Portland’s historic cemeteries are some of the most beautiful and overlooked cultural treasures in the city. Full of fascinating secrets and eerie tales, these greenspaces are also the perfect spots for walking, biking and birding. Explore twenty-five burial grounds with public art in the form of remarkable tombstones that vary as much as the Portlanders they commemorate, including suffragists, spiritualists, Romani kings, politicians and murderers. From a photographer who captured the golden age of Broadway musicals to a celebrity orangutan, Portland’s graves are full of surprises. Come along with cemetery sleuths Teresa Bergen and Heide Davis as they share their insights into the Rose City’s remarkable past.
Heide Davis and Teresa Bergen are good friends and cemetery sleuths who live in Portland, Oregon. Heide is a painter who loves vintage stuff. Teresa is the author of Easy Portland Outdoors and Transcribing Oral History. They love to explore old cemeteries and antique malls, go on ghost tours and otherwise poke around in the past.