When Dr. Thomas Lamb Eliot, a member of the City Parks Commission, hired the prestigious Olmsted Brothers as the designers of the fair, he brought one of the largest proponents of the City Beautiful movement into Portland. To the Olmsted Brothers, City Beautiful frequently manifested in the form of public open space. Dr. Eliot hoped their design would produce an Exposition fairgrounds which could be converted to a public park upon completion of the exhibition—indeed, their initial plan for the fairgrounds was designed as such. This would parallel the Chicago World Columbian Exposition of 1893, with which chief architect Daniel Burnham hoped to restore the shoreline of Lake Michigan to the people of the city, and was largely successful. Today, the site of the World Columbian Exposition has become Jackson Park, a well-frequented public space home to the Museum of Science and Industry. Extending along the shoreline from there are the Lakefront Trail, the Lake Shore Drive, and Lincoln Park, which features a zoo, a golf course, bird sanctuaries, and museums. In short, the Chicago Exposition paved the way for a host of new amenities available to the city residents, and residential development opportunities which still line the lakeshore. In 1905, less than 2% of Portland’s area was covered by parks (compared to 15% in Hartford, Connecticut), and Eliot believed the city could benefit from their addition.
Little of Dr. Eliot’s vision, however, would immediately come to pass. Upon completion of the exposition, the majority of the attractions were dismantled. The one structure retained by the city was the Forestry Building. The structure continued to stand as a monument to the productivity of the Northwest timber industry, but after several close calls with fire, it burned to the ground in 1964. By this time, the Guild’s lake area had already been converted into an industrial park, and is today protected as an “Industrial Sanctuary,” zoned to be preserved for industrial purposes.21. The area houses mainly manufacturing and distribution firms.
One successful legacy of the Olmsted plan was what would go on to become Forest Park. Although the plan ambitiously set aside the area northwest of the Centennial fairgrounds to become one of the largest urban forest preserves in the United States, the city was only able to acquire the land in small parcels. The land had previously been divided into donation claims, with individual property owners intending to construct residences on them. Once tracts had been logged, however, the combination of rain and steep slopes made the area unsuitable for development. As a result, many of the tracts were abandoned or defaulted to the city. Others retained their land, however, and it took the city until 1948 to acquire what is now Forest Park.