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Heritage garden and memorial at Lone Fir

Places and activities  ›  Pioneer cemeteries  ›  Lone Fir Pioneer Cemetery  ›  Heritage garden and memorial

Learn about the vision for a heritage garden and memorial to honor Chinese workers and asylum patients buried at Lone Fir Pioneer Cemetery in the 1800s. Find out how you can get involved.

Most people overlook the flat, charmless gravel lot in a corner of Southeast Portland’s tree-lined Lone Fir Pioneer Cemetery. But this 1.25-acre plot of land, known as Block 14, has a fascinating history – and future. In years past, this land sheltered the remains of two groups of disenfranchised Oregonians: early Chinese workers and patients from a historical psychiatric hospital. Until recently, their stories have gone mostly unnoticed by the larger community.

Now, Block 14 is being reinvented as a heritage garden and memorial, a historical monument and place to reflect.

Chinese workers, psychiatric patients buried at Lone Fir

Early Chinese workers played an essential role in building the initial transportation infrastructure of the Pacific Northwest. Portland was the second largest Chinese community on the West Coast by the 1890s, with 11 percent of its residents of Chinese origin. Lone Fir Cemetery was a temporary resting place for deceased Chinese workers, who would be transported back to China for burial with their families. There were no plans to relocate the remains of women and children.

In 1861 a notable Portlander, Dr. J.C. Hawthorne, built a psychiatric hospital considered a model for its time. Patients had the opportunity to work in the fresh air, growing food and tending animals for the hospital’s use. Dr. Hawthorne paid for about 200 destitute patients to be buried in Lone Fir. But wooden grave markers were destroyed by climate or fire, and the exact location of these graves has been lost.

Community rallies to honor Lone Fir’s history

Multnomah County, which operated the cemetery for many years, believed Block 14 to be vacant of burials after the final disinterment of the deceased Chinese. After 1947, the county built a parking lot and maintenance building on the site. Although Metro took over the rest of the cemetery in 1994, the county held onto that corner.

In 2004 Multnomah County condemned the building and planned to sell the site for development. The Buckman Neighborhood Association, Friends of Lone Fir and the Oregon Chinese Consolidated Benevolent Association informed the County they believed there were still intact burials on the site. Multnomah County, the City of Portland and Metro, working with the State of Oregon Historic Preservation Office and archaeologists, determined the truth of this claim.

The community became determined to tell the story of what had happened here. The building and parking lot were demolished without disturbing potential remaining grave sites, and Block 14 was deeded to Metro in 2007, rejoining it to the rest of Lone Fir Pioneer Cemetery.

Cemetery foundation supports Block 14 vision

The Lone Fir Cemetery Foundation, established in 2011, is in charge of ongoing fundraising for this project. Its founders include Rebecca Liu and Marcus Lee of the Chinese Consolidated Benevolent Association; Stan Clarke, cemetery historian and former commissioner of the Oregon Commission on Historic Cemeteries; Mary Faulkner of the Friends of Lone Fir; Jane Hansen of Lango Hansen Landscape Architects; and John Laursen of the Northwest History Project. Councilor Barbara Roberts is the Metro Council champion for the project.

Get involved

For volunteer opportunities and tour information, visit Friends of Lone Fir Cemetery at www.friendsoflonefircemetery.org.

To follow the fundraising efforts of the Lone Fir Cemetery Foundation, visit www.lonefirblock14.org.

Related Documents

• Memorial design: asylum garden perspective 2.2M Adobe Acrobat PDF | Published January 28, 2009
• Lone Fir memorial park site design 10.4M Adobe Acrobat PDF | Published March 23, 2009
• Memorial design: entry perspective 2.2M Adobe Acrobat PDF | Published January 28, 2009
• Memorial design: view from east perspective 2.7M Adobe Acrobat PDF | Published January 28, 2009
• Lone Fir Pioneer Cemetery work group 104K Adobe Acrobat PDF | Published June 4, 2008
• Lone Fir Cemetery memorial and master plan comment form 116K Adobe Acrobat PDF | Published September 22, 2008
• Lone Fir Pioneer Cemetery master plan and Morrison property site design - Chinese translation 165K Adobe Acrobat PDF | Published June 13, 2008
• Lone Fir Cemetery recommendations 5.4M Adobe Acrobat PDF | Published March 2, 2010