Mixed Race Group of about a dozen children approx. ages 10 on a dirt trail

Fun Fact #71 How many city parks were combined to create Forest Park in 1947?

Last Updated on June 27, 2026

Updated 6-19-2025 New Image

Fun Fact #71 How many city parks were combined to create Forest Park in 1947?

Mixed Race Group of about a dozen children approx. ages 10 on a dirt trail
Parks & Recreation – Parks and Recreation (Archival) – Photographs – A2001-045.681 children hiking in Forest Park

Answer: Four Parks 

#1 Macleay Park

Macleay Park, Georg F. Holman Park, Clark & Wilson Park (O.M. Clark Park) Linnton Park (Pioneer Park)

Forest Park was once Native American land. By 1847, squatters had already settled on the land, a practice that continued through the Great Depression. Many prior donation land claims, in fact, make up what we celebrate as a park today. The larger claims included those of Solomon Richards, George Watts, W.W. Baker, George Kittridge, Marcus Neff, Levi C. Potter, Milton Doan, and William Cornell. Moreover, the park is not only a combination of prior official parks; the city also acquired other land through liens, purchases, and land swaps.

Fun Fact #44 Focused on wooden walkway and grate right at the beginning of the Lower Macleay Trail.

#2 Clark & Wilson Park

Clark & Wilson Park 18 acres was gifted in 1927 to the city by Clark and Wilson Lumber
Company in 1927. Hike with Images.

a brown toned image of a creek bed lots of rocks and a forest of narrown trunked young fir trees c.1905
1905 City Archives Picture. Parks & Recreation – Parks and Recreation (Archival) – Photographs – A2001-045.1187 : Forest Park

#3 Linnton Park (also called Pioneer Park)

Linnton Park (also called Pioneer Park) 287 acres of land clear cut by timber industry  transferred to the City of Portland when A. Meier died in 1938.

287 acres of land clear cut by timber industry  transferred to the City of Portland when A. Meier died in 1938.

#4 George F. Holman Park

George F. Holman Park to the north of Macleay Park 52 acres. It was give to the City of Portland in 1939 by George and Mary Holman Pence had damaged the landscape to such a degree the vision of a city suburban residential development fell flat. The Holman Property id on the slopes of Balch Creek.

Tour guide Dr. March wrote a press article in 2016 about the effort to save the home of their father a well-known lawyer Frederick Van Voorhies Holman. Link