalera had his first professional bout on September 4, 1970, against Bob Payzant, in Portland.

Amite City, Louisiana

Joanne Verger, Oregon legislator and first woman mayor of Coos Bay, Oregon

Arunah Shepherdson Abell

Arriving in Halifax, Nova Scotia by ship from Europe, it traveled overland by pony to Annapolis, by steamship to Portland, Maine, and then by rail to Baltimore.

Barview, Tillamook County, Oregon

With the future of the building in flux, it is one of ten entries on the Historic Preservation League of Oregon's Most Endangered Places in Oregon 2011 list.

Bay Super V

Harold Bost purchased N3124V from the Oregon Aviation Museum, in Cottage Grove, Oregon, and donated it to Bonanza Baron Museum in October, 2004.

Beaver Coins

The Provisional Legislature at Champoeg then gave the approval for the Oregon Exchange Company to mint currency.

Bob Glenn

In 1919, after graduating from Michigan, Glenn was hired as an instructor in civil engineering at the Engineering School of the Oregon State Agricultural College (now known as Oregon State University) in Corvallis, Oregon.

Brad Hirschfield

With his CLAL co-president Irwin Kula he co-hosts a weekly radio show called Hirschfield and Kula on KXL in Portland, Oregon.

Buffington Island

During the American Civil War, the Battle of Buffington Island took place on July 19, 1863, just south of the Ohio community of Portland.

Burnside Street

It is served by the Tri-Met line 20 between Barnes and E 102nd Avenue, and several MAX Blue Line stations are located along its route in East Portland between E 102nd Avenue and Ruby Junction.

Butler Ives

He was contracted with locating and surveying of the boundary line between the Nevada Territory and the State of California -- running south and southeasterly from Oregon.

Carel Borchaert Voet

He travelled to England in the service of Hans Willem Bentinck, count of Portland.

Casco Bay High School

Casco Bay High School is a public Expeditionary Learning school in Portland, Maine, USA.

Charles A. Johns

On June 4, 1918, Johns was appointed to the Oregon Supreme Court to replace Wallace McCamant by Governor James Withycombe after McCamant resigned.

Charles R. Spencer

Charles R. Spencer (generally called the Spencer) was a steamboat built in 1901 to run on the Willamette and Columbia rivers from Portland, to The Dalles, Oregon.

Crew resource management

United Airlines Flight 173 crew was making an approach to the Portland International Airport on the evening of Dec 28, 1978 when they experienced a landing gear abnormality.

Cumberland County, Maine

The video game Trauma Team takes place in Cumberland County in the year 2020, referencing Portland and Portland's Back Cove.

Dave Glinka

Glinka completed 5 of 11 passes against Oregon and threw two touchdown passes (to George Mans and Scott Maentz) to lead the Wolverines to a 21-0 victory.

Domestic partnership in the United States

Since 1999, the West Coast states of California, Oregon, Washington, and Nevada have all passed domestic partnership statutes; in contrast, most legislatures in the New England region and New Jersey have preferred the term civil unions.

Donation Land Claim Act

The passage of the law was largely due to the efforts of Samuel R. Thurston, the Oregon territorial delegate to Congress.

Eola, Texas

After the turn of the new century, James Mark Cannon (born circa 1967) relocated from Portland, Oregon, to purchase the abandoned school building and to turn it into a seven-day restaurant known as "Eola School Restaurant".

Exit Games

Exit Games is a German venture capital financed company, founded in 2003, with offices in Hamburg and Portland offering a multiplayer engine for cross-platform realtime multiplayer games and massively multiplayer online games (MMOGs) on various technological platforms, including mobile, PC and consoles.

Francis Boggs

He left Los Angeles in April to go on location in Yosemite and Oakland in California and the Hood River Valley in Oregon.

Gill Coliseum

Inside, on the south wall of Gill Coliseum is a painted mural of many former Oregon State men's basketball players including Gary Payton, Brent Barry, AC Green, and Steve Johnson.

