14Dec
Terwilliger Parkway Land Acknowledgement
Friends of Terwilliger wants to acknowledge that where we live, work, and play, and what we build rests on stolen land.
The Terwilliger Parkway is named for James Terwilliger, an early Portland pioneer who helped survey the original town plat. He received a Donation Land Grant for property that now includes Terwilliger Parkway and which his heirs donated for the parkway. The Donation Land Grants gave “free” land to white settlers that had been taken from the indigenous tribes that populated the area long before and during white settlement: the traditional village sites of the Multnomah, Kathlamet, Clackamas, Bands of Chinook, Tualatin Kalapuya, and Molalla people.
We honor all Indigenous nations and their land with enormous gratitude and acknowledge the genocide and continuous displacement of Indigenous peoples.
**Totem Pole built by Chief Lelooska in 1959 and installed at Elk Point, part of Historic Terwilliger Parkway. Lelooska was Cherokee, born Don Smith, and later adopted as Kwakwaka’wakw. This style of totem pole is not of the local indigenous tribes. More info about the totem’s history here