Each edition grades its towns against each other only.
Aubrey R. Watzek House · Photo: Visitor7 · CC BY-SA 3.0More historic than 96% of U.S. towns · #2 of 142 in Oregon. What drives it
With 27% of its homes built before 1940 and 25 historic districts holding 7,008 contributing buildings. Below: 12 old photos and papers, maps from 1889 on, the census since 1860, and every listing on the Register.
The Portland post office opened in 1849, the earliest record of the town by name. Ten smaller post offices, Slough (1850), Springville (1860) and East Portland (1866), opened inside today’s city and later closed.
More historic than 96% of U.S. towns, on its age, its old homes and the National Register.
On its age, its old homes and the National Register, Portland is more historic than 96% of U.S. towns, #2 of 142 in Oregon. All 3 inputs are above most U.S. towns; its National Register listings ranks highest and its age lowest.
Among the 400 U.S. cities of 100,000 or more, Portland ranks #40 on History.
Oregon towns list more on the Register than most of the country (a typical Oregon town has 2.9 per 10,000 residents, the U.S. 2.4), so Portland’s 109 sits above most of its state (95% of Oregon towns have fewer) while its 7,008 historic buildings outnumber those of 100% of U.S. towns.
Founding year: the first post office (other dates in Quick answers). Homes: Census ACS 2020–24. National Register: National Park Service, May 2026 list; each listing counted once (boundary changes and added documentation belong to their listing), and a historic district counts its contributing buildings. How TownRatings grades history →
Read from the archive, the National Register and the record. The page puts what stands out first.
The country’s official list of buildings and places worth saving. 3 are National Historic Landmarks, the highest tier. Boundary changes and added documentation are counted with their listing.
★ Landmark
★ Landmark
★ Landmark
National Park Service, National Register of Historic Places. Photos from Wikimedia Commons, credited on each place’s page.
Portland’s post office has been open since 1849. 39 other post offices opened and closed inside today’s town.
US Post Offices dataset (Blevins & Helbock, CC0). Places and cemeteries from the USGS Geographic Names Information System (2021).
From Wikipedia’s history of Portland.
During the prehistoric period, the land that would become Portland was flooded after the collapse of glacial dams from Lake Missoula, in what would later become Montana. These massive floods occurred during the last ice age and filled the Willamette Valley with 300 to 400 feet (91 to 122 m) of water.
Text from Wikipedia, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0.
Passages that mention Portland, cut from the printed page as they were published.
This prophecy is founded in conditions that make it impressive and give assurance of certain fulfillment. So much has been done and gained that the future is no longer problematical. Destiu)- is so far advanced that prophecy cannot miss its mark. Portland, no mean city already, is destined to be a great one. Who can guess with how curious an interest this account of beginnings of the city of Portland; this record of the city of Portland of to-day, will be read in the great city of Portland, forty or one hundred years from
Text read by machine from the scan; it may contain errors.
To return to the subject of the road on the south side of the Columbia, between Portland and Wallula: After the land grant for this road was taken away from Portland by the joint resolution of 1870, the public being in great need of the road, from Portland up the Columbia River, some of the citizens of Portland, including Col. Chapman in the number, inaugurated measures for the construdtiou of a road from Portland to Salt Lake. Part of the line was surveyed, and at times the prospedls were very favorable. On one occasion, when their bill in the house was progressing under favorable circumstances, the Credit Mobilier broke out and crushed
Text read by machine from the scan; it may contain errors.
their town by starting an opposition steamship line, and they accordingly purchased, as they believed, a controlling interest in the steamship Gold Hunter, paying down twenty-one thousand dollars in coin, a much larger sum comparatively to Portland in 1850 than half a million is today. At that early example of Coffin, Chapman, Lownsdale and others, in contending for the business interests of Portland, should be a significant hint to the millionaires who are now wrestling with the tug and dredger business, many of whom are singly better able to take the whole job than Portland was to raise that twenty-one thousand
Text read by machine from the scan; it may contain errors.
age changed the scene of his activities from New York to Wisconsin, locating on the Eau Claire river, where he owned and conducted a sawmill. There he resided until 1870, when he came to Portland, arriving in this city on the loth of December. He came to the northwest for the purpose of engaging in the lumber business, and after remaining in Portland for a short time built a sawmill on Lewis river in Clarke county, and took up his abode at that place. There he remained for five years, at the end of which time he sold out and removed to a point below the Cowlitz river, where he had a floating mill. In 1878 he returned
Text read by machine from the scan; it may contain errors.Scans and text from the Internet Archive. Books published in 1930 or earlier, which are in the public domain.
