Salem in 1947

World Events

• The US Marshall Plan aids rebuilding of European cities. Post-war tensions between U.S. and Russia are described as a "Cold War".
• The S. S. Exodus leaves France for Palestine with 4,500 Jewish survivors. Without British immigration certificates, passengers were sent back to refugee camps in Europe.
• The International Monetary Fund, fostering global monetary cooperation to promote economic growth and reduce poverty, begins to operate from headquarters in Washington, D.C.
• The Nobel Peace Prize is shared by the American Friends Service Committee (US) and Friends Service Council (UK) for "compassion for others and the desire to help them".
• Princess Elizabeth of Great Britain marries Phillip Mountbatten.
• "Flying Saucers" are reported; Chuck Yeager breaks the sound barrier in a rocket. The first Volkswagen Beetle is privately imported from Germany. A "bug" (actually a moth) causes a malfunction in Harvard computer.
• Jackie Robinson integrates baseball, cracking one social barrier while this year's film, "Gentleman's Agreement"(winner of next Academy Award), questions another. The Pulitzer Prize goes to the novel All the King's Men by Robert Penn Warren.

In Salem
While their wives abandon "Rosie the Riveter" work outfits for the long-shirted New Look in fashions, Salem veterans are enrolling in college under the GI Bill or returning to their previous jobs. New confidence has hardly been restored when two tragedies strike Salem in October and November.
The first is a plane crash near Klamath Falls which takes the lives of Oregon's Governor, Earl Snell, and three companions: Robert Farrell, Secretary of State; Marshall Cornett, State Senator and pilot Cliff Hogue. Less than a week later, a sensational afternoon fire gutted the downtown Guardian Building, but caused no loss of life. Built at the turn of the century, the five-story building was one of Salem’s largest office buildings, home to approximately thirty businesses including several dentists and attorneys, a medical laboratory and pharmacy. The fire started in a light well shaft and quickly spread. All available equipment, including five pumpers and a ladder truck, and 45 firemen fought the blaze.

When you visit
The Key Bank now occupies the site at this familiar intersection: the southeast corner of Liberty and State Streets.

Other events

• This year, the City Manager form of municipal government took effect with Robert L. Elfstrom as mayor and J. L. Franzen as the first city manager. The Council was reduced from 14 to 7 members. (To see how our local officials conduct business, or to testify on subject of interest, attend a Council Meeting at the City Hall. Meetings are conducted on the second and fourth Monday and begin at 6:30 p.m. Sign up before the beginning of the meeting if you wish to speak.)

This photograph from the private collection of Ed Austin

• In a photograph taken the year before, we are looking west on Trade Street as it crosses Commercial Street. The contrasts with the present are dramatic. On the northeast corner was the Sicks' Brewing Company building (now the site of the Salem Convention Center) and across the street from it is the Salem Water Department building (Civic Center Park). On the southwest corner was the Oregon Pulp and Paper Company building (site of Pringle Creek redevelopment) and across the street from it is the Southern Pacific freight depot (replaced by a local tavern). The train tracks on Trade street (long ago removed) curve off to the right and left on Commercial Street. Currently, Trade Street is one way in this direction, passing Commercial Street to join Front Street and continue north along Riverfront Park.
• Ordinance No. 3723 provided for the office of Municipal Judge with a term of two years. W. W. McKinney was appointed by the Council.
• The Cherry Festival is again the occasion for a parade of Cherrians, this year led by King Bing, William C. Dyer. This great idea seems to have been past its time: the cherry celebrations lasted only a few years and were discontinued.
• The First National Bank (later Wells Fargo) is built at 280 Liberty Street. A modern design by Portland architect, Pietro Belluchi, it was a departure from the Victorian buildings downtown. Another modern building was the Pearce Building, replacing the structure that had burned. The Breyman Brothers Block, just two blocks away on Commercial Street, was undergoing the alterations that would eliminate the exterior decorations. The ground floor storefronts were most changed, often the original facades can be seen on second floor exteriors or windows. Two photographs of the bank are seen in the Downtown Walking Tour on this website. The building is still (2012) being considered for redevelopment as a mixed-use complex, but economic conditions have delayed this large investment. This building is featured on the SHINE Historic Downtown Walking Tour.
• Nora Anderson revives the Salem Art Association and begins a campaign to purchase original furnishings and art for the Bush House collection. It is an interesting footnote that Nora was born an Anderson and so did not have to change her name when she married William Everett Anderson, the owner of a local sporting goods store. Mr. Anderson was of a more easy-going disposition than his wife and probably was a good balance to her commanding personality. After his death, Mrs. Anderson was unable to manage the Court Street house and its responsibilities.  She moved to a local nursing home where she lived for a number of years.  Harvey Fox, the succeeding owner of the Anderson business, became her guardian. He recalls the years when he would take her out for drives through the city that she did so much to improve and preserve.
•  Three years have now passed since Asahel Bush, V died, leaving Faye Cornish Bush as his widow. This year she marries Rod Livesley. Stuart Bush, the surviving brother, was married to Rod's sister. He sometimes introduced Faye as " My late brother's wife and my wife's brother's wife". There are many descendants of our Bush family, but, unfortunately, none live in Salem. The last was "Jody", the great-granddaughter of the founder, Asahel Bush. A resident of California for most of her adult life, she died in 2009 and is buried with her Bush family in Salem Pioneer Cemetery.

  

  Bush Family Plot at Salem Pioneer Cemetery

• A remarkable series of aerial photographs are taken this year from a Goodyear blimp. They illustrate the extent of the city at that time. A view of the city from above West Salem shows (through the haze of pollution) a compact town along the river with little development to the east with the Lancaster area open fields. A photograph looking south over the Capitol shows nothing but factories south of trade Street with a wooded hill where the new City Hall will be built 25 years later. Another view looking east over the State Hospital shows the "J" and Dome Buildings and beyond that a few houses on Park Street. There are only small clusters of houses to the east.
• The Freedom Train passes through Salem, stopping at the State Fairgrounds. Thousands of residents are able to visit the train and see exhibits of documents and artifacts important to our nation's history.

