Disintegrating sign
I did not know that shopping carts could be set on fire, but I suppose that with a little gasoline you can light up anything. I didn’t burn the carts myself, but stumbled upon them on a recent hike.
I had started this adventure by looking online for close in hikes that my car-less self could enjoy. I found Kelly Butte Nature Reserve on a map, and, when I tried to learn more about it, unearthed some pretty interesting details. During the Cold War, Portland was the first city in United States to build an underground city hall for use as a bomb shelter in the event of a Soviet attack. They even ran scheduled evacuations. There is even a movie entitled, “A Day Called X” about the shelter. It shows how well the Portland residents would handle a hypothetical Communist bombing.
This underground city hall was built in what is now Kelly Butte Nature Reserve and is now surrounded by a neighborhood in Gresham. Up until the last few years, people were able to sneak into the shelter, and I was hoping I could check it out. Kelly Butte is totally unmarked, so I wandered around a bit before I found it. As I was walking there, one man offered me drugs, a car followed me down the street for several blocks, and a little kid asked me if I am a girl. My policy: just say no to drugs and say yes when people ask me if I’m female. (The short hair throws them off sometimes.) When I did find the park, a small sign said that the it was open, but I still had to hop a gate to get to the trails.
Once inside the park, I saw over 10 signs saying, “No motorized vehicles,” and they were all disintegrating. I had been told the park was creepy, but all I saw was a homeless encampment, lots of beer cans, rusted metal parts, randomly strewn pieces of clothing, and the previously mentioned charred remains of two burned shopping carts. Ok, so that is a little creepy. Add to that the feeling of general abandonment in the park and it’s Cold War history, and the place does seem a tad spooky.
I wandered around on the trails and found a large covered water reservoir. Eventually, I stumbled upon what I think is the escape hatch of the bomb shelter. It has been blocked off by two large concrete slabs. Around the corner, I found the front entrance. The city has covered it over with several pounds of of sod, but you can see some of the wall. People used to crawl in one of the air vents, but that has been covered over, too.
Blocked off escape hatch
Breaking into a bomb shelter: FAIL.
After I got home, I looked up some pictures of the bomb shelter on my computer. I can’t believe this place is being ignored. It would make a fascinating museum! I’m half tempted to go back up there with a group and some shovels to see what we could uncover, but it would take a lot of work and a possible run-in with the law.
There are a lot of interesting blogs about the bomb shelter. Here are my favorites: Wildfreshness and Cyclotram.
Reader: You know, Addy, for an article about a hidden bomb shelter, you’re ending on a boring note. I was expecting excitement and not a history lesson.
Addy: Oh, would it help if I talked about zombies?
Reader: Yes.
Addy: Then there were tons of zombies! Crazy, violent, Communist zombies!
Reader: Much better.
