Portland Japanese Garden in the 1960s: The KGW-TV Archives

Inspired in the late 1950s by growing cultural ties between Oregon and Japan, Mayor Terry Schrunk and members of the Portland community conceived the idea of building a Japanese garden on the site of the old zoo in Washington Park. Their reasons for building a Japanese garden were twofold: providing the citizens of Portland with a garden of great beauty and serenity, while forging a healing connection to Japan on the heels of World War II. At this time in U.S. history, Japanese gardens were founded across the country as a way to build cultural understanding. Needing no translation, an American could experience firsthand Japanese ideals and values, communicated simply through nature. The site was dedicated in 1961, and Professor Takuma Tono of Tokyo Agricultural University was retained to design the Garden. Professor Tono’s plan included five different garden styles laid out on 5.5 acres. In 1967, the Garden formally opened to the public for the summer.
In these early years, Portland's NBC affiliate, KGW-TV, filmed Portland Japanese Garden's construction and has shared footage from their archives to help the organization celebrate its 60+ years. Special thanks to KGW-TV for sharing these priceless moments from the Garden's past.

[@EalasaidH]

Wow, amazing to see the bones of different areas when they were in-progress!

[@gracegorska7369]

If KGW has given a digital copy of this video to the Portland Japanese Garden, it would be worth it for their own archives if they can enhance it a bit: lighten it up, improve contrasts etc. Based on working with still photos I suspect there are interesting images hidden in some of those shadows.