Salem in 1913

World Events

• The Romanov dynasty celebrates the 300th anniversary of their rule of Russia. Emperor Nicholas II is destined to be the last.
• Gandhi is arrested in South Africa during peaceful demonstration.
• Suffragettes continue to campaign for the right to vote. The women of the Social and Political Union in England begin radical response to the imprisonment and forced-feeding imposed on them.
• Woodrow Wilson is inaugurated as 28th President of the United States.
• The 16th Amendment to the US Constitution provides for the collection of an income tax.
• The 17th Amendment to the US Constitution provides for the direct election of Senators by popular vote instead of by state legislators.
• Henry Ford creates the assembly line for manufacturing.
• The new "zipper" is popular.
• Writer Ambrose Bierce, in Mexico to gain first-hand experience of the revolution, disappears. His short story, An Occurrence at Owl Creek (1890) is described as "one of the finest and most anthologized stories in American literature".
• Marcel Proust publishes (in Paris), Swann's Way, an influential novel noted for the theme of involuntary memory. New American Books:  O Pioneers! by Willa Cather and Pollyanna by Eleanor H. Porter.

Opening Day Celebration, 1913

Opening Day Celebration, 1913

In Salem
A new railroad bridge across the Willamette is completed, intended for interurban passenger and freight traffic. The new McKeon gasoline coach made three trips a day between Salem and Black Rock on the Salem, Falls City and Western Railway by way of this new bridge. Forty passengers could be accommodated aboard this coach that traveled 27 miles from terminal to terminal.
As you travel through Salem on Union Street from the bridge going east,  you will curve south to meet 12th Street. The rail tracks ran along the center of Union Street to the depot. That curve in the street reminds us of the train traffic this street accommodated.
 Between 1850 and 1900, transportation in the Willamette valley had been mainly by steamboats and railroads on each side of the river, but there were no rail crossings, only a highway bridge or ferry. By the time the railroad bridge was built, the future of interurban rail service was in doubt, but it was increasingly used for lumber, freight and canneries. Except in emergency, few passengers used the bridge and even freight use was rare by the 1970s.

When you visit

 Restoration for pedestrians, 2009

In 2001, long after the railroad traffic ceased, the bridge was offered it to the city of Salem for $1. The offer was accepted in 2004 and the restoration to pedestrians, bikes, and emergency vehicles was completed for a reopening in April 2009. Stimulus funds from the federal government provided funds for a temporary closing during the winter of 2009-10 in order to encapsulate the lead paint applied many years ago. In May of 2010 the bridge reopened for public use. Three interpretive panels (one on the Union Street side, two at the end of the trestle) highlight the historical uses of this structure. An award for engineering excellence was awarded in January of 2010 and three more since then.

Other events

• C. Siegmund became mayor.
• The new transportation opportunities across the Willamette River accelerated the growth of West Salem in Polk County: it incorporated as a city this year.

View of Front Street Viaduct from Mill Creek

• On Front Street, a bridge is built over Mill Creek to accommodate rail traffic. This is currently the oldest concrete viaduct in Oregon.
• Salem Cherrians were organized as the group to organize the annual Cherry City Parade. The former mayor, George F. Roger is the first King Bing.
• The Oregon State Insane Asylum is renamed the Oregon State Hospital.
• Salem votes to go "dry" and the local Salem Brewery Association moves to Portland.
• After the death of Asahel Bush this year, his daughter Sally boards a private railway carriage, travels east, and brings her fifty-year old sister, Eugenia, home to Salem. They live here, together again, for the next twenty years.
• The Boise Building, designed by Fred Legg, is constructed on State Street for Reuben P. Boise, Jr. Over the years it has been leased as a farm machinery store, a garage and automotive center, as steel warehouse and currently as retail store again. Reuben Boise, Jr. was the owner and editor of the Oregon Statesman. He was named for his father, a distinguished Oregon jurist, and married Minnie, the daughter of Eugene Breyman. The building is seen on the SHINE Historic Downtown Walking Tour.
• The First Church of the Nazarene builds a church 490 19th Street NE. After that congregation left, the Foursquare Church occupied the building during the 1950s. The Unitarians next purchased the property, but also moved to a new location. Since 1997, it has been our local Quaker Meeting House.
• The Christian Wiedmer house built this year, and later enjoyed as a popular cottage restaurant, has been moved to State Street and now serves as an antique shop.
• The Jones-Sherman House is built on D Street in the Grant neighborhood. Ralph Jones built this Craftsman residence and lived there until 1926. Charles Sherman, a professor of Philosophy and Psychology at Willamette University, then purchased the house. Professor Sherman died in 1963, but his wife Grace and four children owned the house until her death in 1978. The present owners, Jeanne and Corbey Boatwright, assumed a purchase contract with Sherman heirs in 1984. The property was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1989. Jeanne describes their neighborhood: "Encompassing just ninety city blocks, Grant is the smallest of the recognized Salem neighborhoods. Located adjacent to the north end of downtown, it provides the north gateway to the Capitol Mall and is a beautiful, historic part of Salem. Nearly all of the homes and buildings date to between 1900 and 1940. The many tree-lined streets and intimate lot sizes provide a friendly and close-knit neighborhood. Our treasured Grant Park is adjacent to Grant Community School - a dual language immersion school. Since 1976, the vibrant Grant Neighborhood Association has been actively working to protect this jewel of a neighborhood."