Metro
503-797-1700503-797-1804 TDD
503-797-1797 fax
Stories of the land
Planning and conservation › Natural areas, parks and trails › Acquiring natural areas › Natural Areas Program › Stories of the land
Meet some of the people who have sold their land to Metro to be protected as natural areas and discover the stories of Oregon families whose histories are linked to these special places.
Thomas Dairy: A key link to Forest Park
"I remember the morel mushrooms that grew under the pear trees," recalls Ella Thomas, age 95, hiking over to the edge of the woods. Ella moved to this place in 1915 when she was two years old and her parents, Reinhold and Rosalie Bieberdorf, bought the property on Newberry Road and established a dairy. "Trilliums," she adds. "The woods should be full of trilliums. Across the gulch will be ladyslippers and maidenhair ferns. Wild iris. The little wild blackberries were so delicious." She scans the landscape, with its meadows, woods and buildings. "Lots of memories."
One of the first acquisitions of Metro's voter-approved 2006 natural areas bond measure, the 58-acre Thomas Dairy property is a key link between Forest Park and 280 acres to the north that Metro protected along Ennis Creek. Now mainly a mixed coniferous and deciduous forest, the land provides a significant wildlife corridor and a potential future extension of the Wildwood Trail. Two streams cross the landscape, which provides habitat for bald eagles, coyotes and myriad other species of birds. From the crest of the hill, a deep gulch slices through the property, its steep sides lined with wildflowers, ferns and enormous cedars, Douglas firs and maples. A herd of 40 to 50 elk frequent the site, their trails and tracks visible in the two remnant meadows. "Look," Ella says, "you can see where they nibble on the grass."
"I took it for granted then," she comments. "I doubt I appreciated the place." She was worried that her schoolmates would discover that she lived without running water or electricity. Back then, the dairy had about 40 cows and fruit trees, including pear, walnut, plum, cherry, filbert and "all kinds of wonderful apple trees." Grazing goats helped clear the land. "Horses did all the work. There was Jack the mule and Buster the one-eyed horse. Before the St. Johns Bridge, Pa took the horse and buggy and crossed the river on the ferry." A weathered ledger lists 14 boxes of Bartlett pears sold to Joe's in Linnton for a dollar each.
They collected rainwater in a cistern from the barn and hauled drinking water from the springs. A 1952 newspaper article shows a photograph of Ella's father tapping maple trees and making maple syrup. She remarks, "It was not the place to do it if you want to make money out of it."
Ella specifically notes that she walked 6.3 miles to school and coming back up Newberry Road alone recalled thinking "there'd be bears. I was scared." Her dad bought leather and re-soled her shoes. She was the youngest of five children and they all picked raspberries and wild strawberries to sell. During the Depression they peeled bark and sold it for a few pennies.
When Ella was 17 she married Delbert Thomas. They moved to Idaho, had three children and over the years, added thirteen foster children. Around 1950, her parents needed help and asked Ella and Delbert to move back to the farm, and it became Thomas Dairy. Delbert bought a tractor and had a well drilled, reaching water at 300 feet. Their children built hideouts and rode horse trails through Forest Park, which was established in 1937. In the aftermath of the Columbus Day storm in 1962, the family lost electricity for 13 days. They ran the milking machines with a generator and, since the roads were blocked, fed the milk to the pigs.
In the 70s they sold the property to the Margolis family who planted more fir trees and raised cattle organically. They put it up for sale in late 2006. Although the bond measure had not yet passed, the property's extraordinary value as a wildlife corridor and Forest Park connection was recognized. The Trust for Public Land agreed to option the property in anticipation of the subsequent passage of the measure. In 2007 it was purchased from TPL by Metro.
Buildings remain that tell the stories of those lives. There's a modern looking house that is an expanded, remodeled version of the 1923 farmhouse. It started as a one-room structure that was rolled down the hill to be closer to the electric hookup. "My brother rolled the house down. It wasn't supposed to get so close to the road."
"There's so much history here," Ella reminisces. She is pleased that the property will be preserved as a natural area. "I'm glad someone will take care of this. It joins Forest Park. It's a good thing to do. People should be enjoying it. I think it's wonderful."
Rare habitat brought back to the Tualatin River Valley
Along a sleepy bend of the Tualatin River, at the confluence of Baker and McFee creeks, the Gotter family farm is returning to nature. More than 120 acres are being transformed from agriculture to rare oak savanna and wet prairie, along with forested wetlands and riparian areas.
The Gotter family purchased the land in 1930 when Sam Gotter, the youngest of five children, was four years old. "They bought it because of me," Sam recalls. "I was ill and my folks were told they needed to get me to the country." The river floods every year, so the family installed six miles of tiles to drain the land for farming. "It was great farmland," Sam says. "We had every crop imaginable - berries, beans, corn, cucumbers, all kinds of vegetables." They also had cattle, hogs and other farm animals. The land was turned with horse-drawn plows.
A historic grist mill started by Seth Seeley in 1875 on Baker Creek was on the property. A dam on the creek created a spillway. The mill was operated by a water wheel, and farmers from the area brought their wheat and paid a toll for it to be ground. The millstone is believed to have been shipped around Cape Horn. A log flume passed through the property, too, floating logs from higher in the mountains down to the Tualatin River. Sam reminisces, "I liked growing up there, our old home place - fishing, catching crawdads, swimming in the river, playing in the creeks and the lake."
After his parents died, Sam bought the farm and kept it. "I enjoyed being there. It was a nice place to live." But by 1994, when Sam was 68 years old, the farm became too much to manage. He kept 10 acres on a part of the property where he and his wife had already built a house and sold the rest to Jim Stahlke, who kept the farmland for two years before selling it to Metro.
The Gotter property is now returning to its roots, with a little help from Metro's natural resources team and a key partner- ship with the Tualatin Riverkeepers that has helped bring hundreds of volunteers to the site. In all, six plant communities will be restored on the property creating a mosaic of native plant habitats based on historical conditions. These include: wet prairie (20 acres), wetland scrub (15 acres), forested wetland (13 acres), oak savanna (22 acres), riparian woodland (23 acres), and palustrine emergent (or plants that are rooted in shallow water with most of their vegetation above water - 18 acres). It is currently the largest native prairie system in the Tualatin River Valley.
The natural vegetation of the Tualatin River watershed includes more than 400 species of plants, many now rare. At Gotter Prairie, at least 34 herbaceous and 32 shrub and tree species have been established, approximating the natural distribution of the plants. Oak savanna and Willamette wet prairie species, generally rare or absent, are included. The riparian area of McFee Creek, still a salmon-bearing stream, is being revegetated. An increasing cover of large trees will provide shade, leaf litter, woody debris and insects that benefit trout and endangered salmon.
Restoring the natural hydrology of the site and converting it back to a wetland system will increase the diversity of birds, amphibians, reptiles and mammals. Species that are expected to return include mink, chorus and red-legged frogs, Western toad and native turtles. The greatest change is likely to come from the abundance and diversity of birds. With restoration, the wetlands system will become suitable breeding habitat or migration stopover for birds like the yellowbreasted chat, yellow-headed blackbirds, common snipe and several hawk species.
In 2002, the Gotter family donated a conservation easement for an adjacent 6-acre property. "I told Metro, I'll help out all I can," says Sam. "It's a good thing for them, and a good thing for me." What he doesn't say - maybe because it comes so naturally to him to do right by this place that has given him so much - is that it's good for the land, too.
Need assistance?
Natural Areas Program
503-797-1545
naturalareas@oregonmetro.gov