The city of Portland, Oregon, where Martha and Grant recently took their live show, owes its name to a coin toss. The city’s founders, Asa Lovejoy of Boston, Massachusetts, and Frances Pettygrove of Portland, Maine, each wanted to name it for his own hometown. Lovejoy lost, and the penny tossed to decide the matter is on display at the Oregon Historical Society. Portland also goes by the nicknames Stumptown, Beervana, and Bridgetown. This is part of a complete episode.
Transcript of “Naming a City with a Coin Toss”
You’re listening to A Way with Words, the show about language and how we use it.
I’m Grant Barrett.
And I’m Martha Barnette.
Grant, I’m still glowy from our trip to Stumptown, also known as Birvana.
Portland.
Yes, Portland, Oregon, also known as Bridgetown.
Yeah, it was very lovely, wasn’t it?
Rain when I wanted it, sun when I wanted it.
Yeah.
It was very good.
Yeah, and we had a great evening at the Mission Theater, met a lot of our listeners, and that was great.
The other thing that really excited me about the name of Portland is that it’s the only town I know of that I’ve ever been in whose name was decided by a coin toss.
A coin toss.
Yes, in the 1840s.
The place was called The Clearing, and the two founders of the town were Francis Pettigrove and Asa Lovejoy.
Francis was from Portland, Maine, and Asa was from Boston, Massachusetts.
And each of them wanted to name the town after his own hometown.
Yeah.
And so how are you going to choose between the two of them?
They decided to have a coin toss.
Oh, okay.
And Francis from Portland, Maine, won the coin toss.
There we go.
So Portland was not called Boston.
It was named Portland.
As far as I know, that’s the only town whose name was decided by a coin toss.
But maybe there are others.
Or maybe you live in a place that has a weird story behind the name of it.
Yeah.
Let us know.
Email us, words@waywordradio.org,
Or talk to us on Twitter @wayword.
