The story
Portland Pride Waterfront Festival in Portland
Pride Northwest's Portland Pride Waterfront Festival brings a two-day festival and parade to Tom McCall Waterfront Park, with the parade route running from West Burnside and Park Avenue down Southwest Pine Street and Naito Parkway. Organized since 1994 by the nonprofit Pride Northwest, the event traces to Portland's first Gay Pride Fair in 1975 and now draws tens of thousands of participants from more than 200 community groups.
Portland's pride tradition began in 1975, when roughly 200 people organized the city's first Gay Pride Fair near the South Park Blocks by Portland State University, a small gathering that marked the city's earliest organized public LGBTQ celebration.