Portland’s historic Lovejoy Columns

Greek immigrant Athanasios (Tom) Efthimiou Stefopoulos came to Portland in 1910 to be an artist. While he found himself working most of his life as a rail yard watchman instead, it didn’t deter his passion. When things were slow in the yard Tom used boxcars as ladders and painted the Broadway Bridge Lovejoy overpass columns with whimsical images of doves, owls, lions, anthropomorphic trees, Greek gods, biblical figures and more. While some of the art was lost through the decades due to vandalism and anti-grafitti efforts and some of the columns remain untendered, two of them were re-incorporated into the Pearl District near 10th and Everett during redevelopment of the Lovejoy overpass in 1999.