PUBLICADO PARA HOY 2 DE NOVIEMBRE
BY: KEVIN LEVY
Downtown Portland Oregon
Downtown Portland is a unique and hip part of Portland that has an abundance of charm, history, beauty and charecture. Downtown Portland borders Nob Hill and Goose Hollow and extends along the Willamette River as well as the 405 Fwy. Walking around downtown you will notice many narrow streets and compact blocks. This was in mind when Downtown was being built so walking around can be that much easier and more corner lot stores available. The accessibility to get around is excellent. Everything from the Street cars, tri-met bus’s, taxi’s, easy to bike, easy to walk, it is no wonder why Downtown Portland is one of the many highlights all of Portland has to offer. It is also no wonder why everyone loves to retire in Portland Oregon.
Portland State University (PSU) brings in thousands of people moving to Portland, Oregon and has the largest enrollment of any school in the state. During the past year PSU has awarded over 4000 Bachelor, Master, and Doctorate degrees in a wide variety of majors.
There are so many excellent restaurants, shops, pubs and cafe’s that it would be impossible to list them all. On a larger scale, here are a few places of interest - Portland’s Saturday Market, The Oregon Maritime Museum, Pioneer Courthouse Square, Portland Art Museum, Oregon Historical Society, Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall and Waterfront Park which hosts great events such as the Blues Festival, beer festivals, 4th of July festivals and so many others to mention. The night life in Downtown use to shut down around 8:00pm back in the 80′s but with an abundance of live music venues, restaurants, bars, museums, performance art, dance clubs and many other great places of interest, Downtown has become a place that stays alive well into the early morning and one of the reasons why so many people love the downtown area.
There is also the Portland Downtown Services Inc. that is committed to providing a safe and clean area by providing, Private security, sidewalk cleaning, graffiti removal and crime-prevention.
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Downtown Portland Oregon Tour (Just a little bit of it)
Oregon (i/ˈɒrɨɡən/ orr-ə-gən) is a state in the Pacific Northwest region of the United States. It is located on the Pacific coast, with Washington to the north, California to the south, Nevada on the southeast and Idaho to the east. The Columbia and Snake rivers delineate much of Oregon's northern and eastern boundaries, respectively. The area was inhabited by many indigenous tribes before the arrival of traders, explorers, and settlers who formed an autonomous government in Oregon Country in 1843. The Oregon Territory was created in 1848, and Oregon became the 33rd state on February 14, 1859.
Salem is the state's capital and third-most-populous city; Portland is the most populous. Oregon's 2010 population is just over 3.8 million, a 12% increase over 2000.Portland is the 29th-largest U.S. city, with a population of 583,776 (2010 US Census) and a metro population of 2,241,841 (2009 estimate), the 23rd-largest U.S. metro area. The valley of the Willamette River in western Oregon is the state's most densely populated area and is home to eight of the ten most populous cities.
Oregon contains a diverse landscape including the windswept Pacific coastline, the volcanoes of the rugged and glaciated Cascade Mountain Range, many waterfalls (including Multnomah Falls), dense evergreen forests, mixed forests and deciduous forests at lower elevations, and high desert across much of the eastern portion of the state, extending into the Great Basin. The tall Douglas firs and redwoods along the rainy Western Oregon coast contrast with the lower density and fire prone pine tree and juniper forests covering portions of the eastern half of the state. Alder trees are common in the west and fix nitrogen for the conifers and aspen groves are common in eastern Oregon. Stretching east from Central Oregon, the state also includes semi-arid shrublands, prairies, deserts, steppes, and meadows. Mount Hood is the highest point in the state at 11,249 feet (3,429 m). Crater Lake National Park is the only national park in Oregon.
History
Humans have inhabited the area that is now Oregon for at least 15,000 years. In recorded history, mentions of the land date to as early as the 16th century. During the 18th and 19th centuries, European powers—and later the United States—quarreled over possession of the region until 1846 when the U.S. and Great Britain finalized division of the region. Oregon became a state in 1859 and is now home to over 3.8 million residents.
Earliest inhabitants
Human habitation of the Pacific Northwest began at least 15,000 years ago, with the oldest evidence of habitation in Oregon found at Fort Rock Cave and the Paisley Caves in Lake County. Archaeologist Luther Cressman dated material from Fort Rock to 13,200 years ago. By 8000 B.C. there were settlements throughout the state, with populations concentrated along the lower Columbia River, in the western valleys, and around coastal estuaries.
European exploration
By the 16th century Oregon was home to many Native American groups, including the Bannock, Chasta, Chinook, Kalapuya, Klamath, Molalla, Nez Perce, Takelma, and Umpqua.
The first Europeans to visit Oregon were Spanish explorers who sighted southern Oregon off the Pacific Coast in 1543. No Europeans returned to Oregon until 1778, when British captain James Cook explored the coast. French Canadian and metis trappers and missionaries arrived in the eastern part of the state in the late 18th century and early 19th century, many having travelled as members of Lewis and Clark and the 1811 Astor expeditions. Some stayed permanently, including Étienne Lussier, believed to be the first European farmer in the state of Oregon. The evidence of this French Canadian presence can be found in the numerous names of French origin in that part of the state: Charbonneau, Malheur Lake and River, Grande Ronde and Des Chutes Rivers, city of Ontario, etc.
During U.S. westward expansion
See also: History of the United States (1789–1849) and Oregon pioneer history
The Lewis and Clark Expedition traveled through the region also in search of the Northwest Passage. They built their winter fort at Fort Clatsop, near the mouth of the Columbia River. British explorer David Thompson also conducted overland exploration.
