Portland, Oregon’s largest city, is located inland from the coast near the confluence of the Willamette and Columbia Rivers. Due to its strategic location, the pioneer municipality grew so fast it was nicknamed Stumptown for the hundreds of fir stumps left by early loggers, and while railroad tracks and other heavy industrial remnants are still highly visible around town, Portland’s riverfront park and numerous winding greenways show that this mini metropolis is not a smokestack town but a community that values art and nature as highly as commerce. Along with the largest (5,000-acre Forest Park) and the smallest (24-inches-in-diameter Mill Ends Park) urban parks in the nation, and one of the coolest urban skate parks anywhere (under the Burnside Bridge), Portland also has more movie theaters, restaurants, microbreweries, and bookstores per capita than any other U.S. city.
The oldest part of Portland has, over the past few years, been renovated into a lively Old Town district, where cast-iron facades of 120-year-old buildings hold some of the city’s most popular bars, clubs, and cafés. South of Old Town along the river, an ugly freeway has been torn down to form the mile-long Tom McCall Waterfront Park, and west of the river, downtown Portland centers on lively Pioneer Courthouse Square, at 6th Avenue and Yamhill Street. South of the square, the South Park Blocks between Park and Ninth Avenues were set aside as parklands in the original city plan and are now bounded by Portland’s prime museums. One essential Portland place is north of the square: Powell’s Books (503/228-0540), at 1005 W. Burnside Street across from the Blitz-Weinhard Brewery, is the largest (and certainly among the best) new-and-used bookshop in the world. South of town, Oaks Park (503/233-5777) is a wonderful circa-1905 amusement park, with ancient and modern thrill rides all packed together in a sylvan, oak tree–dotted park.
One of the largest and oldest ballparks in the minor leagues, the circa-1926 Civic Stadium, downtown off Burnside at 1844 SW Morrison, has been fully renovated and redubbed PGE Park, home to the Portland Beavers (503/553-5400), the San Diego Padres’ top farm club.
