Why is Portland called PDX?

Why is Portland called PDX?

Thanks to Twitter and its unbelievably short limitations on messages – just 140 characters, the length of original text messages (Twitter was supposed to be a platform for mobile phones exclusively, initially) – cities throughout the United States, including Portland, are often referenced by their major airport’s International Air Transport Association (IATA) location identifier.

In the case of Portland, the Portland International Airport’s IATA location code is PDX.

However, Portlanders love their airport for many reasons, so let’s delve into the history of PDX!

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Why is beer so popular in Portland?

Why is beer so popular in Portland?

Portlanders love beer. We adore it.

There are more than 200 breweries and brew pubs in the state of Oregon with more than half of those breweries in the Portland metro area alone.

We’ve gone so far as to hold Beer for Breakfast events featuring Great Notion Brewing’s concoctions flavored with a mixture of coffee and maple or another with blueberry muffins.

Gigantic Brewing made headlines just a few days ago by introducing their new take on coffee beer at a festival dedicated solely to the mating of coffee and beer (sounds like peanut butter and chocolate to us).

Just yesterday, Time Magazine covered the new sour beer craze with Ecliptic Brewing introducing a sour peach beer last year that sold so well they doubled its production.

How did beer, craft beer, in particular,  become so popular in Portland?

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What is Talk Like a Pirate Day and why does Portland love it?

What is Talk Like a Pirate Day and why does Portland love it?

Ahoy, mateys! September 19 be Talk Like a Pirate Day every coming of the year.

Okay, okay – we can’t do it.

But, we can certainly investigate the origins of International Talk Like a Pirate Day (yes, it’s international, how cosmopolitan of it) and explain why Portlanders seem to adore the holiday each year when September 19 rears on its haunches.

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Why is Portland named Rip City?

Why is Portland named Rip City?

Why is Portland called Rip City?

Those of us who love Portland also tend to love our city’s many nicknames – Rose City, Stumptown, Slabtown, and so many more. Often the origins of the nicknames are shrouded in mythology and mystery when, in reality, simple logic explains how the names came into existence.

We theorized Rip City could have stemmed from alternative Portlanders sporting torn jeans in the 1980s and 1990s. Nope. Maybe it’s a shipping or nautical term of some kind referring to Portland’s immense and successful Port? No luck.

The origin of “Rip City” begins and ends with our professional basketball team – the Trail Blazers – however its origin is so random it will never be fully explained. The myth remains intact.

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The origin story of “Rip City”

 

Portland’s NBA team, the Trail Blazers, started existence back in 1971. During a game against the Los Angeles Lakers, Jim Barnett, a point guard on the team, took a long shot, both literally and metaphorically. Mid-game, Barnett quickly threw out a deep field goal attempt and made it!

The chances of the shot making it into the net were so slim that Bill Schonely, the game’s play-by-play announcer and considered by many fans to be “The Voice of the Blazers,” became overwhelmed by his own excitement and blurted out “Rip City! Alright!” Here’s the kicker – Schonely himself admits that even he doesn’t know why he shouted “Rip City.”

He was simply inspired to yell it at that exact moment. And the name stuck. Barnett, the player who scored the shot and went on to become a game broadcaster himself, told the Oregonian in a 2009 interview, “Schonely made the call – I just made the shot, but I do take pride in that; it’s a little bit of history.” Sometimes, nicknames are rooted in reality. For us, we love them just as much (maybe more) when the truth is so much stranger than fiction.

Do you want to know the origins of other Portland oddities? Leave your inquiries in the comments!  

References

 

Where is Portland’s best coffee?

Where is Portland’s best coffee?

Portland loves its coffee. From Boyd Coffee Company and Stumptown Coffee Roasters to Starbucks and Tully’s and everything in-between, you better not get between a Stumptowner and their cup of joe lest you want to endure limitless angry, whiny hipster wrath (and that’s just in our offices)!

But, with nearly 3,000 coffee shops in the metro area to pick from (Holy java! That’s a lot of black tar!), which ones are Portlanders’ favorites and who has the best brew?

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