The most iconic sign entering into Portland is no doubt this one. It is immediately what you see as you drive from the Burnside Bridge above the Williamette River into Old Town Portland.
It is an example of a sign that started out as an advertisement and then transformed into an icon. It began as “White Satin Sugar” in 1940. The lettering was changed in 1957 to advertise White Stag until 1973. The sign was changed to read “Made in Oregon” from 1997–2010 to advertise for the owner’s gift retailing company. In 2010 the City of Portland became the owner of the sign and the lettering was once again changed. It now reads “Portland Oregon”
Close to the sign is Portland’s original Chinatown located north of the gateway and was the second largest Chinatown in the United States (after San Francisco). Today, much of the Chinese community has since moved from the neighborhood but since 1850s many were lured by the prospect of work in railroad, mining, agriculture and fishing to settle here.
In the vicinity you have this mural. It was based on the Keep Austin Weird organization and slogan in Austin, Texas, and was brought to Portland in 2003 by owner of Pacific Northwest’s oldest record store, Music Millennium after he learned of the movement in Austin.
Right across the street from it is the infamous Voodoo Doughnuts franchise that started out here. It went from being a late-night spot for bar hoppers in need of a sweet treat to a multi-state chain that has become synonymous with the city it initially served. Aside from risque doughnut themes, the brand’s wacky decor, voodoo-doll mascot, and highly imaginative flavors mesmerize all ages.
Near the Willamette River at an intersection lies the world’s smallest park, according to the Guinness Book of World Records. The story behind it is bizarre, Mill Ends Park was the creation of Dick Fagan, a columnist for the Oregon Journal. He wrote a column called “Mill Ends”. As a traffic median was being constructed one raised concrete bed had a hole in the middle for a traffic light. The traffic light was never installed and the hole started to get filled with weeds and trash. One day, Fagan looked out his window and saw a leprechaun digging in the hole. Fagan ran outside, dashed across the street, and caught the leprechaun. According to Irish lore, if you catch a leprechaun, he has to grant you a wish. Fagan wished for his own park, the leprechaun granted his wish, to that the hole in the traffic median as his own personal park. Fagan named the spot after his column. He planted flowers in the hole, and he wrote about the resident family of leprechauns and their adventures in and around the park. Fagan’s columns about the park captured Portlanders’ imaginations. Dick Fagan died in 1969, the Oregon Journal ceased publication in 1982; but Mill Ends Park lived on. Designated as an official city park in 1976 and the site of bagpipe concerts, picnics, and demonstrations.
New Market Block built in 1872 is a cast iron building that once included a public market, commercial offices and a “lavish 800 seat theater”. Though the interior has been significantly altered over the years, the exterior remains largely intact.
Almost as soon as the New Market Theater was completed, construction began on the North Wing, which was finished in 1873. The North Wing was demolished in 1956. All that remains of it today are the cast iron arches reinstalled on the site in the 1980s.
The Portland Outdoor Store was established in 1919 and today regarded the city’s marquee storefront for those in search of classic western, outdoor, and workwear.
A restaurant in the area you want to try is Hubers, established in 1879, it is Portland’s oldest restaurant. It started out with the name the Bureau Saloon until Frank Huber the mixer of drinks took sole ownership and current name took hold in 1895. Jim Louie who had immigrated to Portland in 1881 from Guangdong, China was hired in 1891. Eventually ownership went to the Louie family and stayed over a century until today.
Below is a portrait of Jim Louie
The main fare everyone orders from there is the traditional roast turkey dinner
The picture below illustrates the Postal building and the Willamette building. On the side of the Postal building is work by Muralist Mona Caron as part of her worldwide Weeds series. It is supposed to represent wild plants of the Pacific Northwest.