Goose River Bridge

Viking Bridge, also known as Goose River Bridge, near Portland, North Dakota, NRHP-listed

Greta Pratt

She is the author of two books of photographs, Using History (Steidl, 2005) and In Search of the Corn Queen (National Museum of American Art, 1994), and her works are represented in major public and private collections, including the National Museum of American Art: Smithsonian Institution, The Museum of Fine Art, Houston, Museum of Contemporary Photography, Portland (Oregon) Art Museum, and Minneapolis Institute of Art.

Grevillea aquifolium

In Victoria the species is found in the Grampians region and northwards to the Little Desert as well as near the south coast at Kentbruck Heath near Portland.

HMLA-775

To enhance the squadron's readiness and demonstrate its versatility, HMLA-775 also participated in anti-drug and Border Patrol operations in support of Federal Agencies in locations such as Key West, FL, Bahamas, Puerto Rico, Nassau, South America, California, Oregon, Idaho, Arizona, New Mexico, Texas, Nevada, and Jamaica.

Irene Bennett Brown

Brown was born in Topeka, Kansas and when she was nine years old, moved with her family from Kansas to the Willamette Valley in Oregon.

John F. Kilkenny United States Post Office and Courthouse

a former judge of the District of Oregon and of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.

Kathy Fleming

In 1997 she finished third place behind Deena Kastor and Lynn Jennings at the USA 8k Cross Country Championships in Portland, Oregon.

KKSN

KGDD, a radio station (1520 AM) licensed to Oregon City, Oregon, United States, which used the call sign KKSN from 1998 until 2003

Lynn Snodgrass

She represented District 10, which included her home town of Boring as well as Clackamas, Happy Valley, Damascus, South Gresham, Estacada, and portions of Oregon City.

Marble Mountain Wilderness

These include crested cinquefoil or crested potentilla (Potentilla cristae), Siskiyou fireweed (Epilobium siskiyouense), and McDonald's rock cress (Arabis blepharophylla var. macdonaldiana), a perennial found in conifer forests of California and Oregon.

Marco A. Hernandez

Republican Gordon Smith was defeated for re-election in 2008, and newly elected President Barack Obama restarted the judicial selection process for the District of Oregon.

Martha Lee Walters

She was appointed to the Oregon Supreme Court by Oregon Governor Ted Kulongoski and was sworn into office on October 9, 2006, to replace Justice R. William Riggs who had retired.

Multnomah University

The original campus was located adjacent to the site of the present Lloyd Center shopping mall in Northeast Portland.

NWEAMO

New West Electronic Arts & Music Organization (NWEAMO), founded by composer Joseph Waters in Portland, Oregon, U.S. in 1998, is a nonprofit organization based in San Diego, California that produces the annual international festival of electro-acoustic music.

Oregon Institute

Missionary Jason Lee came to Oregon Country in 1834 with Nathaniel Jarvis Wyeth to begin missionary work amongst the natives.

Pioneer Square South and Pioneer Square North

Popular shopping areas include Portland's downtown Macy's and Nordstrom department stores.

Portland Independent Top Whitbed

Portland Independent Top Whitbed is the variety of Portland stone used to build the Ashton Memorial in Lancaster.

Rob Cornilles

Cornilles was the Republican nominee in the 2010 election for Oregon's 1st congressional district against Democratic incumbent David Wu.

Simocetus

Simocetus is known from a single fossil, a skull, found in marine siltstone deposits of the Alsea Formation on the banks of Oregon's Yaquina River in 1977 by fossil hunter of the region, Douglas Emlong.

Vedanta Society of Southern California

Swami Prabhavananda came to Los Angeles in 1929 from Portland, Oregon, and formally established the society as a non-profit corporation in 1934.

Willamette National Forest

In 1911, the Santiam National Forest was created from parts of the Oregon NF and the Cascade NF.

Zygolophodon

While collecting fossils in the Clarno Formation of Oregon during 1941, noted paleobotanists Alonzo W. Hancock and Chester A. Arnold recovered the most complete Zygolophodon skull known at the time.