Portland Oregon Trashes Portland Maine After We Poked Fun First

Oopsy.

Oh boy. So, Portland (Maine) recently put up 60 really cool banners on light poles around Congress Street. As the Bangor Daily News points out, they are vertical pennants all with summer colors and some have (had) tongue-in-cheek slogans about Portland's history.

The banners are a joint effort by Portland Downtown and students at the Maine College of Art & Design. The thought is great and the banners are gorgeous. But they aren't quite accurate and that has some folks in Portland a little upset.

This is clever and funny, but not true. Portland burned down four times...but who's counting. One of the banners that is no longer up ticked off Portland, Oregon. It read,

We were here first Oregon. You’re not even a port.

Oopsy. They are a port city. A pretty big significant one too. Sure, it's not an ocean port, it's a river port. Portland, Oregon, is a port on the Columbia River. A report from 2015 showed it handled almost 21.3 million tons of cargo and generated about $111 million in tax revenue. And as we all can acknowledge the only people who can rightfully claim 'we were here first' are the Wabanaki people. I'd show you a picture of that banner, but it's been taken down. An article in the Oregonian slapped us,

It’s OK that you didn’t know. We are famous for so many other things, the mountains, the beer, the bagpiping unicycler, the donuts. You can’t be expected to know about all of our many fantastic attributes. We couldn’t name one of yours, beyond your powerful-sounding name.

Ohhhh snap! That's funny. Okay, okay Portland, Oregon - we admit, it wasn't exactly accurate. Now let's hope California doesn't get out a measuring tape.

Next, I want banners along the Turnpike of all the snarky sayings to make you drive safe!