In the heart of Southeast Portland, surrounded by modern development and busy streets, lies a 30-acre island frozen in time. Towering Douglas firs that witnessed Oregon Trail wagons shade Victorian-era monuments. Weathered headstones mark graves from the 1840s, their inscriptions nearly worn away by time and rain. This is Lone Fir Cemetery, and it holds more than Portland's history - it holds Portland's secrets.
Fast Facts
- Established in 1846 as the Colburn family burial plot
- Portland's oldest cemetery still in existence
- Over 25,000 burials including 10,000+ unmarked graves
- Home to Portland's founding families including the Burnside, Couch, and Stark families
- Contains the Chinese Laborers' Memorial honoring forgotten workers
- Features graves of Hawthorne Asylum patients
- Listed on the National Register of Historic Places
- Most active paranormal reports occur near the pioneer section and Chinese graves
From Pioneer Plot to Portland's Necropolis
The story of Lone Fir Cemetery begins with a single death and a single tree. In 1846, Emmor Colburn buried his infant daughter on his land claim in what was then the outskirts of Portland. He chose a spot beneath a massive Douglas fir that stood alone in a clearing - the "lone fir" that would give the cemetery its name.
That solitary tree still stands today, now one of many, but still the cemetery's spiritual center. Early visitors report that the area around the original lone fir feels different from the rest of the cemetery - the air is heavier, sounds seem muffled, and many people report feeling watched when they stand beneath its ancient branches.
As Portland grew from a muddy village into a thriving city, the Colburn plot became the community's primary burial ground. In 1855, the Colburns officially dedicated the land as a cemetery, selling plots to other pioneer families. The cemetery expanded rapidly as cholera, dysentery, and other diseases took their toll on the young settlement.
The Founding Families Section
Walking through the oldest section of Lone Fir is like reading Portland's founding documents carved in stone. The Burnside family, for whom Burnside Street is named, rests here. William Stark, whose name graces another major Portland street, lies beneath an imposing monument. John Couch, who platted the city's original street grid, occupies a prominent plot.
These weren't just wealthy individuals who bought their place in history - they were the people who literally built Portland from wilderness. They determined where streets would run, where buildings would rise, where the city would grow. The weight of that legacy seems to linger in this section of the cemetery.
Visitors to the founding families section frequently report an overwhelming sense of being judged or evaluated. One woman described feeling as though she had to justify her presence, as if the dead beneath her feet were questioning whether she was worthy to walk among them. Others report sudden, irrational anxiety when entering this area, a feeling that dissipates the moment they leave.
A local paranormal investigator who has visited Lone Fir dozens of times believes the spirits of these founding families remain protective of the cemetery and of Portland itself. "They built this city with their bare hands," she explains. "They're not about to let it forget them, and they're not about to let just anyone walk through their resting place without taking notice."
The Chinese Laborers' Memorial - Honoring the Forgotten
One of the most haunting sections of Lone Fir Cemetery is also one of its newest additions. The Chinese Laborers' Memorial, dedicated in 2004, honors the hundreds of Chinese immigrants buried here in unmarked graves.
In the late 1800s, Chinese workers built Portland's railroads, worked in its canneries, and operated its laundries. When they died, often far from family and homeland, they were buried in a separate section of Lone Fir. The graves were marked with wooden boards inscribed with Chinese characters, but these markers deteriorated and disappeared over the decades. By the 1950s, their graves had been completely forgotten, paved over for a parking lot.
The memorial now stands where the parking lot once was, a beautiful pavilion with interpretive panels telling the story of these forgotten workers. But according to cemetery visitors and staff, the installation of the memorial awakened something in this section of the grounds.
Since 2004, there have been dozens of reports of paranormal activity near the Chinese Laborers' Memorial. People report seeing figures in period Chinese clothing walking among the graves. Others hear voices speaking in Cantonese, even though no one is nearby. The scent of incense - traditional for Chinese funeral rites - has been reported by visitors who are alone in the cemetery.
