Salem in 1975

World Events

• Communists take power in Vietnam and Cambodia. Americans and a few Vietnamese citizens who worked for the U.S. in Saigon were evacuated by helicopter.
• Juan Carlos I is declared king of Spain following the death of dictator Francisco Franco who had ruled since 1939.
• Britain selects its first female Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher. Ella Grasso of Connecticut  is the first woman elected governor of a state who does not succeed her husband.
• John Mitchell, H. R. Haldeman and John Ehrlichman are found guilty of Watergate cover-up and serve prison terms.
• Gates and Allen start "Micro-soft': computers. VCRs enter our homes. On TV, "Saturday Night Live" debuts.
• "Jaws" is a popular movie. But the Academy Award for a U.S. movie goes to one made in Salem: "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest". Best foreign film is "Dersu Uzala" (Japan). Prize-winning Books: Dog Soldiers, Robert Stone and The Killer Angels, Michael Shaara.

In Salem
Hollywood came to town with the filming of "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest". The 1912 Dome Building of Oregon State Hospital (above) was the location for several scenes in the movie. Jack Nicholson played the leading role as R.P. McMurphy, a reckless young man serving a short prison term who is sent to a mental institution for observation. His baiting of the tyrannical Nurse Ratchet (Louise Fletcher) to make life easier for other patients leads to a tragic conclusion. A small part is played by Dr. Dean Brooks, the superintendent of the hospital. Dr. Brooks was initially reluctant for the film, based on Ken Kesey's book, to be made at OSH. However, after meeting the filmmakers he was relieved of his concerns and he even played a cameo role. Interior scenes were filmed in the Dome building and a few exteriors at the rear of the "J" building are seen in the finished film. The movie won five Academy Awards.

When you visit
The Dome Building, on the campus north of Center Street, is now used by Oregon State Department of Corrections. Some driveways are accessible, but the building itself is not open to the public. In 2008 the whole OSH campus was listed as a National Register property in order to preserve the heritage structures. After lengthy testimony before the Historic Landmarks Commission, permission was given for extensive demolition of buildings south of Center Street. One of the buildings included in the renovation was the historic Kirkbride Building across Center Street. Originally a U-shape, Center Street additions to that facility gave it a different configuration: it became known as the "J" Building. The renovation project has now been completed with a museum included in this historic structure. The Dome Building is not threatened at this time.

Other events

At the top of this photograph, Pringle Parkway curves around Lindsay Tower

Lindsay Tower soon after completion.

• The Lindsey Tower, providing housing for low-income senior or disabled residents, is completed, one year after the Salem Housing Advisory Committee was founded (1974). The committee advises the City Council and the Salem Housing Authority on housing goals and policies, including low and moderate income housing needs, housing assistance programs and Housing Authority budgets.
• The Salem Social Services Advisory Board, founded in 1967, has many of the same goals: the Board advises the Council on social service needs and programs and monitors ongoing social service programs.
• The exterior of the six-floor Equitable Building under construction at Center and High streets. This modern, 6-story structure will be completed in the following year.
• Salem has the latest model of fire trucks to equip the new #1 Fire Station just completed, facing Trade Street at the Liberty Street intersection. Just across Pringle Creek from the new Civic Center, this is the headquarters of our fire department. The structure had a renovation in 2011, providing a new entrance and interior improvements of service. Salem's historic fire bell is mounted in front of the building on Trade Street.
• Toyota automobiles are being sold in a new building of Capitol Motors on Mission Street. This may be one of the first dealers selling Japanese cars in Salem.
• The historic 1912 Bligh Hotel on State Street is demolished. Located between the McGilchrist and Masonic buildings, had featured both a popular hotel and a theater in previous years. By this year, the aging building was not considered worth saving and a parking lot took its place.
• Two more local heritage properties are listed on the National Register of Historic Places this year: the Boon House and Boon Store. The residence is one of the oldest in Salem and the store served as our first state treasury.
• This year two more neighborhoods organize into associations. The downtown and most historic, core area of the city, Central Area Neighborhood Development Association (CAN-DO), which contains the National Register Historic Salem Downtown (a walking tour can be seen on SHINE). Many other individual properties have been designated as National Register or as Local Landmarks. West Salem also organized as city-sponsored neighborhood. This is a very active group and is unique in our city because the meetings (first and third Mondays, 7 p.m., Roth's IGA meeting room on Wallace Road) are held "town meeting" style in which everyone can vote on issues deliberated as neighborhood concerns. Other meetings are conducted by Board (usually about 15 volunteers) where only these vote. The West Salem neighborhood and the adjoining Spring Valley community have over a dozen historic properties designated by the city as Local Landmarks. The Harriott House at 2280 Wallace Road and the former City Hall at 1320 Edgewater NW are listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

