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PDX, Oregon collage-1-

Portland is a city located near the confluence of the Willamette and Columbia Rivers in the U.S. state of Oregon. With a population of 568,380 it is Oregon's most populous city, and the third most populous city in the Pacific Northwest. It was founded in 1845 and gradually eclipsed nearby Oregon City, the former Territorial capital, in size and importance.

A popular (but probably apocryphal) story of the city's naming holds that two groups of settlers, one from Boston, Massachusetts and one from Portland, Maine, flipped a coin to decide the matter.

Portland in The Case of the Toxic Spell Dump[]

Boston, Oregon[1] was a city on America's west coast. Inept spellcasters sometimes ended up there by accident when they attempted to transport to Boston, Massachusetts but performed the spell wrong.[2]

David Fisher's brother lived in Boston with his two-year-old daughter.[3]

Portland in The Hot War[]

Portland was the second city the Soviet Union successfully atom bombed on the early morning of March 2, 1951. Even though Seattle had been bombed hours before, Portland was caught completely off guard.[4]

Portland in Joe Steele[]

While en route to an assignment in Albany, New York, Mike Sullivan went over state capitals in his head. He incorrectly named Oregon's capital as Eugene rather than Salem.[5] In his opinion, it would have made more sense to put Oregon's capital in Portland.[6]

Portland in Southern Victory[]

Portland, Oregon was home to a football team called the Portland Columbias.

Portland in Supervolcano[]

Portland, Oregon was the location of an American geologists' convention the second December after the Yellowstone Supervolcano eruption. Kelly Ferguson attended and presented her first major sole paper on the eruption. The weather was unusually cold with snow falling and on the ground. As Ferguson reflected, people were joking Los Angeles was the new Seattle which made Portland the new Skagway, Alaska, at least by the map.

Ferguson met Daniel Olson at the conference, the first time since she had crashed at his place in Missoula immediately after the eruption. She had breakfast with him the morning of her presentation and then gave her talk. Ferguson was introduced to the audience by her former chairperson, Geoff Rheinburg, and her presentation went well with cogent and technical questions afterwards. Rheinburg congratulated her on a good job when she finished and the two chatted for a bit before the next presentation.[7]

Portland in The Two Georges[]

West Boston was a major city in the North American Union province of Oregon. It was located on the banks of the Columbia River. Rumour had it that the first settlers, who were from Boston and Portland, both in Massachusetts, argued over naming it after either of their old cities, and settled the dispute by spinning a shilling.

In 1995, Colonel Thomas Bushell, Captain Samuel Stanley and Lieutenant Colonel Felix Crooke had a lay-over in West Boston during their flight from New Liverpool to Wellesley on the Empire Builder in the course of their investigation into the theft of The Two Georges. Bushell had previously been in West Boston during the mission he had ended early, came home unexpectedly and surprised his wife in the act of adultery with Sir David Clarke. Bushell tried not to think about this during the lay-over.[8]

References[]

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