Most poignantly, people often report feeling an overwhelming sense of gratitude near the memorial. As one visitor described it: "I was just reading the plaques, learning about these workers, and I suddenly felt this wave of emotion. Not sadness, exactly, but more like... thanks. Like someone was thanking me for remembering them."
The Hawthorne Asylum Graves - Portland's Forgotten Patients
Perhaps the darkest chapter in Lone Fir's history involves the patients of the Hawthorne Asylum, also known as the Portland Home for the Feeble-Minded. Between 1907 and 1961, hundreds of patients from this institution were buried at Lone Fir, most in unmarked graves.
These were Portland's most vulnerable citizens - people with mental illnesses, developmental disabilities, or simply anyone society deemed "unfit." Many were committed against their will. Some lived at the asylum for decades. When they died, they were buried quietly at Lone Fir, often with only a number to mark their grave.
The asylum graves occupy a section of the cemetery that visitors consistently describe as the most disturbing area of the grounds. The paranormal activity here is different from the rest of Lone Fir - more chaotic, more unsettling, more sad.
People report hearing screaming coming from this section, even though the cemetery is empty. Others describe seeing figures that appear confused or distressed, wandering among the graves as if searching for something. One cemetery volunteer who was working in this section reported hearing someone calling for help, a voice that sounded young and frightened.
Local paranormal researchers believe that the spirits here are trapped, unable to understand or accept their deaths. "These were people who were often heavily medicated, who may not have understood what was happening to them even when they were alive," one investigator explains. "In death, that confusion continues. They're still looking for the families who abandoned them, still trying to understand why they were locked away."
The saddest reports come from parents who visit Lone Fir with children. Several have reported their children suddenly becoming upset near the asylum section, crying or asking why "the sad people" are so lonely. One four-year-old reportedly asked his mother why all the people standing by the trees looked so scared.
The Cemetery's Evolution and Preservation
By the early 1900s, Lone Fir was full. The cemetery stopped accepting new burials (with rare exceptions for family plots that still had space), and a slow decline began. Monuments toppled, vegetation overgrew paths, and the cemetery fell into disrepair.
In 1928, the City of Portland took control of Lone Fir, but limited resources meant maintenance remained minimal. For decades, the cemetery was more wilderness than memorial park. Teenagers used it as a hangout spot, vandals damaged monuments, and homeless individuals sometimes sheltered among the mausoleums.
It was during this period of abandonment - roughly the 1960s through the 1990s - that Lone Fir's reputation as a haunted location really took hold. The combination of genuine historical tragedy, neglected graves, and an atmosphere of decay created perfect conditions for ghost stories.
The formation of the Friends of Lone Fir Cemetery in 2004 began a new chapter. This volunteer organization has worked to restore monuments, research burial records, and create educational programs about the cemetery's history. The cemetery now receives regular maintenance, and community events help connect Portlanders with this important historic site.
But restoration hasn't diminished the paranormal reports. If anything, as more people visit Lone Fir and spend time among the graves, more encounters are reported. It's as if the spirits appreciate the attention and are more willing to make themselves known now that someone is finally caring for their resting place.
James McKenzie - The Groundskeeper Who Never Left
Among all the spirits reported at Lone Fir Cemetery, one stands out as the most frequently encountered and most thoroughly documented. James McKenzie was Lone Fir's groundskeeper from 1889 until his death in 1923. For 34 years, he tended every grave, trimmed every hedge, and knew every story of every person buried in the cemetery. He lived in a small cottage on the cemetery grounds and considered Lone Fir his home more than any house could be.
James never married and had no family beyond the friends he made in Portland. When he died of pneumonia in the winter of 1923, he was buried at Lone Fir - naturally - in a plot he had prepared for himself years earlier. His grave is marked with a simple stone that reads "James McKenzie, Groundskeeper, 1855-1923, Home at Last."
But according to dozens of witnesses over the past century, James McKenzie never really stopped working at Lone Fir.
