This is kinda off-topic, but I found something about the other nicknames of Portland
This is kinda off-topic, but I found something about the other nicknames of Portland
Nicknames of Portland, Oregon
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The rose has played a significant role in Portland's history and inspires one of the city's major nicknames.
There are several well-known and commonly used
nicknames referring to
Portland, Oregon.
Contents
City of Roses
The official,
[1] and also most common, nickname for Portland is
The City of Roses[1][2][3] or
Rose City.
[4][5] The first known reference to Portland as "The City of Roses" was made by visitors to an 1888
Episcopal Church convention, the nickname growing in popularity after the 1905
Lewis and Clark Centennial Exposition where Mayor Harry Lane suggested that the city needed a "festival of roses."
[2] The first
Portland Rose Festival was held two years later and remains the city's major annual festival a century later. There are many other cities and towns known as
Rose City or The City of Roses.
The nickname is often attributed to Leo Samuel,
[6] who founded the Oregon Life Insurance Company in 1906 (known today as Standard Insurance Company). Samuel, who moved to Portland in 1871,
[7] grew roses outside his home. He placed a pair of shears outside his garden so people could snip a rose from his garden to take for themselves. This encouraged other people and business to plant their own roses outside their homes and business. Today, roses are still planted outside the Standard Insurance Company's home office building in downtown Portland.
This nickname likely inspired the name for the four-year-old female
Asian elephant who arrived in 1953, Rosy. The first elephant ever to live in Oregon, she remained the matriarch of the herd and gave birth to six calves before her death in 1993. On August 31, 1994, her daughter Me-Tu became the first elephant in North America to have twins. On August 23, 2008, her granddaughter Rose-Tu (the surviving twin) gave birth to Samudra, the first third-generation elephant born in the United States.
On June 18, 2003, the city council unanimously approved a resolution adopting "City of Roses" as the city's official nickname.
[1][2]
Bridgetown
Further information:
Transportation in Portland, Oregon#Bridges
Portland is known as
Bridgetown due to numerous
bridges crossing the
Willamette and
Columbia rivers.
[5] The river width spanned varies from 850 to 7,850 feet (260 to 2,390 m), and all of the bridges also span shoreline roads, paths, or other ground at each shore. In total, there are eleven bridges over the Willamette, including eight in the central area, and three over the Columbia.
Little Beirut
Staffers of former U.S. President
George H. W. Bush used to refer to Portland as
Little Beirut because of the protesters he encountered during his visits.
[8]
P-Town
Portland is sometimes affectionately called P-Town by locals.
[9][10][11]
Rip City
The nickname
Rip City is usually used in the context of the city's
NBA team, the
Portland Trail Blazers.
[12] The term was coined by the team's play-by-play announcer
Bill Schonely during a game against the
Los Angeles Lakers on February 18, 1971, the Blazers'
first season.
[13] In the days prior to the
three-point field goal, Blazers'
guard Jim Barnett took an ill-advised long distance shot that nonetheless went in, giving the new team hope for a victory against the powerful Lakers. Excited, Schonely exclaimed "Rip City! All right!" Schonely admits that he has no idea how he came up with the expression, but it became synonymous with the team and the city of Portland.
[14]
Stumptown
Stumptown was coined in a period of phenomenal growth in Portland after 1847. The city was growing so rapidly that the stumps of trees cut down to make way for roads were left until manpower could be spared to remove them. In some areas, the stumps remained for so long that locals
whitewashed the stumps to make them more visible, and used them to cross the street without sinking into the mud.
[15][16] Captain
John C. Ainsworth commented that there were "more stumps than trees" in Portland in the early 1850s.
[15][17]
In more modern terms, Stumptown is jocularly used as Portland's nickname for the city's lack of tall skyscrapers, the highest being only 546 feet.
[18]
Razorblade City
Portland Hip-Hop group the
Lifesavas brought this nickname into being as the fictional location of their album Gutterfly.
[19] It has been commandeered by locals to reference Portland's relatively high depression and suicide rates.
[20]
PDX
The city of Portland is nicknamed
PDX synecdochically after the
International Air Transport Association airport code for the
Portland International Airport which is within the city limits. For example, the domain name for
Portland State University is pdx.edu.
