Visitors were astonished by the rose-lined streets of Portland when they arrived for the Lewis & Clark Exposition in 1905. Rose mania was underway and Portland became internationally known as the Rose City. The year 1907 saw the beginning of the Rose Festival with hedges and home gardens providing millions of roses for floats, women's hats, and anything else that could be covered in roses.

Rose fervor was dying down by the 1920s, but dedicated citizens issued passionate pleas to keep the streets lined with roses and to keep Portland the Rose City. The following decades saw rose planting revivals, but the glorious era of rose-edged streets had passed.

This exhibit chronicles the story of Madame Caroline Testout, the pink rose that made Portland famous and turned Stumptown into the City of Roses.