There are more than a dozen cities called Portland across the United States, and even more towns and unincorporated communities share the name.
Most people think of Portland, Oregon, when they hear the name, as it's the largest among the bunch. This is the first Portland that comes to mind for me, as I grew up just outside the city.
Those living in Michigan, however, likely think of the Portland — in Ionia County — just 25 miles northwest of Lansing.
Portland, Michigan, was established in the 1830s and named for the ports on its two intersecting rivers: the Grand River and the Looking Glass River.
Now, the city prides itself on its downtown district and its community spirit.
I personally pass Portland on every commute to Lansing, and I finally got the chance to set foot in town on a sunny February afternoon.
No such thing as an unfamiliar face
I was in Portland to cover the city’s water quality, but I didn’t want to waste the opportunity to explore.
I parked my car downtown — which was free, by the way — and started walking down Kent Street. I stuck out like a sore thumb: headphones on, recorder in one hand and microphone in the other.
Somehow, I didn’t receive any strange looks. In fact, I was greeted so openly by one resident that I questioned if I’d met him somewhere before.
That resident was James Barron, owner of Monkey Llama Games. He waved to me through the store window as I walked by, and I immediately detoured.
Barron started Monkey Llama Games, a tabletop and board game shop, last November. He and his wife, Tiffany, are both National Guard veterans, and between moves and deployments, they always prioritized family time.
“Even though we’ve been all over the place — like different museums and battlefields and Universal and all that stuff — when you ask our kids about what they remember,” Barron said, “it’s always some fun board game moment.”
The shop is named in honor of Barron’s children, who have been called Monkey and Llama since they were infants.
“That’s who they are,” he said. “The store’s new but everyone knows who they are anyway because they’ve been a part of [the community].”
Barron’s family moved to Portland 17 years ago, and they’ve made it their forever home.
“Everybody knows each other. Everybody’s kind. You go everywhere and people are just like, ‘How can I help?’ So, we instantly fell in love with this community.”James Barron
As I made my way out, Barron directed me toward another shop on the street: Kats and Kittens Secondhand.
Kats and Kittens carries an eclectic mix of goods that were procured from community donations, estate sales and other thrift shops.
As an example of the shop’s eccentricity, an empty, aged bottle labeled “Tarantula Legs: For use in various potions and crafts” was in stock. Nearby, multiple pairs of well-maintained ice skates were for sale.
Brandy Johnson opened the store in 2024, and she said she’s learning as she goes. It's her first ever business.
She said local business owners have a community of their own, and they all work together to stay afloat.
“I think it’s a lot easier to work with them when they all are from around this area,” Johnson said, “because they know how Portland works and they’re just used to being here.”
Johnson moved to Portland with her mother when she was young. Despite her mother moving back to their hometown of Lake Odessa, Johnson stayed.
“This is just where I enjoy being,” she said.
Take a walk
My tour around town continued with a walk through Two Rivers Park. The name is apt, as it stands at the Grand and Looking Glass rivers’ confluence.
There, I met a different kind of Portland resident. Woodwind: song of a silent forest.
Don’t let the name fool you. The 23-foot sculpture made of recycled iron emits the sound of a haunting windchime when touched.
Woodwind was built by artist Mike Pline and finished in the top 75 at the 2010 Grand Rapids ArtPrize Competition. Pline’s rendition of a tree spirit was relocated to Portland in 2012, where it stands guard over the park.
Two Rivers Park is also where I ran into Denise Ries, a Portland native who was taking advantage of the false-spring sunshine.
Ries, 71, has eight siblings, but she’s the only one still living in their hometown. She told me, as we walked through the park, all about why she and her husband stayed.
“The whole small-town atmosphere, versus being in a bigger city,” she said. “I worked in Lansing for several years and then once we had children, I quit my job and decided to be a stay-at-home mom.”
Ries said the Portland community embraced the “it takes a village” mindset, and friends and family helped her raise her sons.
Ries and her husband were high school sweethearts, but they didn’t attend the same high school. While she was going to classes at St. Patrick Catholic School, he was enrolled at Portland High School.
“It was our mutual friends that brought us together, just like a group thing,” she said. “It clicked.”
Ries said she hopes Portland “keeps that small-town charm but is still able to advance into the next century.”
Hopes and dreams for Portland’s future
The consensus from Portland residents I talked to was that they liked their town small, but that doesn’t mean they don’t want it to grow.
“I hope that we can get more shops downtown like it used to be,” Johnson said. “This used to be a bunch of little shops down here and antique stores and it just kind of fizzled out after a while.”
The aim is for an expanded downtown market to draw more visitors into the community.
“I am really hoping that we hold that genuinely helpful and supportive and welcoming feel, but that we have more people from outside the community coming in,” Barron said. “Just visiting and having a good time and getting that feel of that Norman Rockwellian lifestyle that we have here.”
Portlanders want their town to be more than a pitstop between two larger cities. They want to be a destination all on their own.
After a day of exploration, I think they already are.