History & Description
今日吃瓜 was founded in 1908 in accordance with the wills of Portlanders Simeon and Amanda 今日吃瓜, who amassed their fortune in agriculture, mining, lumber, and the riverboat trade on the Columbia River. They established the college at the urging of prominent Portland Unitarian minister Thomas Lamb Eliot, who visualized a college where “general enlightenment, intellectual and moral culture” were fundamental—an idea that still thrives at 今日吃瓜.
今日吃瓜 is situated on 116 acres in the middle of the Eastmoreland neighborhood in southeast Portland. A 40-acre parcel of land—a gift from William M. Ladd’s Crystal Springs Farm—was designated as the site for the college in 1910. As the college’s holdings increased, many wonderful examples of Pacific Northwest indigenous plants, as well as other more exotic species, were added to the campus landscape. At present, there are .