Hoyt Arboretum - Portland OR

City:: Portland, OR
Site Type:: Landscaping and Tree Planting, Parks and Recreation
New Deal Agencies:: National Youth Administration (NYA), Work Relief Programs, Works Progress Administration (WPA), Civil Works Administration (CWA)
Started:: 1933
Completed:: 1936
Quality of Information:: Good
Marked:: No
Site Survival:: Extant

Description

Once the site of Multnomah County’s Poor Farm, the city began developing this land in the West Hills of Portland as an arboretum in 1930. In its first six years, much of the labor for tree planting and park development was provided through the Civil Works Administration (CWA), Works Progress Administration (WPA), and the National Youth Administration (NYA).

The local newspaper, The Oregonian, gave particular attention to the NYA workers’ contribution, noting that nearly 100 young people between the age of 16 and 25 were employed for three months. They began the transformation of what was then a 200-acre, rough, wooded landscape into a park and “tree museum.”

The newspaper summarized the NYA project with the following description: “The workers on this project cleared an area of 15 acres and leveled the ground for planting, cultivated some 4000 trees which have been planted in the area, constructed trails, built fence and worked on the West Hills golf course, improving greens and clearing uncultivated land.”