Salem in 1887

World Events

• Queen Victoria celebrates her Golden Jubilee, marking her 50th year on the throne, with a banquet to which 50 kings and princes are invited. These might have included her son-in-law, the German Emperor Frederick, her son who would become Edward VII of her United Kingdom, and another son-in-law, Louis IV, Grand Duke of Hesse. These three would give her historic grandchildren of World War I: Wilhelm II of Germany, George V of England, and the Empress Alexandra of Russia who would be murdered with her husband, Nicholas II and their children.
• The "Bayonet Constitution" disenfranchises most native Hawaiians, all Asians and the poor.
• The Yellow River Flood begins in China, killing 900,000 to 2 million Chinese peasants.
• The Rock Mountains Park Act creates Canada's first national park, Banff.
• The U. S. allows the Navy to lease Pearl Harbor as a naval base.
• Anne Sullivan begins teaching deaf and blind Helen Keller.
• In London: The first Sherlock Holmes mystery, A Study in Scarlet, is published in London. Buffalo Bill's Wild West show opens in that city.

In Salem
This year, Holly A. Cornell designed the South First National Bank Block, the building shown above with awnings. At 241-247 Commercial Street, it is on the west side of the street, between Court and Chemeketa streets. The two-story building is of unreinforced brick, stucco covered and is of Italianate style. It was constructed during Salem's first period of private, downtown development, stimulated primarily by the desire to avoid fire by replacing wood building with brick. Changes were made to the building in 1923 when a stairway in the center divided the building, providing an entrance to second floor offices. The bank occupied the section to the north (to the right in the photograph) and Forstners Store was to the left. The adjacent Starkey-McCully building had been built in 1867 and the England Block on the Court Street corner in 1877. The entire block was a lively commercial center in the late 1800s.Holly Cornell (1859-1911) practiced architecture in Salem for several years and is believed to have designed the Werner Breyman and Moody-Kay residences, both now gone. The South First National Bank Block and one residence are the only extant buildings designed by Cornell.When you visit
The first floor of the South First National Bank now serves commercial uses, but the second floor, much renovated, still has offices. This Commercial Street building anchors the northwest border of the Downtown Historic District.

 

The only Cornell residence remaining today is the Royal house on High Street. Rev. James H.B. Royal was elderly and blind when he bought the block for $800 and had the house built. He wished to provide his wife Emma a substantial property to use as a boarding house to support her and their family. The boarders were often teachers at the Liberty School across the street. (St. Paul's Church replaced the school in the 1950s.) This house is a private residence in the Gaiety Hill/Bush's Pasture Park Historic District. The present owners have an album recording the history of this well-preserved house and its changes over the years.
The former Werner Breyman residence stood at the present location of the Micah Building at the corner of State and Cottage Streets. For the construction of that building in 1925 (then the Elks Club), the large residence was moved to 249-253 Cottage Street and remodeled into the 20 Palace Apartments. It was demolished, possibly for the Willamette School of Law. The Moody-Kay residence was at the northeast corner of Court and Winter Streets. It was built for Governor Zenas Moody in this last year of his term. A frame house with a basement (where the kitchen was located), two full floors and a third with a corner garret decorated with arched windows. It became the home of several generations of the Thomas Kay family, owners of the woolen mill a few blocks away. It was the first building demolished when the state began the North Capitol Mall construction in 1937. The Oregon State Library stands in that location.

Other Events

• East School, later renamed as Washington School, is built. The most ornate building in Salem at that time, it was designed for 9 grades with 600 students: it later became the first high school. The tallest building downtown, it was a favorite location for photographers. Demolished in 1949, the Safeway store is in that location.
• The Gilbert house is built on Water Street. This early residential area, almost circling Marion Square Park and facing the Willamette River, was a favored location for homes of early prominent citizens. In addition to a period of urban neglect, many of the old houses were lost when the Marion Street Bridge was constructed. The Gilbert House, purchased by the city, now has a new life as a part of the A. C. Gilbert Discovery Village (Gilbert House Children's Museum).
• George Collins builds a classic Queen Anne residence at 197 Court Street. In 1905, Dr. William Byrd moved it to 296 14th Street and gave it to his son as a wedding present.  It is a property in the Court-Chemeketa Historic Residential District of the NEN neighborhood.
• The Mott/Brown House is built at 490 21st Street. This modest house has kept its integrity of design through many owners. This attractive Local Landmark in the NEN neighborhood was among a series of historic homes photographed by Bob Koval in 1978.

The Joshua Purvine House in Spring Valley

• The Purvine family is established in the farmlands near Zena in Polk County. One of the brothers, Joshua, builds an Italianate-styled home on the present Spring Valley Road that remains almost unchanged in appearance more than 120 years later.
• Urban free mail delivery is established from the Post Office at Ferry and Commercial Streets in the Nesmith Building. This building, now demolished, was also the original office of the Oregon governor.

