Washington Park, Portland
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Washington Park is a public urban park in Portland, Oregon. It has diverse natural and developed features including a zoo, miles of trails (many through natural forest), rose gardens, an arboretum, picnic areas, an amphitheatre, playgrounds, an archery range, tennis courts, a museum for children, and many acres of wild forest. The park has 129.51 acres (52.41 hectares) on mostly steep, mostly wooded hillsides which range in elevation from 200 feet (61 m) at 24th & W Burnside to 870 feet (265 m) at SW Fairview Blvd.
History
The City of Portland purchased the original 40.78 acres in 1871 for $32,624: a controversially high price for the time. The area, designated "City Park", was wilderness with few roads: Thick brush, trees and roaming cougar discouraged access. In the mid-1880s, Charles M. Meyers was hired as park keeper. A former seaman without landscape training, he transformed the park by drawing on memories of his native Germany and European parks. By 1900, there were roads, trails, landscaped areas with lawns, manicured hedges, flower gardens, and a zoo. Cable cars were added in 1890 and operated until the 1930s.
In 1903, John C. Olmsted of Olmsted Brothers, a nationally known landscape architecture firm, recommended several changes to the park including the present name, location of the entrance, separate roads and pedestrian paths, and replacement of formal gardens with native species.
When the county poor farm closed in 1922, the 160 acres were added to Washington Park.
Portland's zoo was founded in Washington Park in 1887 near where the reservoirs are presently located. It moved in 1925 to what is now the Japanese Garden, and moved again in 1959 to its present location at the park's southern edge.
Notable features
- The Oregon Zoo contaions more than a thousand animals of more than 200 species (including 21 endangered species) in natural or semi-natural habitats are on display. The zoo is the world's most successful Asian elephant breeding program and home to the largest elephant in the U.S.
- The International Rose Test Garden is the oldest official, continuously-operated, public rose test garden in the United States. It currently displays more than 7,000 rose plants of more than 500 varieties.
- The Portland Japanese Garden is a private traditional Japanese garden 5.5 acres in size. It is the top ranked Japanese garden outside Japan of the 300 such gardens studied by The Journal of Japanese Gardening.
- The Hoyt Arboretum contains nearly 10,000 individual trees and shrubs of 1,100 species on 185 acres. It was founded in 1928 and today there are many mature species.
- The World Forestry Center offeres educational exhibits on forests and forest-related subjects. It was founded in 1906. Permanent exhibits explore the traits of forests around the world. Transient exhibits have featured art (usually related to nature), ecology, wildlife, and woodcrafts.
- Oregon Vietnam Veterans Memorial, adjacent to the Hoyt Aboretum, was dedicated in 1987 to honor Oregonians who gave their lives or who are missing in action.
- The Portland Children's Museum reopened in 2001.
Statues and fountains
- The Lewis and Clark Memorial was dedicated by President Theodore Roosevelt on May 21, 1903 to honor the discovery of the northwest by the Lewis and Clark Expedition.
- Coming of White Man is bronze statue of two Native Americans, one depicting Chief Multnomah. Sculpted by Herman A. MacNeil in 1904. It faces east along the Oregon Trail.
- Sacajawea is a statue is of the famed Shoshone native American woman who guided the Lewis and Clark Expedition through the mountains. A massive bronze and copper piece unveiled on July 7, 1905 at the Lewis and Clark centennial, it was sculpted by Denver resident Alice Cooper and cast in New York. It was the first U.S. statue to feature a woman.[[Citing sources citation needed]]
- The Chiming Fountain, also referred to as The Washington Park Fountain is named for the sound the falling water makes. It is an ornate concrete, bronze and iron fountain with gargoyles. It was created in 1891 by Swiss artisan woodcarver Hans Staehli in the style of a renaissance fountain.
- The Rose Garden Children's Park was completed in 1995 with $2 million in donations.
- The Oregon Holocaust Memorial was dedicated on August 29, 2004 to the Jewish victims of World War II.
- The Washington Park and Zoo Railroad is a 1950s-era scale railroad carrying passengers between the Rose Garden end of the park and the zoo during the summer months. At other times of the year it operates only within the zoo.
References and external links
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