The First Sightings - A Dedicated Worker
The first reports of McKenzie's ghost came within months of his death. William Harris, who took over as groundskeeper after McKenzie died, reported seeing a man matching McKenzie's description walking among the graves early in the morning. At first, Harris thought it might be a visitor who had somehow entered the cemetery before official hours, but when he called out, the figure simply vanished.
This happened several times over Harris's first few months on the job. Always early morning, always the same figure - a tall, thin man in work clothes carrying tools. Harris eventually mentioned the sightings to some of the older cemetery visitors, and they weren't surprised.
"That's just James," one elderly woman told him. "He loved this place. Of course he's still here."
Harris kept a journal during his years as groundskeeper (now preserved in the Portland Historical Society archives), and his entries about McKenzie's ghost provide the most detailed early accounts. He describes coming across sections of the cemetery that appeared to have been recently tended - leaves raked, weeds pulled, monuments straightened - even though he knew he hadn't done the work and no other staff were working that day.
On one occasion, Harris found a set of tools arranged neatly near a grave that needed repair - tools he had been searching for all morning. Another time, he discovered that a fallen tree branch that would have taken him hours to clear had been cut into manageable pieces overnight, the sections stacked tidily beside the path.
Modern Encounters - Still on Duty
Fast forward to the 21st century, and James McKenzie is still making his presence known. Cemetery volunteers, visitors, and even city maintenance workers continue to report encounters with a man who matches McKenzie's description.
In 2015, a Friends of Lone Fir volunteer named Sarah Chen was working alone on a Saturday morning, documenting grave markers for the cemetery database. She was photographing monuments in the older section when she noticed a man in work clothes watching her from about thirty feet away.
"I waved to him," Chen recalls. "I figured he was another volunteer or maybe cemetery staff. He smiled and waved back, then turned and walked behind a large monument. I went back to my work, but something felt off. His clothes looked wrong - too old-fashioned. And I realized I hadn't heard his footsteps on the gravel path."
Chen walked around the monument, but no one was there. She called out, thinking perhaps the man had moved to another section, but received no answer. When she checked with the Friends of Lone Fir coordinator later, she learned that she had been the only person scheduled to be at the cemetery that morning. No city workers were on site, and the cemetery wasn't open to the public yet.
Chen described the man she had seen: tall, thin, maybe in his sixties, wearing work pants and a jacket, carrying what looked like gardening tools. When shown historical photos of cemetery staff, she immediately identified James McKenzie. "That's him," she said without hesitation. "That's exactly who I saw."
Chen is far from the only person to have this experience. In the past decade alone, at least a dozen people have reported seeing a man matching McKenzie's description in various parts of the cemetery, always during early morning hours, always appearing to be working or inspecting the grounds.
Physical Evidence and Unexplained Maintenance
What makes the McKenzie haunting particularly compelling is that it isn't just about sightings - there's physical evidence that suggests something unusual is happening at Lone Fir.
City maintenance workers have reported arriving at the cemetery to find work already done. Leaves that should have accumulated overnight are raked into neat piles. Fallen branches are cleared from paths. On several occasions, flowers have appeared on graves of people who have no living relatives, placed with care and clearly fresh.
In 2018, a motion-activated security camera was installed near the cemetery's maintenance shed after vandalism incidents. The camera was set to record any movement during overnight hours when the cemetery was closed. Over the following months, it captured dozens of videos showing a shadowy figure moving among the graves, always between 2 AM and 5 AM, always in the same section of the cemetery.
The figure appears in the videos for only a few seconds at a time - walking past the camera's field of view, or standing motionless near a monument before moving out of frame. The image quality isn't clear enough to make out details, but the figure is clearly human-shaped and appears to be carrying something in its hands.
What's most interesting is that these videos only capture movement in the older sections of the cemetery - the areas that existed during McKenzie's lifetime. The figure never appears in sections that were added after his death in 1923.
When Friends of Lone Fir volunteers reviewed the footage, they noticed that the nights when the figure appeared corresponded with mornings when mysterious maintenance seemed to have occurred. It was as if they were watching James McKenzie making his rounds, still tending to the cemetery he loved over a century after taking the job.