• A significant hotel fire occurred January 14, 1887, at the Bennett House. This hotel was built in 1852 by Charles Bennett, an 1845 settler who ventured to California and is credited with being the co-finder of the first gold nuggets at Sutter's Mill that sparked the famous "Forty-Niner" gold rush. It had a second-floor balcony built like a cabin deck, Bennett being a steamboat man. One socialite woman visitor wrote that the Bennett was "only a second-rate place" but "the best in the town." She complained: "The governor and officers sit down indiscriminately at the same table as the mechanic and the stableboy, and all are attended upon alike." As the years went by, the clientele changed from Legislators and the wealthy to working-class people. The hotel is memorialized in a Senate Chamber mural in the Oregon State Capital.

Salem in 1866

World Events

• The Canadian Parliament has its first meeting in Ottawa, its capital city.
• In Sweden, Alfred Nobel, a manufacturer of cannon and other armaments, invents dynamite. Condemned as the "merchant of death", he bequeathed his fortune to establish the Nobel Prizes in areas such as culture, science and world peace.
• The Reconstruction begins in Tennessee, the first Confederate state readmitted to the Union.
• The first Civil Rights Act is passed by Congress to affirm that all citizens, including African Americans recently freed from slavery, are equally protected under law.
• Two household products known today have their beginning:  Nestle and General Mills.
• The ASPCA is founded in NYC to provide an organization working to protect animals from cruel treatment.
• A new US coin, the "nickel," is circulated.

In Salem
The first Equal Rights Law, established this year, does not speak of education, but in a prosperous democracy, it is vital. Salem began educating its youth in 1851when a log cabin on the southwest corner of Marion and Commercial Streets became Salem's first school, supported mainly by tuition. By 1857 a larger school was needed, and Central School (above) was built by the county near High Street between Center and Marion Streets. By 1859 there were 227 school age children in the district, but there is no record of how many children actually attended school. Ten-year-old T. T. Geer, a future Governor of Oregon from 1899 to 1903, attended Central School in 1861. By 1865 the number of children in the district had grown to 632 with 200 students in attendance at Central School.

By 1866 there are 600 children of school age in Salem, 200 of these crowded into Central. For the photograph above, they leaned out of windows and clustered outside. This year the district levies a 5-mill tax to build two new schools. One was built in north Salem and the second school, South School, as it was named, was originally located at Fir and Myers Streets, but was moved to South Commercial Street in 1892. The school building was later used in turn as a cider mill, machine shop and as the W. A. Barkus Feed Mill. The building existed as late as the 1960s.

Between the years of 1866 to 1869 "Little" Central School and East Salem School were built. "Little Central," " School was near the original Central School with fifteen non-Anglo students taught by Mrs. R. Mallory. It would be Salem's only segregated school. (This may be the smaller building seen in the photograph above.)

When you visit: Central School site
These 1866 school buildings do not exist today. In 1906, Central School gave up its site for the new Salem High School. This school was demolished in 1954 for the Meier and Frank Department Store, now Macy's.

Other Events

• The Oregon State Penitentiary is moved to Salem with inmates transferred from Portland to a temporary wooden facility in Salem and set to work manufacturing bricks for a permanent prison structure. The photograph above was taken in the 1880s when the brick establishment was completed. This building has been replaced by a new, heavily enclosed, buildings on a large property in the 2600 block of State Street. It is adjacent to the Oregon State Hospital with an entrance on Center Street. 

An instrument used in these early years to restrict prisoners from escaping was the "Oregon Boot," a weighted shoe to hamper prisoners' walking. One of these can be seen in an exhibit at Oregon Corrections Enterprises at 3691 State Street. Call (503) 378-2677 for an appointment.

• In this same year, an editorial in the Oregon Statesman called for the establishment of a County infirmary to care for "the aged and infirm who are thrown upon the charities of the world". A Poor Farm account on a farm near Silverton was set up in 1870.
• New businesses in 1866 include Capitol Lumber on Front Street along the Willamette River (submerged by flood of 1890) and Pioneer Oil on the property that in 1889 would house the Thomas Kay Woolen Mill.Westacott Brewery was established on Commercial Street at the site of the present Meridian Building.
• Individuals chosen to care for the indigent in Salem were often doctors or owners of boarding houses. A contract between Dr. G. W. Brown and Marion County in October of this year stipulates that the doctor would take in any county charges for $4.00 per week. An editorial in the Oregon Statesman called for the establishment of a County Infirmary to care for "the aged and infirm, who are thrown upon the charities of the world."
• Dr. Daniel Payton, who had moved with his family to Salem in the previous year, organized the medical department of Willamette University. He took the chair of Therapeutics, after wards Obstetrics and Diseases of Women. He held that position for thirteen years and received the honorary distinction of Professor Emeritus. From 1874 and 1875 he was dean of the medical school at Willamette University. In 1878, the Medical Department was moved to Portland, Oregon. Payton retired from active teaching when the Medical Department closed. In that year, his wife Elizabeth died. He continued to conduct his medical practice in Salem until 1883 and devoted his efforts to his newfound specialty, gynecology. He was a distinguished citizen of Salem, serving as director of the Salem public schools for twelve years, Mayor of Salem for one term, and Representative of Marion County in the Oregon State Legislature for one term.