Salem in 1954

World Events

• In Indochina, a Cease-Fire line between French forces in the south and Vietnamese forces in the north is drawn by a Peace Convention in Geneva with free elections to follow. Failure to keep this agreement led to the wider Vietnam War in which the US  engaged..
• The Iwo Jima Memorial is erected at Arlington Cemetery. The Air Force Academy established in Colorado Springs, Colorado. The first nuclear-powered submarine, U.S.S. Nautilus is launched.
• As a result of his public denouncements of prominent Americans as Communists, the US Senate condemns Senator Joseph McCarthy for "conduct that tends to bring the Senate into dishonor and disrepute"
• Salk polio vaccine given to children. US Supreme Court strikes down "separate but equal" racial segregation in public schools with Brown vs Board of Education, Topeka. (Begun by father of 3rd grader Linda Brown in 1950.).
•  While Salem's Douglas McKay is Secretary the Interior, the Western Oregon Indian Termination Act ends recognition of the Grand Ronde tribe as a nation.
• In Los Angles, the 17 Watts Towers (Nuestro Pueblo) of Simon Rodia are completed after 33 years of his naive artistic construction.
• Ellis Island, the New York Harbor main immigration point, is closed.
• Academy Awards: "On the Waterfront" (US) "Gate of Hell (Japan). Prize-winning book: The Adventures of Augie Marsh, Saul Bellow.

• 

In Salem
Salem residents were getting used to the fact that their 1872 Victorian courthouse, once described as a "wedding cake", had now turned into a "cake box". The austere lines of the new Marion County Courthouse building, dedicated in June, reflect the mid-twentieth century architecture of Peitro Belluschi found in Salem and echo his design of the 1935 State Capitol. The only thing familiar to residents at the time this photograph was taken is the 1924 "Doughboy" statue, still standing on the lawn. The courthouse grounds are awaiting the landscaping to be supplied by the local firm of Lord-Schrvyer.

When you visit
In 1991 the "Doughboy" World War I memorial was moved to the new Oregon Department of Veteran Affairs Building on Summer Street. It can be seen there at the south end of the Veterans Memorial Park along Mill Creek. At the Courthouse itself, the entrance has been modified and barriers erected. These were put in place after a driver crashed his car up the front steps and into the building in 2006. The public may attend trials in the Courthouse, but should inquire about scheduling and restrictions. The office of the County Clerk has property records and clerks supply help in looking up specific properties of interest. The Marion County Recorder's Office maintains a website to direct viewers to other services.

Other events

• The Grant School building, at Market and Cottage Streets NE, is being prepared for demolition after serving the community for 64 years. It will be replaced by a more modern structure now in use (2014).
• While Salem High School, on Marion Street between Center and High Streets, is being torn down, a historic Class of 1906 plaque is found. Several houses of the neighborhood are also demolished as the property is prepared for the new Meier and Frank Department Store.
• The South Salem High School on Church Street is completed this year. Students whose parents lived south of State Street could attend the new three-year high school that was then adjacent to Leslie Middle School.
• Dr. Dean Brooks, becomes Superintendent of the Oregon State Hospital. He will temporarily become an actor in 1975 when he plays a small part in the Academy Award movie, "One Flew Over the Cookoo's Nest", filmed in that Salem institution. In 1954, a new geriatrics building opens on the north side of Center Street. Dr. Brooks was born in Everett, Washington in 1916. He attended the University of Kansas Medical School in Kansas City, Kansas and graduated from there on the 1st of June 1942. He was first licensed in Oregon to practice Psychiatry on the 21st of January 1950. He retired from the practice of Psychiatric Medicine on the 31st of December 1999. He never had a single complaint filed against him in his long and distinguished career as a Psychiatrist.
• St. Paul's Episcopal Church moves its parsonage. Another photograph shows it in its original location. Currently, the former rectory is located on Leffelle Street in the Gaiety Hill/Bush's Pasture Park Historic District, directly south of the park. It is seen on the SHINE Court-Chemeketa Walking Tour.
• A new YWCA of Pietro Belluschi design is built on State Street.  This former YWCA has had various tenants and is used periodically for CERT training purposes.

The John Carson House on High Street

• The John Carson house, a landmark of many years at the southwest corner of High and Kearney Streets, is about to be razed for the construction of a church. The original structure may have been constructed about 1860.  By 1889 it was the home of John and Helen F. Carson. They raised a family of two daughters (Ester and Catherine), and three sons (Wallace, John and Allen). Mr. Carson died in 1916, but his widow continued to live there until her death in 1939. The senior Mr. Carson was one of most eminent attorneys in the Northwest and a State Senator. His grandson is Wallace P. Carson, Jr. of Salem who served as Chief Justice of the Oregon Supreme Court for 14 years and was named Citizen of the Year by the Chamber of Commerce in 2010. In 1943, a photograph of the large house with "sleeping porches" was taken from Kearney Street. The family of Evelyn Andrus lived there at that time.

The John Scott House on Court Street

• The undated photograph represents the beautiful home of Supreme Court Justice John Scott that occupied the northwest corner of Court and 12th Streets. Judge Scott died in 1952, his widow Maud lived there until her death this year. The couple, married 7 years, is enumerated in the 1910 census with her parents, James and Miranda Martin. This Victorian house may have been their home. What year it disappeared, or if it was moved, it not known.
• The annual Salem Art Association Art Fair that had moved into Bush House the year before, now becomes a "clothes-line" exhibition and sale on the Bush House grounds. The expanded Art Fair is a major tourist attraction in 2012 providing venues for art sales and family entertainment.