Portland Hotel

The Portland Hotel (or Hotel Portland) was a late-19th-century hotel in Portland, Oregon, United States that once occupied the city block on which Pioneer Courthouse Square now stands. It closed in 1951 after 61 years of operation. The building was designed by William M. Whidden, later of the prominent Portland architectural firm Whidden & Lewis, and Charles Follen McKim of McKim, Mead, & White. Railroad magnate Henry Villard financed the Portland Hotel and construction began in 1882, but his finances collapsed—in part because of the Panic of 1884—and the construction stopped for five years. With only the foundation completed, the site became known as "Villard's Ruins" and the bodies of two murder victims were found there before...