the land that became known as Forest Park was covered by a Douglas-fir forest. By 1851, its acreage had been divided into donation land claims filed by settlers with plans to clear the forest and build upon the property. After logging, the steep slopes and unstable silt loosened by heavy rains caused landslides that defeated construction plans, and claims were defaulted or donated to the city. Civic leaders beginning with the Reverend Thomas Lamb Eliot, a minister who moved to Portland in 1867, sought to create a natural preserve in the woods that eventually became Forest Park. By 1899, Eliot's efforts led to the formation of the Municipal Park Commission of Portland, which in 1903 hired the highly regarded landscape architecture firm, the Olmsted Brothers of Brookline, Massachusetts, to study the city's park system and recommend a plan. John Charles Olmsted, the stepson of Frederick Law Olmsted, spent May 1903 in Portland. The Olmsted Report, received in December, emphasized creation of a system of parks and linking parkways that would take advantage of natural scenery. It proposed a formal square for Union Station, squares along the downtown waterfront, and parks in places later known as Forest Park, Sellwood Park, Mount Tabor Park, Rocky Butte, and Ross Island, as well as Terwilliger Parkway, the 40-Mile Loop, and other connecting parkways. Proposed parks for Swan Island, in the Willamette River, and other places in Portland did not develop. Others like Forest Park came into being only many years later. The city acquired land for Forest Park bit by bit over several decades. In 1897, Donald Macleay, a Portland merchant and real-estate developer, deeded a tract of land along Balch Creek to the city to provide an outdoor space for patients from nearby hospitals. In the 1890s, Frederick Van Voorhies Holman, a Portland lawyer and a president of the Oregon Historical Society, proposed a gift of of nearby land that was added to the city's holdings in 1939 when his siblings, George F. and Mary Holman, completed the donation. Clark and Wilson Timber Company donated in 1927 to create a Western Oregon timber park near Northwest Germantown Road. Nine years later, the estate of Aaron Meier, one of the founders of the Meier & Frank chain of department stores, donated land for Linnton Park near Portland's Linnton neighborhood along Highway 30. These smaller parks became part of the larger park when it was