Rumored Buzz on Mt. Tabor Park Portland, Or

Mt Tabor Off Leash Dog Park

They bought a house just blocks from Mt. Tabor Park in 1989, where his daughter lived until he and Guin retired and moved to Portland in 1998. "When we bought our house, we had no idea we would become so actively involved," Hillman said. Mt. Tabor Park had undergone a series of improvements thanks to a 1994 parks bond, which allocated nearly $60 million to 99 parks in Portland.


Tabor Park Master Plan, which detailed how to improve the park, including creating a community group to support it. Steve Pixley, Portland Parks & Recreation volunteer coordinator, said Hillman "was there from Day One, the very first meeting in the little, beat-up old office building." Mt. Tabor residents gathered in living rooms around the neighborhood to discuss the idea.




Tabor Park?'" Hillman said. "Which we did, and I became the first chairperson of the group." Hillman served as chair of the nonprofit for about eight years. Friends groups come and go, Pixley said, but the Friends of Mt. Tabor Park has stuck around in part because of Hillman's persistence.


Gary Manougian helped advise the foot patrol. He is a retired Portland Police Bureau officer who spent most of his 38-year career working in the Mt. Tabor neighborhood. Manougian said the Mt. Tabor Foot Patrol is a model for other parks because it is so active and effective at community policing.


Tabor Foot Patrol," he said. Mary Kinnick, a retired Portland State University professor, spent eight years as the coordinator for the Weed Warriors program, another Friends activity that clears out invasive species in the park (mt tabor park portland map). Hillman recruited her to the Friends in 2006. "He found out we were moving to the neighborhood and recruited me right on the spot," she said.

Mt Tabor Park Activities

He learned that the Hoyt Arboretum had a visitors center while on a parks budget advisory committee, and he immediately began "campaigning" to start one at Mt. Tabor. To hear Hillman tell it, it was an immediate success — but according to Kinnick, getting it started was an uphill battle.


Like, we're just a little park. A visitors center, are you kidding me?" Kinnick said they didn't think they would be able to get volunteers or stay open. But Hillman pulled what Kinnick called a "classic Dave move" — "Do what needs to be done and ask permission later." The visitos center opened in September 2011 in an old parks office.


In between the brochures, keepsakes and posters along the walls are archival historic photos of Mt. Tabor Park, donated by Jan Caplener, a Realtor who has worked in the neighborhood for decades. Caplener collected the photos with his son for a project in high school, 25 years ago. "And Dave said, 'If you're not going to use those, how about donating them to the visitors center?'" Caplener said.


He loves to talk with the visitors and find out where they're from and why they're in Mt. Tabor Park. Hillman said he Continued was surprised to learn how many visitors came not just from the Pacific Northwest, but from the East Coast and across the world. Maps inside the center keep track of where the visitors come from with an array of colorful pins.


Hillman will retire as the coordinator of the Mt. Tabor Visitors Center at the end of August, though he'll still internet volunteer regularly - mt tabor park pavilion. "It's just time to have a little bit more time just for myself," he said. "I'm also a strong, very strong, believer from my years in management that every now and then you need some new people at the top," he said, "because new people come in and they usually have often great ideas, and the organizations find themselves being improved." Friends say his legacy is as a steward of the park.

Mt Tabor Park Open Gym

He's protected it. He's stood up for it. He's fought for it," Caplener said. "Those kinds of neighbors and those kinds of residents, they're few and far between." Hillman also expanded the community's stewardship of the park, Kinnick said, and "they also become forever stewards of the park, because of Dave." Hillman isn't sure what he'll do next.




"When I look back at things," Hillman said, "I want to be able to say, 'Hey, maybe I made a difference.'" You count on us to stay informed and we depend on you to fund our efforts. Quality local journalism takes time and money. Please support us to protect the future of community journalism.


Please come to the park with your properly trained dogThis is a great dog park! There is a lot of room to play in a wooded and mostly fenced hillside area. There is, however, a problem with occasional aggressive dogs whose owners fail to see the problem and permit their Visit Your URL dogs to dominate other dogs with excess bordering on fighting. brunch spots near mt tabor park.Please bring your dog, play, and restrain or remove her when she she or he becomes aggressive to other dogs or people.


Southeast Portland's 196-acre Mount Tabor Park sits on an extinct volcanic butte, one of thirty-two cinder cones in a thirteen-mile radius. The park offers visitors a forest-like setting and panoramic views of the city. Mount Tabor Park dates to 1894, when the city built two open reservoirs on land acquired for that purpose (two other open reservoirs were built in 1911).


Olmsted recommended the city obtain more land at Mount Tabor (mt tabor park history). In 1909, the Board of Park Commissioners used voter-approved bonds to buy approximately forty lots on Mount Tabor for $366,000. Portland Parks Superintendent Emanuel Tillman Mische, who had worked with the Olmsted Brothers' landscape design firm in Massachusetts, consulted with Olmsted on his naturalistic design for the park.

Mt Tabor Park Trees

It also showcased native plants. Since then, the parks department has added basketball and tennis courts, picnic areas, playgrounds, an amphitheater, and, during the 1950s, a soap-box derby course that is still used for annual races. In 1990,the city decommissioned a reservoir at Southeast 60th Avenue and Division Street and sold the land for development.