Rocky Butte: Volcano, WPA Fortress, and Jailhouse

Rocky Butte rises six hundred twelve feet above northeast Portland and is one of dozens of extinct cinder cone volcanoes in the Boring Lava Field. It last erupted somewhere between two hundred eighty-five thousand and five hundred thousand years ago. Beginning in the late nineteen thirties, Works Progress Administration crews hand-dug a three hundred seventy-five-foot switchback tunnel through solid lava and built the stone walls, scenic drives, and fortress-like viewpoint that still crown the summit.

Then in nineteen forty-seven a county jail was built at the butte's eastern base, its walls cut from the same volcanic rock of the hill itself. When Interstate Two Oh Five was built through the area in nineteen eighty-four, the jail came down, and its basalt stones were reused to restore sections of the Historic Columbia River Highway in the Gorge.