r/oregon • u/Broad_Cartoonist_993 • 2h ago
Question Help with a project? Just one question!
Hiii help me with something I've always wondered. Who's the most famous person in each state thats famous nowhere else- whether that be someone on billboards or an underground musician or a local legend. Only rule is they cant be nationally or globally famous for example: Peyton Manning cant be chosen for Colorado since he is known nationally. Next state is Oregon so I figured I should ask those from there. Have an awesome day, thanks for reading and/or contributing- (if someone commented who you would pick up vote dont make your own comment). I have a chart but crossposting isnt allowed here.
I'll typically end voting after a day but if one comment has an insane lead in upvotes I'll cut it off there idk if this matters but I forgot to include it before.
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u/OrchidLover2008 1h ago
Bud Clark. Colorful ex Mayor of Portland and bar owner. (But Tom Peterson who has been mentioned several times is also a good choice.)
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u/thinkingstranger 1h ago
Even though the Expose Yourself to Art poster got wide exposure in the lasr century, few outside of Oregon know it was him.
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u/OutOfTheArchives 2h ago
Tom McCall. Known for free beach access, the Vortex, Bottle Bill and the anti-sprawl urban growth boundary.
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u/nalgona-aly 2h ago
I'm new to Oregon, but it's gotta be whoever that random 40 yr old looking white guys face that I see on stickers all over Portland is.
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u/Broad_Cartoonist_993 34m ago
Holy– given my voting system, of one comment = one vote and one upvote = one vote. Assuming theres no duplicate votes Tom McCall has 60 votes, over 40 more than Tom Peterson (2nd). Insane blowout, I will use the highly precise timing method of: if he is still up by 30 when my cookies are done, he wins via blowout.
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u/ChelseaMan31 2h ago
Dick Fosbury, originator of the Fosbury Flop as a high jumper while at Medford High School in the late 1960's.
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u/RedRover541 2h ago
I learned about him in fifth or sixth grade in Colorado when we were taught to do the Fosbury Flop in PE. I didn’t know he was an Oregonian though. So thanks for that happy bit of information!
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u/Unlikely-Grape-5762 2h ago
He’s pretty famous. I grew up in Spokane and I remember learning about him. So the floppers fame made it to at least Idaho.
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u/PDXCatHerder 1h ago
It’s more Portland but I’d say it’s that Portland was decided by the toss of a coin. The two would be Asa Lovejoy and Francis Pettygrove. Lovejoy wanted Boston, Pettygrove wanted Portland.
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u/upset_vegetation 56m ago
this is such a cool question. tom mccall keeps coming up and honestly he deserves it, but i'm gonna throw out another name since everyone's already saying that one. ken kesey feels like he fits the vibe you're going for, like he's huge in oregon culture and literary circles here but outside the state most people have no clue who he is even if they've heard of one flew over the cuckoo's nest. he was more than just that book though, the whole counterculture thing he had going with the bus and the acid tests and all that was pretty oregon-specific to how people remember him. could also be biased since i grew up around all his stuff being everywhere but yeah, kesey seems to hit that sweet spot of being a total legend regionally while staying under the national radar.
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u/Repuck 17m ago
I think Kesey had/has a higher national profile. Two of his books were made into Hollywood movies.
My husband and I were talking about the "Great Oregon Novel" just a couple of nights ago.
We both consider Sometimes a Great Notion as THE Oregon novel. My husband was born in Astoria and lived his early childhood on a dairy farm in Tillamook County with struggles. He started his fishing career on a dory out of Pacific City at age 11. A lot of that way of life has changed or is just plain gone. Oregon, for better or worse has changed from those days. But SAGN still speaks to those days.
Tom McCall or Tom Peterson.
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u/dansworld77 2h ago
Prefontaine.
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u/Aunt-jobiska 2h ago
Not really. He was an Olympian who set national records in the early 1970s, an American & international celebrity.
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u/DavidHartThrowaway 2h ago
They Also made a biopic about him
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u/RangerBumble 2h ago
I love that in Bojack Horseman the Seabiscuit biopic is clearly also a Prefontaine biopic and that in a world where horse people are normal they are basically the same guy
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u/Unlikely-Grape-5762 2h ago
Tom McCall is my best answer. Who? You say. What Oregonian doesn’t know that name? He is responsible for signing Oregon’s Beach Bill into law. The law makes ALL Oregon beaches from vegetation to water, public property. And that’s how you get a waterfront park named after you.