Chapman and Lownsdale squares have been known most recently as the home to the Occupy Portland encampment. But this isn’t the first political movement in the history of the squares that have been a landmark in Portland for over a century.

Protestors from Occupy Portland camped out for over a month on the lawns of Chapman and Lownsdale squares. Their central location in Portland helped garner attention to the movement.

Kayla Anchell / OPB

Chet Orloff is a Professor at Portland State University and says the squares weren’t always city center. “They may have been considered as being the future center of the city. When they were first established they certainly weren’t at the heart of the city. The heart of the city when those were established was still actually further north in what’s now old town,” he says.

William Chapman and Daniel Lownsdale were two of the earliest landowners in Oregon and donated the squares to the city in 1852.?  “Lownsdale had an idea that was quite visionary that a good city had those kind of open spaces, open squares. He had visited Europe so he could have been infected with the idea of the great town making of the mid 19th century in Europe,” says Orloff.

Orloff says several political movements started at the squares and marched across the country. Movements in the past have had around 1,500 participants. “Those squares have been for over a century places where Portlanders and others have gathered for public discussion, for protests, marches, for riots. And some of which have evolved from Portland and moved east all the way to Washington DC. So from a geographic perspective those parks played quite an important role,” ?he says.

Kayla Anchell / OPB

The squares were also divided by sexes at one time. Lownsdale for men and Chapman for women and children. Chapman square even has all female ginkgo trees.

Eugene Bradley is a retired postal manager who lives in Portland. He recalls visiting Portland in 1971 with his then wife before he moved here. “We both sat down on a bench in the women’s park and a policeman came up and said no, no you can’t sit here, which confused me because I’m not from here. But then I wasn’t sure if my wife could sit with me in the men’s park either,” says Bradley.

An ordinance passed in 1990 repealed obsolete and unenforceable park codes and the present day squares are no longer divided by sex.

Today, Chapman and Lownsdale Squares are not open to the public and surrounded by metal fencing. Repairs are being made since the eviction of the Occupy Portland protestors on November 13th. They will be open again once restored.

This story originally appeared on Oregon Public Broadcasting.