Mount Tabor is an extinct [1] [2] volcanic vent [3] with a city park on the volcano, located in Portland, Oregon's neighborhood of the same name. The name refers to Mount Tabor, Israel. It was named by Plympton Kelly, son of Oregon City pioneer resident Clinton Kelly. [4]
The peak of Mount Tabor is 636 feet (194 m) in elevation; [5] about two-thirds of this is prominence since the surrounding land is about 200 feet (61 m) elevation. [6]
Mount Tabor Park | |
Portland Historic Landmark [7] | |
  Location of the park in Portland | |
| Location | Roughly bounded by SE Division Street, SE 60th Avenue, SE Yamhill Street, and SE Mountainview Drive, Portland, Oregon |
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| Coordinates | 45°30′43″N122°35′39″W / 45.511886°N 122.594296°W |
| Built | 1903 |
| Architect | Emanuel Tillman Mische, Charles P. Keyser |
| Architectural style | Late Victorian, Late 19th And 20th Century Revivals |
| NRHP reference No. | 04001065 |
| Added to NRHP | September 22, 2004 |
Near the peak, where a basketball court and outdoor amphitheater are now situated, part of the cinder cone has been cut away, and the rock is visible to park visitors. The remaining cinders were used to pave the nearby parking lot.
The Tabor cinder cone is part of the Boring Lava Field, an extensive network of cinder cones and small shield volcanoes ranging from Boring, Oregon, to southwest Washington, and dating to the Plio-Pleistocene era. The lava field has been extinct for over 300,000 years. [8] Three other cinder cones from this field also lie within the city of Portland: Rocky Butte, Powell Butte, and Kelly Butte.
Portland is one of six cities in the United States to have an extinct volcano (Mount Tabor) within its boundaries. Bend is the only other city in Oregon with a volcano within its city limits, with Pilot Butte. [9] [10] Jackson Volcano in Jackson, Mississippi, Diamond Head in Honolulu, Glassford Hill [11] in Prescott Valley, Arizona and Pilot Knob in Austin, Texas being the others.
The volcanic nature of Mount Tabor became known in 1913, when a road-building crew discovered traces of volcanic cinders in the park. [12]
Mount Tabor Park Reservoirs Historic District | |
 Reservoir #6 in 2006 | |
| Location | 1900 SE Reservoir Loop Portland, Oregon |
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| Coordinates | 45°30′40″N122°35′47″W / 45.511133°N 122.596402°W |
| Area | 176.04 acres (71.24 ha) |
| Built | 1894 |
| Architect | Isaac Smith, et al. |
| Architectural style | Romanesque |
| Part of | Mount Tabor Park (ID04001065) |
| NRHP reference No. | 03001446 |
| Added to NRHP | January 15, 2004 |
The land making up the Mount Tabor volcanic butte was identified as a site for reservoirs in the 1880s due to its ideal elevation for a water distribution system. The Mount Tabor reservoirs were built during the period of 1894 and 1911, along with reservoirs in Washington Park. [13] City fathers formed a water committee and created a municipal water system piping water some 25 miles from the Bull Run River watershed, separate and west of Mount Hood, to Mount Tabor reservoirs and across the Willamette River to City Park (now Washington Park) reservoirs in 1894. The Bull Run watershed was among the first federal lands to be set aside in the Forest Reserve Act of 1891 and enacted by president Benjamin Harrison.
The reservoirs and their gatehouses are artistically constructed, incorporating extensive reinforced concrete, designed to look like stonework, by two early patented techniques by noted engineer Ernest L. Ransome [14] and wrought-iron fencing and lampposts designed by architect William M. Whidden. There were initially four above-ground reservoirs, numbered 1, 2, 5, and 6. (Reservoirs 3 and 4 are at Washington Park, and Reservoir 7 is a small underground reservoir near Mount Tabor's summit.) Reservoir 2, on the corner of SE 60th and Division, was decommissioned in the 1980s, and the property was sold to a private developer. Its gatehouse remains, and is used as a private residence. Reservoir 6 is the largest, with two 37 million gallon chambers; it also contains a fountain, which was unused for many years; however, it was reactivated in early 2007. [15] Three of the reservoirs were accepted to the National Register of Historic Places in January 2004. [16] [17] The reservoirs' nomination was also a community effort spearheaded by the Friends of the Reservoirs and funded by donations.
