6 min
Overview
Ninety-acre Pier Park was designed to be in the style of Southeast Portland’s Laurelhurst Park. It is named after Sylvester Pier, a city parks commissioner of the early 20th century. The park is almost all shade, with Douglas-firs, sequoias, madrones, and cedars forming the canopy. A disc golf course that runs through the trees takes up most of the east side of the park. As of 2014, you can connect with Chimney Park, once the site of Portland’s incinerator, via a steel truss footbridge over a railroad cutting. Chimney Park’s main attraction is its large off-leash dog area. Pier Park was the site of Portland's "Bloody Wednesday"- July 11th, 1934 - when striking longshore workers blocked the railroad line and were fired upon by police. Four strikers were wounded. The bullet marks in Pier Park's old Douglas-firs were visible for many years. A more tragic incident, "Bloody Thursday," had occurred the week before in San Francisco, when two striking longshore workers were killed in a police fusillade. From the parking area at the corner of James Street and Bruce Avenue, take the gravel trail downhill to the right past baseball diamond #3. Walk around the baseball/soccer field, and then rise to a junction at a grove of redwoods and sequoias. Go left here, and cross the pedestrian bridge over the Union Pacific railroad tracks to enter Chimney Park on a short paved trail. This area once harbored Portland’s incinerator, and one building remains from that time. The incinerator’s chimney gave the park its name, but that structure has been demolished. Most of Chimney Park is a vast off-leash dog park, but you can walk as far as the gravel parking lot (muddy in winter), and then return to Pier Park. Return to the bridge over the railroad, and go left once you reenter Pier Park. Hike above a depression and a disc golf hole. Keep right along a low ridge, passing bushes of fragrant viburnum which bloom in mid-winter. The trail continues under Douglas-firs and some substantial Pacific madrones. Cross an open area on a low h
Trail Stats
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28 m
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Photos
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