Gatehouse, Portland City Reservoir No. 2
National Register of Historic Places

Gatehouse, Portland City Reservoir No. 2

Portland, Multnomah County, Oregon
Listed
May 31, 1990
Type
Building
Period
Industrial
Ref No.
90000834

About this property

Mount Tabor is an extinct volcanic vent 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. The Chinook people lived on the land around Mount Tabor before American settlers moved in. A massive fire erupted in 1846 east of what is now the Lents area and spread up to the Columbia River, which allowed them to settle on the land. The mountain was named by Plympton Kelly, the son of 1800's pioneer Clinton Kelly upon the construction of a schoolhouse nearby. He had contested the name Mount Zion proposed by his father, and suggested taking the name of Mount Tabor in Palestine (what is now Israel) based on a book he read about The 1799 Battle of Mount Tabor in Napoleon's conquests. After the establishment of Mount Tabor, more settlers moved into the area, forming a community with its own post office and judicial district. On March 5th, 1886, 50 masked men went with guns to round up over 100 Chinese workers on the mountain and had forcefully deported them via boat. The development of railroads between Mount Tabor and the city center began in 1889 and led to many more people building homes on the mountain, increasing to 200 homes at the time. The peak of Mount Tabor is at 636 feet (194 m) in elevation; about two-thirds of this is prominence since the surrounding land is at about 200 feet (61 m) in elevation. 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. 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. Jackson Volcano in Jackson, Mississippi, Diamond Head in Honolulu, Glassford Hill 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.

Location

6007 SE. Division St.
Portland, Multnomah County, Oregon
45.49744, -122.60137

Categories

COMMUNITY PLANNING AND DEVELOPMENTENGINEERINGARCHITECTURE
National Register nomination ›
Sources

Property data from the National Register of Historic Places, National Park Service (public domain).

Description adapted from Wikipedia under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

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Nearby Historic Sites

Arleta Branch Library
Industrial
0.5 mi
Palestine Lodge
Industrial
0.6 mi
Phoenix Pharmacy
Industrial
0.7 mi
Mount Tabor Park Reservoirs Historic District
Listed
1 mi
Buehner, Philip, House
Industrial
1 mi

Questions about this property

When was Gatehouse, Portland City Reservoir No. 2 listed on the National Register?

Gatehouse, Portland City Reservoir No. 2 was listed on the National Register of Historic Places on May 31, 1990.

What type of historic resource is Gatehouse, Portland City Reservoir No. 2?

Gatehouse, Portland City Reservoir No. 2 is classified as a building in the National Register of Historic Places.

What is the period of significance for Gatehouse, Portland City Reservoir No. 2?

The period of significance for Gatehouse, Portland City Reservoir No. 2 is recorded as the industrial era.

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