John Charles Olmsted, stepson and nephew of the famed Frederick Law Olmsted, visited Portland in 1903 to help design the site for the Lewis and Clark Centennial Exposition, on the request of Rev. Thomas Lamb Eliot, minister of the First Unitarian Church and relative of Charles Eliot, the son of the president of Harvard University and acclaimed landscape architect and partner in the Olmsted landscape firm in Brookline, Massachusetts. Rev. Eliot arranged for Olmsted to visit Seattle for park planning, too, in order to help make the long trip financially feasible. While John Charles Olmsted was in Portland, Rev. Eliot and other park supporters took him on a tour throughout the city so that he could create a grand plan of parks. Olmsted recommended that Mount Tabor be protected for future park use, even though it was well removed from the city at the time. Following Olmsted's recommendation, the Portland Parks Bureau began to acquire land there in 1909. [12] The park was designed, along with other Portland parks, by Emanuel Tillman Mische, a highly pedigreed horticulturist and long-time landscape designer for the famed Olmsted Brothers landscape firm. [18] The 196-acre (0.79 km2) Mount Tabor Park was the largest Portland park until 1947 when Forest Park was created.
Mount Tabor Park does not appear to have ever been formally ordained by the city as a park. According to archival records, an ordinance declaring Williams Park, named for a prominent citizen, was stopped by neighborhood activists wanting the historic name, Mount Tabor Park, to be retained. No other ordinance appears to have been enacted to date. The entire park, including the Central Maintenance Yard, was listed in the National Register of Historic Places [19] in 2004. The nomination was forwarded by a community effort spearheaded and funded by the Mount Tabor Neighborhood Association.
Mount Tabor was home to cross burnings by Oregon's Ku Klux Klan in the 1920s. Automotive parades of hooded Klan members were common in Southeast Portland. [20]
The park featured a statue of The Oregonian editor and Scottish Rite Freemason Harvey W. Scott. [21] The larger-than-life statue was sculpted by Gutzon Borglum, notable for sculptures on Mount Rushmore. [21] The bronze statue was dedicated on July 22, 1933, with approximately 3,000 in attendance, 23 years after Scott died. [21] Oregon governor Julius Meier was chairman of the event, and Chester Harvey Rowell gave a speech. [21] The statue was toppled in 2020 and replaced with the bust of York in February 2021.
In 2023, Mount Tabor Park was designated as the first Urban Quiet Park in the United States by Quiet Parks International, an organization that seeks to promote quiet parks around the world. [22]
The Mount Tabor reservoirs, along with those in Portland's Washington Park, have been the subject of a decade-long controversy surrounding lucrative engineering contracts to replace the historic open reservoirs with underground storage tanks. Concern has been raised about the possible relationship between City officials and the engineering firms receiving the no-bid reservoir decommissioning contracts; [23] [24] and about the role these parties may have played in lobbying for pro-underground-tank modifications (the "LT2" rule) to the Safe Drinking Water Act. [25]
On June 15, 2011, a man was observed urinating in a nearly 8-million-gallon reservoir, prompting city officials to drain the water at a cost of around $36,000. [26]
Under LT2 several hundred of the country's historic open reservoirs were decommissioned, [27] including the three open air reservoirs on Mount Tabor, which no longer provide drinking water. [28] [29]
Following pressure from other open-reservoir cities, in 2011 the EPA softened its stance on the LT2 rule and allowed the country's remaining open reservoirs to halt burial plans; [30] but despite public outcry [31] [32] Mount Tabor's open reservoirs remain slated for decommissioning. In August 2015 the Portland City Council voted for decommissioning, considered to be the final vote on the issue.
Mount Tabor Park can be entered by vehicle from 69th Avenue and Yamhill Street on the north side of the volcano, Harrison Street on the east, Lincoln Street on the southwest, and 60th Avenue and Salmon Street on the northwest side. An off-leash dog park is located on the south side near the Harrison entrance. There is also pedestrian access from several dead-end streets on the south side off 72nd Avenue. A bike path and multiuse path provides park access beginning at SE 64th Avenue and Division Street. The bike path construction was completed in 2024. [33]
Mount Tabor has numerous paths and can be climbed from virtually any direction. Three official trails begin and end at the kiosk in the parking lot just west of the park entrance at 69th and Yamhill. The easy one-mile (1.6 km) Red Trail, the intermediate 1.7-mile (2.7 km) Green Trail and the more difficult 3-mile (4.8 km) Blue Trail all circle the volcano by way of gravel paths and paved roads. The Blue Trail includes the 96-step stairway between Reservoirs 5 and 6, and has an optional 0.31-mile (0.5 km) loop around the summit. Bicycles are permitted on the Red and Blue Trails. Leashed dogs are permitted on all the trails. Restrooms are available at the summit and the visitors center near the 60th and Salmon entrance.
In October 2011, the Friends of Mount Tabor Park opened a visitors' center in a former storage room at the park. [34]
Crater Lake National Park is an American national park located in southern Oregon. Established in 1902, Crater Lake is the fifth-oldest national park in the United States and the only national park in Oregon. The park encompasses the caldera of Crater Lake, a remnant of Mount Mazama, a destroyed volcano, and the surrounding hills and forests.
