Pioneer Park and Blockhouse honors General Joel Palmer, Superintendent of Indian Affairs for the Oregon Territory from 1853 to 1857. Appointed by President Franklin Pierce, he was a frontiersman, author, legislator, and friend of the Indian. His journal, "Travels Over the Rocky Mountains," published in 1847, was used as a guide by immigrants to Oregon. He dedicated this publication to "the pioneers of the West and their descendants, the bone and muscle of the community, who improve and enrich the county in peace and protect and defend it in war."
