Location: Laurelhurst
Author:
Canopy S.
Katsura Tree Podcast by Joshua Justice and Alecia Giombolini. To listen to this podcast and others, visit www.pdx.edu/history/heritage-trees-podcasts.
Laurelhust Park, with its duck pond, aged firs, winding paths, and old lamp posts, is typically associated with the wealth and elegance of the surrounding neighborhood, and the era in which it was developed. But if one observes the park's only heritage tree, a 70-foot Katsura, one can unravel the much more complicated history. In a park known for its urban, 20th century design, such a large katsura tree is a horticultural anomaly, whose origins reflect larger cultural and social trends that were taking place across the country.
The katsura tree is native to Japan and northern China, and was first introduced to the United States in 1865. Despite this early introduction, the katsura did not become common in the Pacific Northwest till the early 1950's. During thist time period, the US was still involved in the rebuilding of japan after the devastation of WWII, and Americans who served in the war began to bring back Japanese plants and styles of planting. This new post-war interest in Japanese horticulture was part of a larger growing interest in Japanese culture that was deeply connected to changing American cultural and social attitudes following WWII. Writers such as Jack Kerouac and Alan Watts were heavily influenced by Japanese culture and tradition, particularly Zen Buddhism, and their work would be an important influence in the 1960s counter-culture movement. The Laurelhurst Park heritage tree, which is one of Portland's oldest living katsuras, was very much a part of this post-war trend.
The tree, according to Portland tree expert phyllis reynolds, is roughly 60 years old. there's photographic evidence of the tree at quite a substantial size that is dated ca. 1960, making it possible the tree even older than that estimate. It is quite interesting that the katsura was planted in Laurelhust Park. The Laurelhurst neighborhood was built at the turn of the century as a residential suburb for portland's affluent citizens seeking to escape the inner city. The park was meant to be the neighborhood's crown jewel and a way to attract the city's elite to the new development. As a result, the park's design matches the urbane nature of the surrounding neighborhood. The park's preliminary plans, which were composed by park superintendent and former Olmstead firm employee, Emmanuel Miche in 1910, stated that the feature site was intended to become an ornate property in a neighborhood that would not attract the poorer classes.
The land on which the park is built was originally a cattle and dairy farm owned by William S Ladd, former portland mayor and developer of Ladd's Addition. It was purchased in 1909 by a group of wealthy investors known as the Laurelhurst group. The group sought to develop the area into an affluent residential suburb, with the intention of using the park as its main selling point. The park followed the landscaping trends of the time period, and was developed in a classic Olmstead style. The Olmsteads were known for designing parks that highlighted the space's natural features, and in the case of Laurelhurst, this meant the preservation of William Ladd's fir trees. So much thought was put into creating a stylish park that in the early plans, the designers did not want to build a playground, as they believed that, as the surrounding neighborhood would never be densely populated or impoverished, it would be an unnecessary structure and would detract from the space's natural beauty. The planners' unwillingness to build a playground reveals how the park was being designed for the expected social class of the surrounding neighborhood.
Despite Laurelhursts' elitist origins, the park would undergo many changes throughout its history. During the 1960s, the park and the surrounding area would become consumed by the larger social and cultural changes of the postwar era, and in many ways, the planting and growth of the katsura was part of this shift. during the 60s, as the katsura matured, the character of inner SE portland, like the rest of the country, began to change. Counter-culture was on the rise, and inner se portland was beginning to develop its bohemian character that it still holds today. even portland's blue-blooded laurelhurst neighborhood was unable to escape this transition of values and people.
The incursion of hippies into laurelhurst park shocked many of the area's long-time residents, and beginning in 1968, complaints began to flow into the parks department, and even the mayor's office, concerning a rapid transformation that the park had undergone. seemingly overnight, the park had become the favorite hangout spot of "undesirables", who according to one official, smoked marijuana and drank beer in public, offering drugs to children, singing, and playing instruments at all hours. This invasion of laurelhurst park by undesirables had startled the community, and very rapidly, the chief concerns about the park had switched from the cleanliness of the duck pond to disapproval of the young, long-haired parks department employee who liked to work with his shirt off, and according to one complaint, looked like a naked woman. In an Oregonian article dated September 4th, 1968, these young hippies moved to Laurelhurst park after the city's traditional counter-culture spot at lair hill park had suddenly become violent and dangerous when tough motorcycle gang peddlers had taken over.
As previously mentioned, laurelhurst park exemplified wealth, as did the surrounding, exclusive laurelhurst neighborhood, and this change came as a shock to residents. In a letter to the parks department, one resident said: "we have lived at 3330 SE Oak for 47 years. we always paid our taxes, and attempted to make our property neat and attractive. now no attention is paid to curfew laws, and our district is denied much needed sleep." The neighborhood was changing, and Laurelhurst park had become the contact zone between Laurelhurst's original residents and this new wave of baby-boomers. the very same cultural shift that had brought about the popularity of the katsura trees was also a part of the shifting mindsets of this new young generation which had taken residence in the park. In a park that had been defined by its elegant, turn of the century landscape design, the origins of the park's only heritage tree reveals a different, less well-known part of the park's history. The tree is historically significant, not only because of the important changes that it witnessed during the postwar era, but also because its origins are intimately tied to these same changes. Like the hippies that flocked the Laurelhurst Park in the late 60s, the origin of the tree and the popularity of katsura trees in general, reflect the changing character of the neighborhood, the city, and even the country.