Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
(much more attractive, if also a bit intimidating) bronze statue
Portland-
ia,
by Raymond Kaskey. His design was selected by a committee, which
included Graves, to complement the building's design. After the Statue
of Liberty,
Portlandia
is the largest hammered-copper statue in the Un-
ited States. If she stood up from her perch, she'd be the 50-Foot Wo-
man. (Even crouched, she's 36 feet tall.)
Portlandia
traveled to her cur-
rent location by barge along the Willamette River and was installed in
1985. (A few years later, local developer Joseph Weston offered to pay
with his own money to have the statue moved to Waterfront Park,
where people could see it without, as he put it, worrying about being hit
by a bus, but the city declined his offer.)
Take SW Main St. to SW 5th Ave. and turn right. Follow 5th Ave. to
SW Yamhill St. and turn left to return to Pioneer Courthouse Square.
BACK STORY: HOTEL PORTLAND
Though it would eventually become known as the most fabulous building
ever to grace the city, the Hotel Portland had a troubled start. It was dreamed
up in 1882 by Henry Villard, the railroad boss who built Union Station and is
generally credited with getting a transcontinental rail line to Portland. But Vil-
lard went broke and high-tailed it back to his native Germany before the hotel
could be finished. It took a couple of years and about 150 other investors, in-
cluding William S. Ladd, Henry Failing, George Markle, and Henry Corbett,
to wrap up construction on the project. The total cost was over $1 million.
The Hotel Portland (or Portland Hotel, depending on which antique postcard
you're looking at) finally opened in 1890 and was by all accounts very posh,
if a bit on the sturdy-and-stodgy side. It quickly became the cultural center-
piece of the city, with its elegant dining rooms and ballrooms. Eleven U.S.
presidents stayed there.
But its glory had begun to fade by the 1940s, when Meier & Frank bought the
building; it was torn down in 1951 for parking space, which was eventually
replaced by Pioneer Courthouse Square. The original wrought-iron gate from
the hotel now stands at one end of the square.
POINT OF INTEREST (
START TO FINISH
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