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I was out in deep westside suburbia last weekend running some errands, and I stopped for lunch at a teriyaki place I used to frequent back when I lived out there. I'd forgotten there was a tiny park next to the restaurant; once I noticed that, I figured I ought to take a couple of quick photos and see what I could could come up with about the place. Dwight S. Parr Park (a.k.a. "Dwight S. Parr Woods Natural Area") only comes to 0.63 acres, and the entire park is a stand of old, tall conifer trees, with a short path winding around between them. Taking the trees into account, it's possible the park is actually taller than it is wide.
From what I can tell, the park's named after Dwight S. Parr Jr., former president of Parr Lumber, and son of the company's founder. The missing parts of the story here are a.) How a postage-stamp sized chunk of forest came to be preserved while suburbia sprawled out all around it, and b.) How it came to be named after a lumber and building supply CEO. Spidey sense says there might be an interesting story here, but it happened in the 'burbs so the Oregonian didn't cover it, and Beaverton's Valley Times doesn't seem to have online archives available. Apparently the UO Library in Eugene has the Valley Times on microfilm, but that just seems impossibly inconvenient; I don't even know what year to search for, for one thing. So if you happened to come across this humble blog and can fill in some of the missing parts of the story, feel free to leave a comment below. Thx. Mgmt.
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