''Chief Kno-Tah'' was a wooden statue located in

Shute Park Shute Park is a municipal park in the city of Hillsboro, Oregon, United States. Acquired in 1906, the park is the oldest park in the city. Located at southeast Tenth and Maple streets along Tualatin Valley Highway, Shute Park includes an aquatic ...

in Hillsboro in the U.S. state of

Oregon Oregon () is a state in the Pacific Northwest region of the Western United States. The Columbia River delineates much of Oregon's northern boundary with Washington, while the Snake River delineates much of its eastern boundary with Idaho. T ...

. Carved by Peter Wolf Toth, it was the 56th Native American head in his ''

Trail of the Whispering Giants The ''Trail of the Whispering Giants'' is a collection of sculptures by Hungarian American, Hungarian-born artist Peter Wolf Toth. The sculptures range in height from , and are between in diameter. In 2009, there were 74 ''Whispering Giants'', wi ...

'' series. The tall, statue was the first of two carved by Toth in Oregon. Completed in 1987, the statue was named in honor of a chief of the local Tualatin Indians. In early 2017, the statue was damaged by a tree blown over in a windstorm. It was ultimately determined to be beyond repair and was removed in June 2017.

History

Toth selected Shute Park in Hillsboro for his first sculpture of a Native American head in Oregon in July 1987. He wanted a location in the

Portland metropolitan area The Portland metropolitan area is a metro area in the U.S. states of Oregon and Washington centered on the principal city of Portland, Oregon. The U.S. Office of Management and Budget (OMB) identifies it as the Portland–Vancouver–Hillsboro, ...

to allow easy access for a large population to see the statue that would include features drawn from

Chief Joseph ''Hin-mah-too-yah-lat-kekt'' (or ''Hinmatóowyalahtq̓it'' in Americanist orthography), popularly known as Chief Joseph, Young Joseph, or Joseph the Younger (March 3, 1840 – September 21, 1904), was a leader of the Wal-lam-wat-kain (Wallowa ...

of the

Nez Perce tribe The Nez Percé (; autonym in Nez Perce language: , meaning "we, the people") are an Indigenous people of the Plateau who are presumed to have lived on the Columbia River Plateau in the Pacific Northwest region for at least 11,500 years.Ames, K ...

in northeastern Oregon. For his ''

'' series, Toth carved a statue in each U.S. state with Oregon as the penultimate state. He began sculpting that month on a log of Douglas fir, Oregon's state tree. The log was donated by

Stimson Lumber Company Stimson Lumber Company is an American Forest products company based in Oregon. Founded in 1931, it was started by three partners, including G. W. Stimson of the Stimson family of King County, Washington, responsible for the Stimson House, Hollyw ...

and delivered free of charge by local companies. On August 13, the partly carved log was lifted onto its base at the park along

Tualatin Valley Highway The Tualatin Valley Highway No. 29 (see Oregon highways and routes) is an Oregon highway which passes through the Tualatin Valley, between the cities of McMinnville and Beaverton. Between McMinnville and Forest Grove, the highway is signed as ...

by J. L. Craigg Construction. Toth carved it by hand, except for the use of an electric sander. The statue was later treated with wood preservatives and fiberglass was applied to the top to protect against the weather. On September 25, 1987, the sculpture was dedicated as Chief Kno-Tah in a ceremony featuring Native American singing and dancing. About 400 attended the ceremony on a day proclaimed as United American Indian Day by Hillsboro mayor

Shirley Huffman Shirley Todd Huffman (August 30, 1928 – July 1, 2018) was an American politician and legal secretary in the U.S. state of Oregon. Raised in Dayton, Oregon, she settled in Hillsboro, Oregon, where she served on the city council before serving ...

. City and county civic leaders as well as local Native American leaders spoke at the ceremony. Kno-Tah was the leader of the Tualatin band of the

Kalapuya The Kalapuya are a Native American people, which had eight independent groups speaking three mutually intelligible dialects. The Kalapuya tribes' traditional homelands were the Willamette Valley of present-day western Oregon in the United Sta ...

group, who signed a treaty in 1855 with the government to cede their ancestral home on the

Tualatin Plains The Tualatin Plains are a prairie area in central Washington County, Oregon, United States. Located around the Hillsboro and Forest Grove areas, the plains were first inhabited by the Atfalati band of the Kalapuya group of Native Americans. Euro ...

to pioneer settlers. Students at the

Chemawa Indian School Chemawa Indian School is a Native American boarding school in Salem, Oregon, United States. Named after the Chemawa band of the Kalapuya people of the Willamette Valley, it opened on February 25, 1880 as an elementary school. Grades were adde ...

in Salem, Oregon, selected the name from submissions from local residents. The tall statue was Toth's 56th in his series of Native American heads. Toth donated the statue to the state as he did with each in the series. A plaque on the base was later added. After completing the statue, he carved a second statue in Oregon in Astoria later that year to honor coastal tribes. Until 1996, a picture of the sculpture was used by the Hillsboro Chamber of Commerce for their postcards. In February 2017, the top of the carving was damaged when a wind storm blew an adjacent tree into the front side, shearing off part of the head and causing the entire statue to lean. By that point, the internal parts of the carving were decomposing, leading many to attempt to raise funds for bronzing the sculpture. On June 15, 2017, after officials deemed the leaning statue a safety concern, it was removed.

Description

''Chief Kno-Tah'' was made of Douglas fir and was tall, and in diameter (19 cubic metres, 9.9 tonnes). The concrete base was tall and in diameter. The figure featured braided hair with feathers protruding from the back.

References

External links

Peter Wolf Toth
{{Hillsboro Oregon 1987 establishments in Oregon 1987 sculptures 2017 disestablishments in Oregon Destroyed sculptures Monuments and memorials in Oregon Outdoor sculptures in Hillsboro, Oregon Sculptures of men in Oregon Sculptures of Native Americans in Oregon Statues in Oregon Wooden sculptures in Oregon

History

Description

See also

References

External links