In 1811, David Thompson, of the North West Company, became the first European to navigate the entire Columbia River. Stopping on the way, at the junction of the Snake River, he posted a claim to the region for Great Britain and the North West Company. Upon returning to Montreal, he publicized the abundance of fur-bearing animals in the area.
Also in 1811, New Yorker John Jacob Astor financed the establishment of Fort Astoria at the mouth of the Columbia River as a western outpost to his Pacific Fur Company; this was the first permanent European settlement in Oregon.
In the War of 1812, the British gained control of all Pacific Fur Company posts. The Treaty of 1818 established joint British and American occupancy of the region west of the Rocky Mountains to the Pacific Ocean. By the 1820s and 1830s, the Hudson's Bay Company dominated the Pacific Northwest from its Columbia District headquarters at Fort Vancouver (built in 1825 by the District's Chief Factor John McLoughlin across the Columbia from present-day Portland).
In 1841, the expert trapper and entrepreneur Ewing Young died leaving considerable wealth and no apparent heir, and no system to probate his estate. A meeting followed Young's funeral at which a probate government was proposed. Doctor Ira Babcock of Jason Lee's Methodist Mission was elected Supreme Judge. Babcock chaired two meetings in 1842 at Champoeg (half way between Lee's mission and Oregon City) to discuss wolves and other animals of contemporary concern. These meetings were precursors to an all-citizen meeting in 1843, which instituted a provisional government headed by an executive committee made up of David Hill, Alanson Beers, and Joseph Gale. This government was the first acting public government of the Oregon Country before annexation by the government of the United States.
Also in 1841, Sir George Simpson, Governor of the Hudson's Bay Company, reversed the Hudson's Bay Company's long-standing policy of discouraging settlement because it interfered with the lucrative fur trade. He directed that some 200 Red River Colony settlers be relocated to HBC farms near Fort Vancouver, (the James Sinclair expedition), in an attempt to hold Columbia District.
Starting in 1842–1843, the Oregon Trail brought many new American settlers to Oregon Country. For some time, it seemed that Britain and the United States would go to war for a third time in 75 years (see Oregon boundary dispute), but the border was defined peacefully in 1846 by the Oregon Treaty. The border between the United States and British North America was set at the 49th parallel. The Oregon Territory was officially organized in 1848.
Settlement increased with the Donation Land Claim Act of 1850 and the forced relocation of the native population to Indian reservations in Oregon.
After statehood
Oregon was admitted to the Union on February 14, 1859. Founded as a refuge from disputes over slavery, Oregon had a "whites only" clause in its original state Constitution.
At the outbreak of the American Civil War, regular U.S. troops were withdrawn and sent east. Volunteer cavalry recruited in California were sent north to Oregon to keep peace and protect the populace. The First Oregon Cavalry served until June 1865.
In the 1880s, the growth of railroads helped market the state's lumber, wheat, and the rapid growth of its cities.
20th and 21st centuries
See also: State of Jefferson, Cascadia, and Ecotopia.
In 1902, Oregon introduced direct legislation by the state’s citizens through initiatives and referenda, known as the Oregon System. Oregon state ballots often include politically conservative proposals side-by-side with politically liberal ones, illustrating the diversity of political thought in the state.
Industrial expansion began in earnest following the construction of the Bonneville Dam in 1933–1937 on the Columbia River. Hydroelectric power, food, and lumber provided by Oregon helped fuel the development of the West, although the periodic fluctuations in the U.S. building industry have hurt the state's economy on multiple occasions.
Name
The earliest known use of the name, spelled "Ouragon", was in a 1765 petition by Major Robert Rogers to the Kingdom of Great Britain. The term referred to the then–mythical River of the West (the Columbia River). By 1778 the spelling had shifted to Oregon. In his 1765 petition, Rogers wrote:
"The rout...is from the Great Lakes towards the Head of the Mississippi, and from thence to the River called by the Indians Ouragon..."
One theory is the name comes from the French word ouragan ("windstorm" or "hurricane"), which was applied to the River of the West based on Native American tales of powerful Chinook winds of the lower Columbia River, or perhaps from firsthand French experience with the chinook winds of the Great Plains. At the time the River of the West was thought to rise in western Minnesota and flow west through the Great Plains.
Joaquin Miller explained in Sunset (magazine) in 1904 how Oregon's name was derived:
"The name, Oregon, is rounded down phonetically, from Aure il agua—Oragua, Or-a-gon, Oregon—given probably by the same Portuguese navigator that named the Farallones after his first officer, and it literally, in a large way, means cascades: 'Hear the waters.' You should steam up the Columbia and hear and feel the waters falling out of the clouds of Mount Hood to understand entirely the full meaning of the name Aure il agua, Oregon."
Another account, endorsed as the "most plausible explanation" in the book Oregon Geographic Names, was advanced by George R. Stewart in a 1944 article in American Speech. According to Stewart, the name came from an engraver's error in a French map published in the early 18th century, on which the Ouisiconsink (Wisconsin) River was spelled "Ouaricon-sint", broken on two lines with the -sint below, so there appeared to be a river flowing to the west named "Ouaricon".
According to the Oregon Tourism Commission (also known as Travel Oregon), present-day Oregonians /ˌɒrɨˈɡoʊniənz/ pronounce the state's name as "OR-UH-GUN, never OR-EE-GONE".
After being drafted by the Detroit Lions in 2002, former Oregon Ducks quarterback Joey Harrington distributed "ORYGUN" stickers to members of the media as a reminder of how to pronounce the name of his home state. The stickers are sold by the University of Oregon Bookstore, which credits the spelling as a joke that is meant "for Oregonians and Oregon fans everywhere who get a kick out of this hilarious mispronunciation of our state."
POR: YOUTUBE Y WIKIPEDIA
