Hoyt Arboretum

Portland, Oregon, United States

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Hoyt Arboretum in Portland, Oregon, is a 190-acre living museum and historical landscape that hosts over 2,300 species of trees from around the world.

The arboretum is situated on a ridgetop within Washington Park, featuring 12 miles of walking trails that pass through diverse tree collections arranged mostly by family groups, including conifers on one side and deciduous trees on the other.

Originally dense forestland, the land had been home to Indigenous peoples before European settlers cleared parts of it for farming in the 19th century. After the county poor farm closed in the early 1900s, civic leaders, including county commissioner Ralph Warren Hoyt, advocated for preserving the land as a public arboretum.

Designed with influence from the Olmsted Brothers’ park planning principles and a plan developed in 1930 by John W. Duncan, Hoyt Arboretum was planted over the next decade. It features notable collections such as magnificent coast redwoods, giant sequoias, and a dawn redwood known for producing cones for the first time in millions of years. It serves as both an educational resource for plant conservation and a beloved urban green space linking nature and the community.