Here is a great example of Richardsonian Romanesque architecture. The building repeats many of Richardson’s motifs: Heavy stone arches at the base, red brick and the absolutely gorgeous terra cotta. The Dekum building constructed between 1891 and 1892 is named after Frank Dekum a German immigrant that established Dekum & Bickel, the city’s first confectionary business, he later became a successful realtor, banker, and insurance and railway executive.
Right across the Burnside Bridge you have the offices of software giant AutoDesk used by architects and engineers to 3-D-model and digitally prototype everything from constructions to devices.
The space is a renovated 1913 building which once belonged to the Blake Moffit & Towne Paper Company. Vestiges of the building like water tank on the roof as well as the grizzly bear logos on top right and left faces were preserved.
Within the vicinity you cannot help but notice the development aptly named The Fair-Haired Dumbbell. It consists of two canted six-story towers connected by sky bridges decked in hand-painted original artwork on all eight of its elevations.
Also in the area you will find the Portland Convention Center. Visible is outdoor installation The Sapporo Friendship Bell. It was donated by Sapporo, Japan, another of Portland’s sister cities, in February 1990 to commemorate 30 years of sisterhood with Portland. From another entrance is another bell donated by another Portland sister city, Ulsan in the Republic of Korea
Another iconic emblem of Portland is the 65-foot-high “Portland” sign that first went up in 1928. It changed in 1930 to say “Paramount” but when the theater opened as the Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall in 1984, the sign was changed back to say “Portland.” It is the home base for the Oregon Symphony Orchestra and several other large performing arts groups.
Since its dedication in 1985, the Portlandia statue atop the Portland building became an iconic symbol of the city of Portland. It is notable for being the second largest copper statue in the United States after the Statue of Liberty. The statue itself is 36 feet high. It’ was so big that it had to be shipped coast to coast in pieces when it was constructed. Portlandia is based on the design of the city seal. It depicts a woman in classical clothes with a trident reaching down with right hand to greet visitors to the building. You would think the image of Portlandia would adorn postcards, photos and T-shirts. She doesn’t. That’s because her maker, Washington, D.C.-based sculptor Raymond Kaskey, has, over the past three decades, often threatened to sue those who dare use photos or illustrations of Portlandia for commercial purposes.
As for the building itself it was constructed in 1982, as administrative offices for the City of Portland. Architect was Michael Graves that helped define the American Post-Modern style. When it was designed, it sought to differ from the Modernism’s steel and glass structures, stripped of ornament and historic reference. Because it had that touch of whimsy some critics say that the building lacked the dignity befitting a government building and that the interior was unpleasant.
The First Congregational Church erected in 1895 was modeled after Boston’s Old South Church in an Italian Gothic style. Originally the church had three towers and a cupola and for several decades it was the tallest building in Portland.
From the edifice of the Sovereign Hotel building built in 1923 you can see works by Richard Haas in the Trompe L’oeil style. On the left you have a thirty-foot-high likenesses of Lewis and Clark Expedition members. On the right, features European and American fur traders descending from the left with their oxen and covered wagons interacting with Native peoples.
The Oregon Historical Society commissioned the artwork above and serves as a museum to learn about Oregon history. Admission is only $10.
A neat thing you will find there is the portland penny. Rumour has it the 2 founders of the city were New Englanders Asa Lovejoy of Boston, MA, and Francis Pettygrove of Portland, ME. As the Oregon trail started to bring in new settlers, the founders determined that their growing village needed a name. Over dinner one evening in 1845, Lovejoy and Pettygrove agreed to flip a coin to determine the name. They agreed to a two-out-of-three-toss contest — Boston if Lovejoy won, Portland if Pettygrove won. With three tosses of a penny, Portland got its name.
