The grassroots drive to create Spencer Butte Park By Eliot Treichel
In the fall 1937, having just begun to dig itself out of a deep economic hole, America found itself facing another financial downturn—one often referred to as “Roosevelt’s Recession.” Though the recession was considered minor in comparison to the earliest days of the Great Depression, it ranks as one of the most severe in history, with unemployment reaching nearly 20 percent. “We need a united national will,” FDR said in response. He called for a prosperity that would lift all, “not for today nor tomorrow alone, but as far ahead as they can see.”
It was against this backdrop, then, that Eugeneans came together for an improbable fund drive, one that saved Spencer Butte from logging and created 280 acres of city park in 1938.
The effort to purchase Spencer Butte for the city park system was led by F.M. Wilkins, president of the Eugene Park Commission and a former Eugene mayor. Spencer Butte was three miles outside the city at the time, and Wilkins was 90 years old. Unable to get a bank loan and with one of the Spencer properties demanding a down payment of $1,100 within 30 days—or it would sell its parcel to loggers—the commission decided to take its need straight to the people. At the initial meeting where the Spencer Butte idea was floated, Wilkins is said to have assured the room, “Eugene has never lacked either vision or courage.”
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Wayne Morse, dean of the University of Oregon’s law school and future U.S. senator, headed the fundraising committee. Contributions were sought, none larger than $5, in the spirit that everyone in Eugene would be able to buy a piece of the butte. Both The Register-Guard and The Eugene Daily News ran a series of editorials urging the need for grassroots action. Daily totals of the fund’s progress were printed, along with a series of informational pieces highlighting the butte’s history and geology and the potentials for recreational use. Warren Smith, head of the UO’s geology department, wrote that it was a matter of civic duty to save the butte. “If we do not take care of this matter in the right way now,” he wrote, “we may some day find the fingers of posterity pointing toward us and accusing us of betraying our trust.”
Spencer Butte had long been an important landmark for the city. Looking south down Willamette Street—Main Street in the early days—the fir-covered butte stands dramatically, its 2,062-foot peak obscured by clouds for much of the winter. To the Kalapuya, the butte was called Rattlesnake Mountain. An informational kiosk at the park today still warns of rattlesnakes, as well as the butte’s infamous poison oak. Stories diverge over how the butte received its modern name. The less popular version claims that the butte was named for John C. Spencer, Secretary of War under President Tyler. The alternate story credits the name to a member of the Hudson Bay Company, an Englishman named Spencer who’d set out to climb the butte alone. When he didn’t return to camp, a search party found his naked body halfway up the hill the next morning, riddled with arrows.
Despite the public relations push, a week before the deadline less than half the down payment had been collected. On the eve of the January 31 closing date, the fund was still short more than $100. At the last moment, an anonymous donor, described by The Register-Guard as the “venerable Mr. ____,” came forward and offered a $1,000 bond to cover the shortage.
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With the $1,100 shored up, attention shifted to the next step—the May primary vote on a half million-dollar tax levy to raise the $6,100 needed to pay the balance. “When you mark your ballot,” Wilkins said, “remember that you are marking it for the boys and girls now—and for generations to come.” The measure passed, 3,082 to 1,940.
Eugeneans have continued to take an active role in the park. The Ridgeline Trail system weaves east and west from Spencer Butte, and the city’s Recreation Services department operates a challenge course at the park. Over the years more property acquisitions have been made, including several land donations. Efforts in the ’50s to erect a radio tower on the butte were defeated amid public outcry. Countless volunteer hours have been logged, including the “Better the Butte” campaign of the ’70s, which moved approximately 84 tons of rock by hand.
Before the vote on the Spencer Butte tax levy, The Register-Guard opined that to view Eugene and the Willamette Valley from the top of the butte was to have “a new understanding of Oregon.” It’s true. On a clear day, you can see for miles in every direction—a view that not only hints at the past, but also the future.
America found itself facing another financial downturn—one often referred to as “Roosevelt’s Recession.” Though the recession was considered minor in comparison to the earliest days of the Great Depression, it ranks as one of the most severe in history, with unemployment reaching nearly 20 percent. “We need a united national will,” FDR said in response. He called for a prosperity that would lift all, “not for today nor tomorrow alone, but as far ahead as they can see.”