Mount Bachelor, formerly named Bachelor Butte, is a dormant stratovolcano atop a shield volcano in the Cascade Volcanic Arc and the Cascade Range of central Oregon. Named Mount Bachelor because it stands apart from the nearby Three Sisters, it lies in the eastern segment of the central portion of the High Cascades, the eastern segment of the Cascade Range. The volcano lies at the northern end of the 15-mile (24 km) long Mount Bachelor Volcanic Chain, which underwent four major eruptive episodes during the Pleistocene and the Holocene. The United States Geological Survey considers Mount Bachelor a moderate threat, but Bachelor poses little threat of becoming an active volcano in the near future. It remains unclear whether the volcano is extinct or just inactive.
Mount Jefferson is a stratovolcano in the Cascade Volcanic Arc, part of the Cascade Range in the U.S. state of Oregon. The second highest mountain in Oregon, it is situated within Linn County, Jefferson County, and Marion County and forms part of the Mount Jefferson Wilderness. Due to the ruggedness of its surroundings, the mountain is one of the hardest volcanoes to reach in the Cascades. It is also a popular tourist destination despite its remoteness, with recreational activities including hiking, backpacking, mountaineering, and photography. Vegetation at Mount Jefferson is dominated by Douglas fir, silver fir, mountain hemlock, ponderosa pine, lodgepole pine, and several cedar species. Carnivores, insectivores, bats, rodents, deer, birds, and various other species inhabit the area.
Mount Bailey is a relatively young tephra cone and shield volcano in the Cascade Range, located on the opposite side of Diamond Lake from Mount Thielsen in southern Oregon, United States. Bailey consists of a 2,000-foot (610 m)-high main cone on top of an old basaltic andesite shield volcano. With a volume of 8 to 9 km3, Mount Bailey is slightly smaller than neighboring Diamond Peak. Mount Bailey is a popular destination for recreational activities. Well known in the Pacific Northwest region as a haven for skiing in the winter months, the mountain's transportation, instead of a conventional chairlift, is provided by snowcats—treaded, tractor-like vehicles that can ascend Bailey's steep, snow-covered slopes and carry skiers to the higher reaches of the mountain. In the summer months, a 5-mile (8 km) hiking trail gives foot access to Bailey's summit. Mount Bailey is one of Oregon's Matterhorns.
Mount Washington is a deeply eroded volcano in the Cascade Range of Oregon. It lies within Deschutes and Linn counties and is surrounded by the Mount Washington Wilderness area.
Mount McLoughlin is a dormant steep-sided stratovolcano, or composite volcano, in the Cascade Range of southern Oregon and within the United States Sky Lakes Wilderness. It is one of the volcanic peaks in the Cascade Volcanic Arc, within the High Cascades sector. A prominent landmark for the Rogue River Valley, the mountain is north of Mount Shasta, and south-southeast of Crater Lake. It was named around 1838 after John McLoughlin, a Chief Factor for the Hudson's Bay Company. Mount McLouglin's prominence has made it a landmark to Native American populations for thousands of years.
Indian Heaven is a volcanic field in Skamania County in the state of Washington, in the United States. Midway between Mount St. Helens and Mount Adams, the field dates from the Pleistocene to the early Holocene epoch. It trends north to south and is dominated by six small shield volcanoes; these shields are topped by small spatter and cinder cones, and the field includes a number of subglacial volcanoes and tuyas. The northernmost peak in the field is Sawtooth Mountain and the southernmost is Red Mountain; its highest point is Lemei Rock at an elevation of 5,925 feet (1,806 m).
An active volcano is a volcano that has erupted during the Holocene, is currently erupting, or has the potential to erupt in the future. A volcano that is not currently erupting but could erupt in the future is known as a dormant volcano. Volcanoes that will not erupt again are known as extinct volcanoes.
Mount Tabor is a neighborhood in Southeast Portland that takes its name from the volcanic cinder cone and city park on the volcano that it surrounds, in the U.S. state of Oregon. The name refers to Mount Tabor, Israel. It was named by Plympton Kelly, son of Oregon City pioneer resident Clinton Kelly.
Pilot Butte is a lava dome that was created from an extinct volcano located in Bend, Oregon. It is a cinder cone butte which rises nearly 500 feet (150 m) above the surrounding plains. Bend is one of six cities in the United States to have a volcano within its boundaries. The other examples are Mount Tabor in Portland, Oregon, Jackson Volcano in Jackson, Mississippi, Diamond Head in Honolulu, Glassford Hill in Prescott Valley and Pilot Knob in Austin, Texas.
