Everyone in Oregon knows that our Springfield is the real one, because Matt Groening himself is an Oregonian. Having named several of the characters after his immediate family, and other characters after streets in Portland, it seems evident that he didn’t cast a wide net, and Springfield is certainly the kind of working class town where a guy like Homer would live – only he’d work at the lumber mill rather than a nuclear power plant. This only serves to further confirm what we knew all along.

When we were in Oregon this summer, there was much ado about the Simpsons movie coming out, given that Eugene is just across the river from Springfield. Part of the advance publicity for the film was an online “Springfield contest” where you could vote for the Springfield. Sadly, some town in Vermont won, with ‘ours’ coming in second.

Here’s my theory though: would the real Springfield have ever won that kind of contest? Of course not. They would have come in second, angering Homer into doing something rash, and off they would go for another half hour. So, by coming in second, it only serves to underline the fact that the real Springfield is the one in Oregon.