A unique water fountain that has become characteristic of Portland is the Benson Bubbler. These four-headed brass fonts take their name from the man who gave them to the city, the early 20th century lumber baron and philanthropist Simon Benson. In 1912, he made a $10,000 donation to the city specifically to create public water fountains. Benson’s initial grant funded 20 brass drinking fountains
Another nickname associated with the city is the City of Roses. But why? Roses are not native to the region, nor did any Portland gardeners reach international stardom by breeding the best rose blossoms. In 1905, Portland held the Lewis and Clark Exposition, it’s only World’s Fair. To attract visitors to the exposition, the City of Portland planted around 10,000 bushes of the revered Madame Caroline Testout rose along Portland’s streets. At the end of the exposition, Portland’s mayor announced that he would build on the success of the fair and establish an annual rose festival and still held annually to this day.
A quirky building that might catch your attention is this one. “Transcendence”, a fish flying through a building — a sculpture by Keith Jellum.
Jackson Tower is a 12-story beaux arts office building built in 1912 to contain the Oregon Journal which remained there until 1948. Building is named in honor of the newspaper’s founder, Charles Samuel Jackson. The most striking visual element is the large clock tower.
Keeping the theme of buildings with a clocktower that used to serve a newspaper. Below was the headquarters of The Evening Telegram, a now-defunct local newspaper founded in 1877 by Henry L. Pittock. The Telegram merged in 1931 with the Portland News, creating the Portland News-Telegram, in turn ceased publishing in 1939. A wholesale 2004 renovation converted the building to multi-tenant office space.
Completed in 1875, Pioneer Courthouse is the oldest federal courthouse west of the Mississippi River still in use, and the oldest public building in Portland. After the turn of the century, people proposed the city demolish the original courthouse and replace it with everything from a theatre to a parking structure. It was not until 1968 that the federal government finally agreed to preserve the building. In 1973, after renovation, the courthouse was reopened as a post office.
Adjacent is the Pioneer Courthouse Square. Once a grim parking structure, the square is now a thriving urban park and one of Portland’s leading outdoor venues, hosting 300 events each year, from large-scale concerts to cultural festivals. If you look around you will find plenty of art pieces in plain sight, below is one example:
Weather Machine consists of three weather symbols, each representing an element of Portland’s typical climate:
- HELIA: A stylized sun, for clear sunny days.
- BLUE HERON: For the days of drizzle, mist and transitional weather.
- DRAGON: Stormy days of heavy rain and wind.
The final display symbol represents the weather of the day with the illuminated bulbs displaying the temperature in 10 degree increments.
I don’t suppose anything associates with Portland more than Powell’s Books. Founded in 1971 in a former car dealership on a then-derelict corner, Powell’s has grown into a Portland landmark and the world’s largest new and used bookstore. The idea of putting new and used books on a single shelf is what set them apart from the competition.
Build in 1916, this Flatiron-style building was once purported to be the smallest commercial building on the West Coast. It originally opened up as a tire shop and went through many iterations over the years until purchased by McMenamins and reopened as Ringler’s Annex in 1996.
The Crane Building is a historic property that was built in 1909 for the Crane Plumbing Company. It was reborn as residential lofts in 2006.
The Simon Building started life in 1907 as a manufacturing and storage facility for steamship accessories. Over the years it has served many purposes, more recently this beautiful masonry and timber building has been an office for other commercial manufacturers. The fading lettering on the brick exterior harkens to the building’s days as a place for “crockery, glassware” and “kitchen equipment”. Today it is the headquarters of Keen, maker of big-toed sandals and other footwear since 2006.
Below large building houses a gas station, auto repair shop, offices, dispatch room, driver’s room, radio repair shop, and taxi meter repair shop, with enough room left over to install a car wash. It is owned today by Radio Cab Co a Taxi Business Since 1946 operating 136 taxicabs inside the Portland city limits and a growing fleet of cabs operating in the greater Portland metropolitan area.
The last thing I will leave you with is Portland Union Station, the oldest major passenger terminal on the West Coast. Construction began in 1890; it opened for service in 1896 and has been in continuous operations since that time. The centerpiece of the Romanesque and Queen Anne architecture is the 150-foot clock tower and its glowing neon sign encouraging travelers to “Go By Train.”
