Spencer Butte: The Rattlesnake Hill at the Edge of the City
Near Eugene, Oregon
Spencer Butte rises to two thousand and fifty-eight feet at the southern edge of Eugene, its summit bare rock above a forest of Douglas fir. On a clear day, standing at the top, you can see the Three Sisters to the east, the Coast Range to the west, and the entire spread of the Willamette Valley below you. Eugene and Springfield look small from up there.
The Kalapuya called the butte Cham-a-te, meaning rattlesnake. One story attached to the English name holds that it was named for a young Englishman working for the Hudson's Bay Company who climbed the hill alone and was killed by the Kalapuya for doing so, though the historical basis for this account is uncertain.
By the nineteen thirties, the butte had become a landmark that Eugene residents feared losing to private development. During the Great Depression, the city's residents voted to tax themselves to purchase Spencer Butte, which at the time lay outside the city limits. It was a Depression-era choice to spend money on something that could not feed anyone or provide employment: a hill, and the view from it, held in common.
The butte is now Spencer Butte Park, accessible by several trails. The summit hike is a short, steep climb. In February of twenty twenty-one, someone cut down the lone Douglas fir that had stood on the summit for decades. The fir is gone. The view is not.
