History
In 1917 a group of Portland nurserymen came up with the idea for an American rose test garden. Portland had an enthusiastic group of volunteers and 20 miles (32 km) of rose bordered streets, largely from the 1905 Lewis & Clark Exposition. Portland was already dubbed "The City of Roses" so this was leveraged to enhance the reputation. Between Portland Parks & Recreation and the American Rose Society, the garden soon became a reality.
Jessie Currey, president of Portland's Rose Society at the time, petitioned for the city to serve as a safe haven for hybrid roses grown in Europe during World War I. Rose lovers feared that these unique plants could be destroyed as a result of the war. Foreign hybridists sent roses for test from many countries and the garden was an immediate success. Today, Portland is the only North American city that can issue its awards to roses of merit throughout the world.
Read more about this topic: International Rose Test Garden
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“I cannot be much pleased without an appearance of truth; at least of possibility—I wish the history to be natural though the sentiments are refined; and the characters to be probable, though their behaviour is excelling.”
—Frances Burney (1752–1840)
“The history of the world is none other than the progress of the consciousness of freedom.”
—Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770–1831)
“History has neither the venerableness of antiquity, nor the freshness of the modern. It does as if it would go to the beginning of things, which natural history might with reason assume to do; but consider the Universal History, and then tell us,—when did burdock and plantain sprout first?”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)