Forest Park is a municipal and public park in the Tualatin Mountains west of downtown Portland, Oregon. Stretching for more than 8 miles (13 km) on hillsides overlooking the Willamette River, it is one of the largest urban forest reserves in the United States. The park, a major component of a regional system of parks and trails, covers more than 5,100 acres (21 km2) of mostly second-growth forest with a few patches of old growth. About 70 miles (110 km) of recreational trails, including the Wildwood Trail segment of the city's 40 Mile Loop system, crisscross the park. As early as the 1860s civic leaders sought to create a natural preserve in the woods near Portland. Their efforts led to the creation of a municipal park commission that in 1903 hired the Olmsted Brothers landscape architectural firm to develop a plan for Portland's parks. More than 112 bird species and 62 mammal species frequent the park and its wide variety of trees and shade-loving plants. Many small tributaries of the Willamette River flow northeast through the woods to pipes or culverts under U.S. Route 30 at the edge of the park. Threats to the park include overuse, urban traffic, encroaching development, invasive plants, and lack of maintenance money. Occasional serious crimes and more frequent minor crimes have occurred in the park.
Read the rest of this article: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forest_Park_%28Portland%2C_Oregon%29> _______________________________ Today's selected anniversaries: 1667: The Second Anglo-Dutch War between England and the United Provinces ended with the signing of the Treaty of Breda in the Dutch city of Breda. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Anglo-Dutch_War> 1703: English writer Daniel Defoe was placed in a pillory for seditious libel after publishing a pamphlet politically satirising the High Church Tories. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daniel_Defoe> 1941: The Holocaust: Under instructions from Adolf Hitler, Hermann Göring orders SS General Reinhard Heydrich to settle "the final solution of the Jewish question". <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Final_Solution> 1999: NASA's Lunar Prospector was deliberately crashed into the Shoemaker crater near the moon's south pole in an unsuccessful attempt to detect the presence of water <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lunar_Prospector> 2006: Following intestinal surgery, Fidel Castro provisionally transferred the duties of the Cuban presidency to his brother Raúl. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2006%E2%80%932008_Cuban_transfer_of_presidential_duties> 2007: The Troubles: Operation Banner, the name for the British armed forces' operation in Northern Ireland, ended after 38 years with a mlitary stalemate and ceasefire. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Banner> _____________________________ Wiktionary's word of the day: zilch (n): Nothing; zero <http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/zilch> ___________________________ Wikiquote quote of the day: The future of humanity is uncertain, even in the most prosperous countries, and the quality of life deteriorates; and yet I believe that what is being discovered about the infinitely large and infinitely small is sufficient to absolve this end of the century and millennium. What a very few are acquiring in knowledge of the physical world will perhaps cause this period not to be judged as a pure return of barbarism. --Primo Levi <http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Primo_Levi> _______________________________________________ Wikipedia Daily Article mailing list. To unsubscribe, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/daily-article-l Questions or comments? Contact [email protected]
