Mount Tabor Park (SE 60th Ave. and Salmon St.) rises above Southeast Portland, and its distinctive cone shape reveals its primary attribute: The park contains the country’s only extinct volcano within the city limits of a major population center.

Roping in nearly 200 acres, Mount Tabor Park is large enough to offer several miles of hiking trails, and it also has tennis and basketball courts. Summer concerts are held at a natural amphitheater inside a cinder cone.

A looping road leads to the summit, where you’ll find a statue of Harvey W. Scott, the editor of the Oregonian until 1910, sculpted by Gutzon Borglum of Mount Rushmore fame.

On the flanks of Mount Tabor are three reservoirs; these are holding ponds for the water supply for much of east Portland. After the 9/11 terrorist attacks on New York City and Washington, D.C., the city and the Portland Water Bureau moved to comply with federal mandates that would require that the reservoirs be buried or covered to protect from contamination by terrorists.

Portland residents responded with concerted activism to save the open reservoirs, and plans for altering the reservoirs have been shelved for the time being.