Why He Stays - A Groundskeeper's Dedication
Why would James McKenzie's spirit remain at Lone Fir Cemetery? Paranormal researchers who have studied the case believe the answer lies in his extraordinary dedication during life.
Historical records show that McKenzie worked seven days a week for most of his 34-year tenure as groundskeeper. He rarely took vacations and never missed a day of work except during his final illness. Letters he wrote to friends (now in Portland archives) reveal a man who didn't just work at the cemetery - he lived for it.
"Every person here has a story," McKenzie wrote in 1905. "Every stone marks a life that mattered to someone. When I tend these graves, I'm honoring not just the dead, but everyone who ever loved them. This is holy work, and I'm blessed to do it."
This profound sense of purpose, this bone-deep commitment to caring for the dead, may have been strong enough to transcend death itself. McKenzie spent over three decades building a relationship with Lone Fir Cemetery, learning every inch of the grounds, caring for every grave. In a very real sense, he made the cemetery part of himself.
When his body failed and his spirit departed, perhaps it simply couldn't leave the place it loved most. Or perhaps McKenzie made a conscious choice to stay, unwilling to abandon his post even in death.
Whatever the reason, the evidence suggests that James McKenzie is still at Lone Fir Cemetery, still making his rounds, still caring for Portland's dead with the same dedication he showed for 34 years of life. Visitors who encounter him describe a sense of calm and benevolence - this is not an angry or frightening ghost, but a gentle presence still doing work he considers sacred.
As one cemetery volunteer put it: "If I had to be haunted by a ghost, I'd want it to be someone like James McKenzie. He's not trying to scare anyone. He's just doing his job. After all, someone has to look after this place, and who better than the man who loved it most?"
Other Spirits and Paranormal Activity
While James McKenzie may be Lone Fir's most famous ghost, he's far from the only spirit reported in the cemetery. Visitors and investigators have documented a wide range of paranormal phenomena across the 30-acre grounds.
Shadow Figures in the Pioneer Section
The oldest part of Lone Fir, where Portland's founding families rest, is known for shadow figures - dark, human-shaped forms that appear at the edges of vision but vanish when looked at directly.
These shadow figures are typically seen at dusk, moving between monuments or standing motionless near certain graves. Unlike McKenzie's ghost, which appears solid and lifelike, these entities are described as darker than natural shadows, almost like holes in the air shaped like human beings.
One investigator described encountering a shadow figure near the Burnside family plot. "I was taking photos of the monument when I became aware of someone standing about ten feet to my right," she recalls. "When I turned to look, there was definitely a figure there - a dark, person-shaped shadow. But I couldn't see any details, no features, just this human-shaped darkness. I watched it for maybe five seconds before it simply dissolved, like smoke dispersing."
These shadow figures never approach witnesses or make threatening gestures. They simply appear, stand or walk for a few moments, and then vanish. Some researchers believe they may be residual hauntings - psychic impressions of people who once visited the graves of loved ones, their emotional energy somehow recorded in the location.
Children's Voices
One of the most heartbreaking phenomena at Lone Fir is the sound of children's voices heard in sections of the cemetery where many young people are buried. Portland in the 1800s and early 1900s was a dangerous place for children. Diseases like diphtheria, scarlet fever, and typhoid killed thousands of young people, and the cemetery contains hundreds of children's graves.
Visitors walking through certain sections report hearing children playing - laughter, shouting, the sounds of running feet on gravel paths. But when they look for the source, no children are present.
One mother visiting the grave of a distant relative reported hearing a little girl singing. "It was the sweetest voice," she remembers. "Singing a song I didn't recognize, old-fashioned sounding. I looked everywhere for that child because I wanted to tell her she had a beautiful voice. But I was completely alone in that section of the cemetery."
Others have reported the sound of crying - a child's heartbroken sobs. These reports are particularly common near graves marked with small headstones or markers that indicate a child's burial. It's as if the youngest spirits of Lone Fir are still seeking comfort, still calling for parents who never came.