The Boring Lava Field is a Plio-Pleistocene volcanic field with cinder cones, small shield volcanoes, and lava flows in the northern Willamette Valley of the U.S. state of Oregon and adjacent southwest Washington. The field got its name from the town of Boring, Oregon, located 12 miles (20 km) southeast of downtown Portland. Boring lies southeast of the densest cluster of lava vents. The zone became volcanically active about 2.7 million years ago, with long periods of eruptive activity interspersed with quiescence. Its last eruptions took place about 57,000 years ago at the Beacon Rock cinder cone volcano; the individual volcanic vents of the field are considered extinct, but the field itself is not.
Lava Butte is a cinder cone in central Oregon, United States, just west of U.S. Route 97 between the towns of Bend, and Sunriver in Deschutes County. It is part of a system of small cinder cones on the northwest flank of Newberry Volcano, a massive shield volcano which rises to the southeast. The cinder cone is capped by a crater which extends about 60 feet (20 m) deep beneath its south rim, and 160 feet (50 m) deep from the 5,020-foot (1,530 m) summit on its north side. Lava Butte is part of the Newberry National Volcanic Monument.
Rocky Butte is an extinct cinder cone butte in Portland, Oregon, United States. It is also part of the Boring Lava Field, a group of volcanic vents and lava flows throughout Oregon and Washington state. The volcano erupted between 285,000 and 500,000 years ago.
Powell Butte is an extinct cinder cone butte in Portland, Oregon, United States. It is part of the Boring Lava Field, which includes more than 80 small volcanic edifices and lava flows in the Portland–Vancouver metropolitan area. The region around Powell Butte has a cool climate, and the butte and its surroundings feature meadows, rivers, and mixed forests. Powell Butte hosts the Powell Butte Nature Park, which includes about 612 acres (2.48 km2) of trails for biking, hiking, and horseback riding.
Olallie Butte is a steep-sided shield volcano in the Cascade Range of the northern part of the U.S. state of Oregon. It is the largest volcano and highest point in the 50-mile (80 km) distance between Mount Hood and Mount Jefferson. Located just outside the Olallie Scenic Area, it is surrounded by more than 200 lakes and ponds fed by runoff, precipitation, and underground seepage, which are popular spots for fishing, boating, and swimming. The butte forms a prominent feature in the Mount Jefferson region and is usually covered with snow during the winter and spring seasons.
Hoodoo Butte is a cinder cone butte in the Cascade Range of northern Oregon, located near Santiam Pass. Immediately to the east lies Hayrick Butte, a prime example of a tuya; the two mountains' names were likely mistaken for each other, but stuck with them over time. The area has been subjected to a number of historic fires. Hoodoo is sometimes considered a subfeature of the Mount Washington shield volcano, and it forms part of the Sisters Reach, which extends from South Cinder Peak to Crane Prairie Reservoir, running for 56 miles (90 km). This region has a high vent density, with many mafic volcanoes of Pleistocene to Holocene age, such as Hoodoo. While Hoodoo has an intact summit crater that was blocked from erosion by glaciers, it has an irregular topography, giving it an open appearance.
The Portland Water Bureau is the municipal water department for the city of Portland in the U.S. state of Oregon. The bureau manages a water supply that comes mainly from the Bull Run River in the foothills of the Cascade Range east of the city and secondarily from the Columbia South Shore Well Field near the Columbia River. As of 2023, Mingus Mapps was the city commissioner in charge of the bureau, and the chief administrator is Michael Stuhr. Budgeted departmental revenues for fiscal year 2015–16 included about $157 million for charges for services.
Mount Talbert is a volcanic cinder cone in Clackamas County, Oregon. It is part of the Boring Lava Field, a zone of ancient volcanic activity in the area around Portland. Its summit rises to an elevation of 740+ ft.
Kelly Butte Natural Area is a city park of about 23 acres (9.3 ha) in southeast Portland in the U.S. state of Oregon, just east of Interstate 205. The park is named after pioneer Clinton Kelly, who settled the area east of the Willamette River in 1848. It is part of the Boring Lava Field, an extinct Plio-Pleistocene volcanic field that contains 32 cinder cones and shield volcanoes in or near Portland.
All Boring volcanic centers are extinct, but the Boring Volcanic Field presumably is not. The most recent eruptions in Portland-Vancouver metropolitan area occurred ~100,000 years ago and the age of the youngest dated center, Beacon Rock at the east edge of the Boring Volcanic Field, is 57 ka.
... are built on the upper slopes of Mount Tabor, a dormant volcanic vent.
the three open reservoirs at Mt. Tabor no longer supply drinking water
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