Portland for a Quarter?

In 1843 an attorney named Asa Lovejoy and a Tennessee drifter named William Overton banked their canoes on the Willamette River. Overton was awestruck at the beauty there and he could see a wonderful future for the land. However, he faced a huge obstacle: he didn’t have the 25 cents he needed to file a land claim. He decided to make a deal with Lovejoy. For a quarter, he would share his claim to the 640-acre site, known as “The Clearing” with Lovejoy.

But Overton didn’t stay long. When he grew tired of clearing trees and building roads, he drifted on and sold his half of the claim to Francis W. Pettygrove.