Boston? Portland?

I love the old buildings here against the new ones...quite impressive & reminds me of Boston, Mass.

And the style of buildings reminds me also of Portland, Maine- especially this one.

The stately courthouse definitely recalls Boston. When I first visited Portland, Oregon, I definitely thought of it as a bigger Portland, Maine where my sister resides. The cities are both outdoorsy, artsy, socially conscious, on bodies of water and yet close enough to mountains for hiking and skiing. Once I came here to live and started walking around downtown, it definitely seemed more like Boston- in look & feel, but just smaller.
And then I found out that Portland was founded by two Easterners, Francis Pettygrove and Asa Lovejoy. AND Pettygrove was from Portland, Maine. He came to Oregon in 1842 by ship.
AND Lovejoy was an overlander from Boston. He came to Oregon with the Elijah White party of 1842, guided Marcus Whitman east that winter, and returned to Oregon with the Great Migration of 1843, the wagon train that is generally considered to have opened the Oregon Trail.

So when Lovejoy and Pettygrove platted their new city in 1845, both men wanted to name it for their respective hometowns. Following a dinner in the Oregon City home of Francis Ermatinger, a penny was flipped. Pettygrove won and saved future Portlanders from being known as New Bostonians.

Quite crazy that PDX reminded me of those two cities without knowing the east coast ties of long ago! Really quite interesting. I'm enjoying learning about my new digs and exploring the city.