Touch Grass: Hazeltine Park

Hazeltine Park is a very new park with the land only acquired in 2001, and spanning just over one acre, it was named, “in honor of longtime neighborhood residents Dick and Opal Hazeltine. Dick is considered by many as a "founder" of the Brentwood-Darlington neighborhood [where the park is located]. …. His tireless efforts resulted in the development of the Nehalem property into a neighborhood park,” according to the park’s section on the Portland.gov website. Hazeltine Park is a five minute drive or thirty minute trip by foot or on public transit from Reed, located between Reed and Clackamas to make up part of a larger trip. The park is a small patch of green within a neighborhood.

The park is open from 5 a.m to midnight daily without an off-leash area. Amenities include a horseshoe pit and nature patch, which “includes a variety of flowering native and ornamental pollinator-friendly plants, two wildlife trees carved with critter niches, a picnic area, and several nature spots with logs and boulders,” according to its section on the Portland.gov website. This nature patch is part of a wider Portland Parks & Recreation project to add these patches to many parks across the city. To learn more about this nature patch and the project as a whole, Portland Parks & Recreation has created a YouTube video on it. To learn more about the park, visit its section on the Portland.gov website. Go out and touch grass in Hazeltine Park!