Feel how this park, beneath one of the most beautiful bridges in America, earns its name. The St. Johns Bridge, completed in 1931, is the only Gothic-style suspension bridge in the United States. Its twin towers, rising 408 feet above the Willamette River with pointed arches and Gothic tracery, create the effect of a cathedral nave when you stand beneath them and look up — hence Cathedral Park.
Conde McCullough, Oregon's great Depression-era bridge engineer, designed the bridge; his bridges up and down the Oregon Coast are all distinctive, but this one is singular. The park beneath the bridge is a green riverside space that holds a contradictory history: it was the site of Portland's first known serial killer case, the 1949 murder of a young woman whose case shocked the city and was never fully resolved. Today it hosts summer jazz festivals, wedding photographers, and families watching container ships move up the Willamette.
The view from the park looking south shows the river curving toward downtown Portland twelve miles away. Notice the Gothic arches of the bridge towers against the West Hills — an image that explains why this structure has been a Portland landmark for nearly a century.