History
The butte was known as "Ya-Po-Ah" in the language of the Kalapuya, who inhabited the Willamette Valley prior to the arrival of Euro-American settlers in the 19th century. In 1846, Eugene Skinner, an American settler who had arrived in the valley after traveling overland to California, erected a cabin on the butte on the advice of the Kalupuya, who warned him about floods on the Willamette. Skinner's cabin became the basis for his Donation Land Claim. The site of the cabin is commemorated today by a marker on the hillside. A replica of the cabin has been located in various places in the park over the years.
Skinner Butte Park was dedicated in 1914. According to the Register-Guard, "at one point, the park...included a car camp, a zoo and, during the Depression, a Civilian Conservation Corps regional camp."
The park is a popular site for rockclimbing (on "The Columns" the site of a former basalt quarry on the west side of the butte that operated from the 1890s through the 1930s) and birding, among other recreational activities. In July 2006, the City of Eugene opened a new playground, RiverPlay Discovery Village Playground, in the park.
The butte is also the site of the Shelton-McMurphey-Johnson House, a Queen Anne Victorian residence built in 1880 by the family that once owned the entire butte. Before trees grew up and obscured it, the house was known as the "Castle on the Hill". It was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1984. The name "Ya-Po-Ah" lives on in "Ya-Po-Ah Terrace", a controversial high-rise retirement home built at the foot of the butte in 1968.
On September 23, 2010, the giant "O" was added to the National Register of Historic Places.
Read more about this topic: Skinner Butte
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