Portland

Portland is a city in northwestern Oregon, United States, where the Willamette River flows into the Columbia. A coin toss between its founders, Asa Lovejoy of Boston and Francis Pettygrove of Portland, Maine, settled the name in 1845, and the penny they flipped is kept by the Oregon Historical Society.

The clearing on the west bank of the Willamette grew into a port for wheat and lumber shipped down the Columbia, and Portland was incorporated in 1851. Streetcar lines and bridges carried the city east of the river around the turn of the 20th century. In the 1970s Tom McCall Waterfront Park took the place of the Harbor Drive expressway along the river, and the urban growth boundary drawn around the region a few years later has kept new suburbs out of the surrounding farmland.

Daimler Truck North America, based in Portland, designs the Freightliner and Western Star trucks sold across the continent. Adidas runs its North American head office from the city, and Stumptown Coffee Roasters, founded in Portland, roasts the beans served in its own cafés and sold in grocery stores. Widmer Brothers Brewing, founded in Portland, first brewed its cloudy American Hefeweizen in the city.

The International Rose Test Garden has grown new rose varieties since the 1910s, and the Rose Festival each June crowns a queen and sends floats covered in flowers through the streets. Powell's City of Books fills a whole city block with new and used books shelved side by side. Forest Park covers the hills of the northwest with Douglas fir and bigleaf maple, crossed by the Wildwood Trail. Matt Groening, the creator of The Simpsons, was born in Portland and named characters such as Ned Flanders and Kearney after streets of his home town.