I saw the post title and knew Portland would be in there. Boston, Oregon? No way!

#2 Green living or green beer?

In the Pacific northwest, there was a lot of land to decide what to do with. Francis Pettygrove and Asa Lovejoy shared the deed on a 640 acre parcel that they foresaw as being a great place where people would want to live. The only thing they disagreed on was the name. Lovejoy wanted to name the plot after his hometown of Boston, Massachusetts, while Pettygrove was insistent on naming it after his roots in Portland, Maine. After much discussion, they flipped a coin for it. Pettygrove won the toss and now we have Portland, Oregon.