Woven from the archive, old maps, post office records, the National Register and the people born here.
In the archiveMinutes of first Portland City Council meeting
In the archive1867 Panorama of Portland and the Willamette River, Oregon. No. 6 (NYPL b11707314-1529660…
In the archiveNew Market Theater photo ca 1875
In the archiveNew Market Theater illustration ca 1880BuiltCalvary Presbyterian Church is built
BuiltPortland City Hall is built
On the mapFirst mapped by the U.S. Geological Survey
Born hereLinus Pauling is born here
BuiltPittock Mansion is built
Born hereDouglas Engelbart is born hereBuiltAubrey R. Watzek House is built
Born hereMatt Groening is born here
Born hereMary E. Brunkow is born here4 decades in the archive, from the 1850s to the 1880s. Scroll each row; tap a photo for its story.
1851Minutes of first Portland City Council meeting
1858Portland, Oregon east side, 1858
1859Portland, Multnomah County, Oregon18671867 Panorama of Portland and the Willamette River, O…
1867California Steam Navigation Company (1867) (ADVERT 15…
1867Panorama of Portland and the Willamette River, Oregon…
1867Stagecoach from Sacramento to Portland (1867) (ADVERT…Every edition of the U.S. Geological Survey’s map of Portland. Tap a year, or press play to watch the town change.
U.S. Geological Survey historical topographic maps (public domain), via Esri’s collection of the scans. The red ring marks the center of Portland.
Fire insurance maps drew every building, what it was made of and what it was used for, so insurers could price the risk of fire. Pick a year, then a sheet.
1889Sheet 2 of 49Sanborn Map Company, via the Library of Congress. Editions published in 1930 or earlier, which are in the public domain.
No then-and-now pairs yet. Take a photo from the same spot as an old one and they appear here side by side.
Find the spot, match the angle, and add your photo. It becomes the first then-and-now pair on Portland’s page.
Retake this view · +15Grew from 2,874 people in 1860 to 652,503 in 2020, more than tenfold.
17 censuses, 1860–2020.
U.S. Census Bureau decennial counts, from the census table on Portland’s Wikipedia page.
Writers, athletes, leaders and more, ranked by how widely they’re known.
Most archives stop around 1920. The photos from after that are in family albums, not libraries.
Each neighbor’s History grade, on the same three inputs.
The Portland post office opened in 1849, the earliest record of the town by name (U.S. post office records).
Portland is more historic than 96% of U.S. towns, #2 of 142 in Oregon. The History grade combines the town’s founding era, the share of homes built before 1940 and its National Register listings. It’s a character grade, so it isn’t part of the overall grade. How it works.
596 listings, 3 of them National Historic Landmarks: 555 buildings, among them the Pioneer Courthouse (a National Historic Landmark since 1977) and the Calvary Presbyterian Church (listed 1972, the first), 25 historic districts with 6,328 contributing buildings, 3 sites, 10 structures, and 2 objects. 7,008 historic buildings in all.
27% of Portland’s homes were built before 1940 (Census estimate), against a typical 5.3% for an Oregon town; the median home was built in 1966.
What the archives can’t tell you, neighbors can.
Founding dates: Wikidata, Wikipedia, the U.S. post office records of Blevins & Helbock (CC0) and the Census. Homes by year built: Census ACS 2020–24. National Register of Historic Places: National Park Service (list of May 22, 2026). Old photos, postcards and papers: Wikimedia Commons, the Library of Congress and other public archives, credited on each item’s page. Maps: U.S. Geological Survey historical topographic maps (via Esri) and Sanborn fire-insurance maps (Library of Congress). History text and census tables: Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0). Places that used to be: USGS Geographic Names Information System (2021).
From Wikimedia Commons (12), the National Register of Historic Places (595), Wikipedia, Wikidata and Wikipedia for famous people, U.S. Geological Survey historical maps, U.S. Census counts (via Wikipedia), the US Post Offices dataset (Blevins & Helbock), the USGS Geographic Names Information System, Sanborn fire insurance maps (Library of Congress) and old county and town histories (Internet Archive). Archive images are copied here with their credits and licenses, shown on each photo’s page. Refreshed monthly.
c. 1878
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