This photograph from 1927 shows the three-year-old Portland Junior Symphony.  When it started, the young musicians practiced in the attic of music teacher Mary V. …

Oregon History Project

The pair of Italianate mansions on the right of the lithograph belonged to two brothers, Ralph and Isaac Jacobs, and their families.  In 1882, when …

Oregon History Project

In November 1972, the first Portland Marathon attracted 86 marathoners (and about the same number of "half-marathoners") to a course on Sauvie Island, a flat …

Oregon Encyclopedia

Portland Center, a district within the South Portland Urban Renewal Project, was designed in the 1960s as a “city within a city.” The city set …

Oregon Encyclopedia

The Portland Paramount Theatre once dominated the city’s Great White Way, a series of brightly lit cinemas that dazzled downtowners along Southwest Broadway Street. The …

Oregon Encyclopedia

While America's premier landscape architect, Frederick Law Olmsted, traveled the country in the mid-nineteenth century, encouraging mayors and town councils to add parks to their …

Oregon Encyclopedia

The Portland Penny is an 1835 American copper penny that was used in an 1845 coin toss to name the new town of Portland. …

Oregon Encyclopedia

In July 1883, the Oregonian announced a “grand athletic tourney” at Portland's Mechanics Arena. Among other activities, “the sciences of Greco-Roman and Scotch back-hold …

Oregon Encyclopedia

Designated "market squares" were once common in American city plans, and Portland's 1853 plat identified two blocks that served this purpose. One of those …

Oregon Encyclopedia

In this 1933 photo, the newly constructed Portland Public Market, located along Southwest Front Street, stands out in the lower right-hand corner.  During the 1920s, …

Oregon History Project