History of Portland, Oregon
The history of the city of Portland, Oregon, began in 1843 when business partners William Overton and Asa Lovejoy filed to claim land on the west bank of the Willamette River in Oregon Country. In 1845 the name of Portland was chosen for this community by coin toss. February 8, 1851, the city was incorporated. Portland has continued to grow in size and population, with the 2010 Census showing 583,776 residents in the city.
Provisional Government of Oregon district boundaries drawn in 1843, showing eventual U.S. border and states.
Asa Lovejoy
Minutes of the first meeting of the city council, 1851
Pioneer Courthouse. Built in 1869 and still used today, it is the oldest federal building west of the Mississippi River.
Asa Lawrence Lovejoy was an American pioneer and politician in the region that would become the U.S. state of Oregon. He is best remembered as a founder of the city of Portland, Oregon. He was an attorney in Boston, Massachusetts before traveling by land to Oregon; he was a legislator in the Provisional Government of Oregon, mayor of Oregon City, and a general during the Cayuse War that followed the Whitman massacre in 1847. He was also a candidate for Provisional Governor in 1847, before the Oregon Territory was founded, but lost that election.
Asa Lovejoy
Lovejoy Fountain in downtown Portland
Image: Lovejoy, Asa L. at Lone Fir Cemetery
