Washington Park is a public urban park in Portland in the U.S. state of Oregon. It includes a zoo, forestry museum, arboretum, rose garden, Japanese garden, amphitheatre, memorials, archery range, tennis courts, soccer field, picnic areas, playgrounds, public art and many acres of wild forest with miles of trails. Washington Park covers more than 458 acre on mostly steep, wooded hillsides which range in elevation from 200 ft at 24th & West Burnside Street to 870 ft at SW Fairview Blvd. It comprises 241.45 acre of city parkland that has been officially designated as "Washington Park" by the City of Portland, as well as the adjacent 64 acre Oregon Zoo and the 153 acre Hoyt Arboretum, which together make up the area described as "Washington Park" on signs and maps. The park has 4 primary entrances, the main entrance via SW Park Place from Downtown Portland, the northwest entrance from the Arlington Heights neighborhood, the south entrance from Sunset Highway, and the now pedestrian and bike only entrance from Burnside Street on the north end of the park via Stearns Canyon which used to serve as the park's main entrance.

History

The City of Portland purchased the original 40.78 acre of Washington Park in 1871 from Amos King for $32,624, a controversially high price for the time. The area, designated "City Park", was a wilderness with few roads. Thick brush, trees, and roaming cougar discouraged access. In the mid-1880s, Charles M. Meyers was hired as a 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. The City of Portland constructed two reservoirs in the park in 1893 and 1894. In 1903, John Charles 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. The name was officially changed from City Park to Washington Park in 1909. When the Multnomah County Poor Farm's Hillside Farm facility west of Washington Park closed in 1922, the 160 acre were sold to the City of Portland, leading to the creation of Hoyt Arboretum in 1930. Portland's zoo was founded in Washington Park in 1888 near the north end of the park. The bear house from the original zoo became a park maintenance shed; the 2018 Washington Park Master Plan calls for evaluation of whether the historic bear house should be restored as a maintenance facility or demolished. The zoo moved in 1925 to what is now the site of the Japanese Garden. The only surviving structure from the second zoo is the elephant barn, now converted into a picnic shelter and decorated with tile mosaic of various animals and a life-size brick relief sculpture of an elephant and calf. The zoo moved again in 1959 to its present location at the park's southern edge. In 1958, the Oregon Museum of Science and Industry (OMSI) moved into a new building in the southwest corner of Washington Park, adjacent to the new zoo. In 1971, the Western Forestry Center (now the World Forestry Center) opened a forestry museum north of OMSI. OMSI moved out of the park to a new location in 1992, and the Portland Children's Museum took over OMSI's former building in 2001. The Children's Museum closed in 2021. On March 15, 2018, the Portland City Council adopted a master plan to guide the development of Washington Park over the next 20 years. The plan called for improved transportation and accessibility within the park, as well as improvements to park features such as the arboretum. In 2016, the City of Portland began the process of replacing the two outdoor reservoirs, due to their age and a federal mandate to cover all reservoirs. The upper reservoir is being replaced with a seismically reinforced underground reservoir covered by a reflecting pool, and the lower reservoir is being transformed into a wildlife habitat area, bioswale, and reflecting pool. The project is expected to be completed by the end of 2025. The $67 million project attracted opposition from historical preservationists and residents concerned about construction impacts.

Notable features

Gardens

Museums

Public Art and Memorials

Other sites

Trails

Washington Park has over 15 mi of trails, some of which are part of the 40-Mile Loop connecting Washington Park with Pittock Mansion and Forest Park to the north and Council Crest to the south. The Wildwood Trail through Forest Park begins in Washington Park near the Oregon Vietnam Veterans Memorial. In 2019, the City of Portland constructed Barbara Walker Crossing at the northern edge of Washington Park to allow Wildwood Trail users to safely pass over West Burnside Street.

Public access

Parking in Washington Park costs $2 per hour, to a maximum of $8 per day. The Washington Park light rail station provides regional public transit access to the park's west end, including the Oregon Zoo. Public transit service within the park is provided by the Washington Park Shuttle, a free service that connects with MAX light rail at the Washington Park station and since 2022 operates seven days a week year-round. Additionally, TriMet bus route 63-Washington Park/Arlington Heights, which has operated seven days a week and year-round for many years, serves stops at the east end of the park (including at the Rose Garden and Japanese Garden), but since May 2022 no longer passes through any portion of the park. The northeastern corner of the park, at NW 23rd Place and W. Burnside, is served by bus route 20-Burnside/Stark, which runs seven days a week.