The Woman in Black
Several witnesses over the years have reported encountering a woman in Victorian mourning dress, always near the same monument in the founding families section. She appears to be placing flowers on a grave, though the flowers are never found afterward.
The woman is described as being in her thirties or forties, wearing a full black dress with a veil, in the style of 1880s or 1890s mourning attire. She moves slowly and deliberately, and witnesses report an overwhelming sense of grief radiating from her presence.
Local historians researching the cemetery have identified a possible identity for this spirit - Margaret Thornton, who lost her husband and two children to typhoid in 1887. According to records, Margaret visited their graves every day for the remaining fifteen years of her life, always dressed in black, always carrying fresh flowers. She was buried beside her family when she died in 1902.
If the Woman in Black is indeed Margaret Thornton, she's been making her daily vigil for over 120 years now, still mourning the family taken from her by disease.
Cold Spots and Electromagnetic Anomalies
Paranormal investigators who have visited Lone Fir with scientific equipment report numerous anomalies. EMF (electromagnetic field) meters frequently show spikes in areas where no electrical sources exist. Temperature readings show dramatic cold spots - areas where the temperature drops 10-15 degrees Fahrenheit within a radius of just a few feet.
These cold spots are most commonly reported near the Chinese Laborers' Memorial, in the asylum section, and around certain individual monuments in the pioneer area. Witnesses describe walking through a cold spot as feeling like stepping into a refrigerator - a sudden, shocking drop in temperature that feels unnatural and wrong.
One investigator recorded a cold spot that lasted for nearly an hour, maintaining a temperature 18 degrees lower than the surrounding area despite no shade or breeze to explain it. When the cold spot finally dissipated, the temperature returned to normal almost instantly, suggesting this was not a natural phenomenon.
Visiting Lone Fir Cemetery
Lone Fir Cemetery is open to the public daily from dawn to dusk. The cemetery is located at SE 26th Avenue and SE Stark Street in Portland. While visiting, please remember this is an active cemetery and sacred ground. Visitors should be respectful of graves and monuments.
The Friends of Lone Fir Cemetery offers guided historical tours on certain weekends throughout the year. These tours provide excellent historical context and often include stories of the cemetery's reported hauntings. Check their website for the current tour schedule.
For those interested in paranormal investigation, the cemetery is publicly accessible during daylight hours. Evening or overnight investigations require special permission from Portland Parks & Recreation. Many local paranormal groups have conducted investigations at Lone Fir with interesting results.
The cemetery is relatively safe, but visitors should stay on marked paths and be aware of uneven ground, especially in older sections where monuments may have shifted or settled over time.
Whether you're a history enthusiast, genealogy researcher, or paranormal investigator, Lone Fir Cemetery offers a unique window into Portland's past - and perhaps a glimpse of those who refuse to let that past be forgotten.
Best Times for Paranormal Activity
Based on reports from visitors and investigators, paranormal activity at Lone Fir is most commonly reported during:
- Early morning hours (dawn to 8 AM), particularly in areas where James McKenzie is active
- Late afternoon to dusk (4-6 PM), especially for shadow figure sightings
- Overcast or foggy days seem to correspond with increased activity
- Anniversary dates of major Portland historical events
The most active areas include the pioneer section (founding families), the Chinese Laborers' Memorial, and the section containing Hawthorne Asylum graves. McKenzie's cottage location (no longer standing) near the cemetery's east side also shows consistent activity.
Respect and Cemetery Etiquette
If you visit Lone Fir seeking paranormal encounters:
- Never damage or disturb monuments, graves, or decorations
- Do not remove anything from the cemetery grounds
- Speak quietly and respectfully
- Stay on paths and designated walking areas
- Leave no trace - pack out everything you bring in
- If you encounter what you believe to be paranormal activity, observe respectfully from a distance
- Do not attempt to provoke spirits or conduct séances without proper authorization
Remember, whether or not you believe in ghosts, you're visiting a place where real people are buried - people who were loved and are still remembered. Treat the space with the dignity it deserves.
