Council
Crest

Council Crest is a beautiful Portland Park thought to be the highest point in the city at 1,073 feet above sea level. Legend claims that Council Crest got its name because it was where Indigenous tribes gathered for local councils and built signal fires. However, according to McArthur's Oregon Geographic Names, it was named in 1898 by delegates to the National Council of Congregational Churches, who would meet there. Other names in its past include; Talbot's Mountain, Glass Hill, and Fairmount. Council Crest also operated as an amusement park from 1907 until 1929, called “The Dreamland of the Northwest,” with a 77-foot-tall wooden observatory that is now a water tower. Regardless of where this name originated from, this historical location served as a place of prayer for Indigenous tribal leaders as well as church leaders who prayed over Portland generations ago. Council Crest is on the Native land of the Stl’pulmsh (Cowlitz), Clackamas, Confederated Tribes of Grand Ronde, and Confederated Tribes of Siletz. As it is now commonly known, countless Indigenous Peoples were ruthlessly killed by White settlers who believed they were creating a more ‘Christian’ nation. Council Crest is a dichotomy in that it signifies both a place of pain and a place of hopeful prayer.

Father, we grieve the lives of our Indigenous brothers and sisters that were lost to genocide. We grieve their land that was unjustly colonized by White Americans. We repent from the ways we have knowingly or unknowingly contributed to the deeply rooted narratives of injustice, and ask for your forgiveness. We pray for redemption, reparations, and intergenerational healing among our Indigenous family.