Chapman and Lownsdale Squares
Set aside as public parks in 1852, a year after Portland became an incorporated city, these two adjacent blocks planted with elms, pines, cedars, and ginkgo trees form the green heart of Portland's government quarter. They were the scene of anti-Chinese riots in the 1880s and in the 1920s were sexually segregated to protect women from unwanted advances. Chapman Square (btw. SW Madison and SW Main), the former women’s park, was named for Judge William Chapman, a founder of The Oregonian newspaper. Men were confined to Lownsdale Square (btw. SW Main and SW Salmon), named for Daniel Lownsdale, a 19th-century Oregon legislator who was also responsible for building the city’s first plank road in 1851. Between the two squares, in the center of SW Main Street, is the graceful and iconic Thompson Elk Fountain (1900). Roland Perry’s life-size bronze statue of an elk—an animal that reputedly grazed here in the early 1850s—stands atop a pedestal with four granite horse troughs at its base.
Set aside as public parks in 1852, a year after Portland became an incorporated city, these two adjacent blocks planted with elms, pines, cedars, and ginkgo trees form the green heart of Portland's government quarter. They were the scene of anti-Chinese riots in the 1880s and in the 1920s were sexually segregated to protect women from unwanted advances. Chapman Square (btw. SW Madison and SW Main), the former women’s park, was named for Judge William Chapman, a founder of The Oregonian newspaper. Men were confined to Lownsdale Square (btw. SW Main and SW Salmon), named for Daniel Lownsdale, a 19th-century Oregon legislator who was also responsible for building the city’s first plank road in 1851. Between the two squares, in the center of SW Main Street, is the graceful and iconic Thompson Elk Fountain (1900). Roland Perry’s life-size bronze statue of an elk—an animal that reputedly grazed here in the early 1850s—stands atop a pedestal with four granite horse troughs at its base.
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