The Talbot Property

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Recently I've made a minor hobby out of tracking down & taking pics of Portland's tiny, obscure city parks, and here's yet another one. This is the "Talbot Property", a small sloping wedge of land up in Portland's West Hills, at the crazy-quilt semi-intersection of SW Broadway (a.k.a. Patton Road), Vista Ave., and Talbot Road [map].

There isn't a lot on the net about the place other than passing mentions in a few docs from the city, although (as usual) the parks bureau's list of parks doesn't mention the place, and (as usual) there's no official city park sign here. A doc titled "West District Profile" lists the city parks on the westside, and says the Talbot Property was acquired in 1932, and totals a measly 0.04 acres, or 1742 square feet. That's far too small to hold a house in the West Hills, which I suppose is why there's a mini-park here instead. These days they might protect it due to the park's four old Douglas fir trees, but that wasn't much of a civic priority back then.

The city's PortlandMaps.com service lists the place as property #R326839, listing it not as a park, but merely as "vacant land" zoned for recreational purposes.

Another doc concerning a proposed parks levy merely mentions that the park sits at the intersection of SW Talbot & Patton. The triangular park is bordered by Patton on one side, Talbot on another, and on the remaining side by a short flight of stairs.

The park also appears prominently on the city's SW Portland Walking Map, with an icon saying there's drinking water here. I don't know whether this counts as a Benson Bubbler or not, but if so it's one of very few outside of downtown. In fact the only other one that comes to mind is one that used to be at the corner of SE Milwaukie and Powell, and it hasn't been there for years and years and years.

The other "feature" of the park is a bus shelter, served by the #51 heading from Council Crest to downtown Portland. The area around the bus shelter is marked off by an old stone wall, which may date back to the 1930s when the park was created. In those days Council Crest was served by a streetcar instead of city buses, so I suspect this place was built as a streetcar stop way back when.

It took a while for the bus to come, and I was fortunate the bus shelter was here, as several intermittent cloudbursts drenched the area while I was waiting. On the bright side, that made for some good Water Droplets On Stuff macro photos. There's really not much to do here except look at the landscaping anyway, and rain makes it just that much more interesting.