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Forest Park, from above

(Jamie Francis/The Oregonian/2012)

By Marcy Houle

A pivotal time has come for

. What we see today may not be here tomorrow. For this reason, there's something important Portlanders need to do:

Call for a name change.

At what may be the turning point in the park's history, it's time for the forest with the humble name but fiery past to reclaim the name that was always intended:

Tualatin Mountain Wilderness Park.

Most Portlanders today don't know it, but our largest city park wasn't supposed to be named Forest Park. Only because a quorum wasn't available on the evening of Sept. 12, 1957, when the "official name" was to be designated, did it arise by default. The preferred moniker was "Tualatin Mountain," which makes good sense, as the bulk of the 5,000-acre park is the backbone of Portland.

But the vote didn't happen, and "Forest Park" was christened. Yet there's more to the story -- the part that could make all the difference to the park's future. It was to be designated a "wilderness park" -- the first, and still the only, urban wilderness in the United States.

Wilderness? Some recreationalists question the name, for it evokes a kind of use different from what they are currently lobbying for.

But the wilderness title is not debatable. It began with John Olmsted, in 1903, who said the park should be set aside as a rural reserve for passive use. Then, in the 1920s through 1950s, the three founders who fought for decades for the park's creation termed it as such. Thornton Munger, Fred Cleator and Garnett "Ding" Cannon each saw the park's No. 1 goal as a "wilderness park, for wilderness values."

Munger and Cleator, scientists with the U.S. Forest Service, knew what they were talking about. Cleator was the leader who gave us the Pacific Crest Trail and the region's first wilderness areas. Munger was one of the first regional scientists to study the flora and fauna of the Northwest. He was clear in his vision of Forest Park as "a wilderness [where] the feeling of an extensive, uninterrupted forest sanctuary may be preserved far from the madding crowd."

Their foresight and dedication to an ideal helped make Forest Park what it is today: an outstanding natural area with more native wildlife than any other city park in the nation. It is a park with greater "interior forest habitat" than any other city park in the world. Forest Park is a place where Portlanders can find escape, beauty and solace in the heart of a city of more than half a million people.

Will it remain so? Some people would like to see the park change. There are those who are advocating for new, high-speed uses and demanding a different management for Forest Park. They say this is not a wilderness; rather, it should be a playground for recreation.

But that is not what the founders intended. As the late Sen. Richard Neuberger expressed, "Portland's boundaries enclose a wilderness. This wilderness is Forest Park. ... I hope there will always be men and women in Portland determined to keep it that way."

Yes, a name change is in order. Perhaps then Portlanders will realize the crown jewel for what it truly is, before it's gone.

Biologist Marcy Houle is the author of "One City's Wilderness: Portland's Forest Park," and she has studied Forest Park for the Oregon Parks Foundation, the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife and the Multnomah County Planning Division.