Salem in 2007

World Events

• Benazir Bhutto of Pakistan, first woman elected (1988, 1993) Prime Minister in a Muslim country, is assassinated by an al-Qaeda militant in Rawalpindi during a welcome home rally after serving in exile.
• Global financial crisis is triggered by the collapse of U.S. housing market and mortgage banking crisis.
• Nancy Pelosi, a California Democrat, is elected as first female Speaker of the House of Representatives in the US Congress.
• Virginia Tech shooter, Seung-hui Cho, kills 32 persons and wounds 17.
• Apple introduces the first modern "smartphone". This iPhone model uses a touch screen (instead of dial-up) and has a Home button.
• Al Gore and The UN share the Nobel Peace Prize for efforts to build up and disseminate knowledge about man-made climate change and measures to counteract such change.
• The TGV, French passenger train reaches a speed of 357.2 mph, breaking the record for a conventional train. In England, High Speed 1 (68 mile mph), the Channel Tunnel Rail Link between London and the UK end of the Chunnel is opened to passengers.
• The last Harry Potter book is published. Academy Awards:"No Country for Old Men" (US), "The Counterfeiters" (Austria). Prize-winning books: Tree of Smoke, Denis Johnson and The Road, Cormac McCarthy.

In Salem
Two Salem developers, Larry Tokarski and Dan Berrey, purchase the industrial site occupied for 46 years by Boise Cascade's paper-converting plant. Bisected by Pringle Creek, with Commercial Street to the east and the Willamette River to the west, adjacent to Riverfront Park, this is prime land for the redevelopment encouraged by the ULI representatives last year. The prospects for this $7.25 million investment depend on the outcome of environmental studies (considering the past contamination of the land and water) and rezoning the property for mixed-use development.
To the left in the wintertime photograph above, the 1926 Fry Warehouse looks like a fortress, rising behind Eco-Earth. The main body of the plant is in the center of the picture and above Pringle Creek, which emerges into the slough of the Willamette River at this sand bar location. The section of the plant to the right, in the distance behind the orange towers, is another structure on the site of the old mill building. Unseen is the railroad track running along the structures in this side.

When you visit
By 2014, there were substantial changes. The Fry Warehouse is gone, the first structure to be demolished, with Mayor Taylor punching out the first block of concrete with a wrecking crane. Also in 2009, the main structure fell until only the substantial building south of the creek remained. The northern section will have new buildings for retail business and offices, restaurants, condos and other purposes. The site south of the creek will be retained as a parking garage and apartment complex. Of great interest are two public-use features of the future: one is "day lighting" the creek by removing all but the railroad crossing so a pedestrian path can lead from the Civic Center Park, under the Commercial Street Bridge and to the slough; the other is a bridge from near the Eco-Earth to Minto Brown Island. Due to economic conditions, no new business or housing construction has been accomplished, but Pringle Creek, running between the cement walls of the old industrial plant, is now visible from west of the Commercial Street bridge to the Willamette River with only the railroad track suspended above. The much anticipated walkway from the southeast corner of Trade and Commercial to Riverfront Park, passing under the bridge, will be the next project. Bridge reconstruction was completed in 2013.

Other events

• Bill Wingett, a resident of the Sunnyslope neighborhood, returns to the European battle sites in May of this year as a guide for a historical project. A veteran of World War II, he is a former member of the celebrated Band of Brothers, the 101th Airborne Division of the US Army, recently honored in a TV mini-series based on the book by Steven Ambrose.
• Air service returns to McNary Field with Delta offering twice-daily flights between Salem and Salt Lake City.
• Marion County lost its first deputy in the line of duty when Kelly James Fredinburg, 33, headed to Gervais to assist police, siren and lights running, is struck by a car that unexpectedly pulled into his lane on Highway 99E. He died at the scene of the crash as well as a passenger in the other car. The other driver survived, critically injured. More than 1000 people filled the Salem Armory for his memorial service.
• The Vision 2020 Action Plan, originated by City staff and 3500 involved residents, aims to revitalize downtown into a vibrant community gathering place and a magnet for visitors. Committees organized this year will work to realize the concepts of the program and will make quarterly progress reports.
• The land-use conflicts continued with Measure 49 that left owners confused about which set of rules apply to projects they filed under the 2004 property-compensation law, Measure 37. The new measure limits the number of houses built on prime farm and forest land, but projects underway may have "vested rights" to proceed.
• Salem's oldest resident, Luella Patton Charlton, died on December 23, just a 7 weeks before her 110th birthday. Luella was born in 1898 in her family's Cooke-Patton mansion on Court Street (demolished in 1938 for the construction of the State Library). Her great-grandfather (who built the house) was an early Salem steamboat owner and merchant, her grandfather was a US consul in Japan and her father and uncle, Cooke and Hal Patton, were prominent in Salem political and business life. After her marriage in 1925, she and her husband built a home on 23rd Street where she lived the rest of her life. The couple had one son; Luella became a widow in 1959. She read widely, kept up with the news on TV, generously entertained friends, enjoyed humor in conversation and was a beloved neighbor. Luella was possessed of a sharp intellect and invested wisely in the stock market: she owned original issues of Coca-Cola stock and remarked with a smile that they had "split many times". Luella was a treasury of historical year-old facts about Salem families, businesses and state institutions (Gov. Chamberlain rented a room in her family's home in 1903 while serving in Salem). She is the last of the Pattons to be buried in the family mausoleum in Pioneer Cemetery.

Salem in 1960

World Events 

• President Eisenhower authorizes a million dollars toward relief of Cuban refugees arriving in Florida at a rate of 1000 a week.
• Gary Powers, U-2 pilot,  shot down over Russia, was given 10-year prison sentence for espionage. At a United Nations Assembly, Soviet Premiere Khrushchev pounds his shoe on the lectern to protest discussion of Soviet policies toward Eastern Europe.
• U.S. nuclear submarine USS Triton completed the first underwater circumnavigation of the earth.
• In Buenos Aires, Mossad agents abduct Adolph Eichmann for trial in Israel for crimes against humanity.
• Wilma Rudolph, Cassius Clay and Rafer Johnson star in Rome Olympics. Ethiopian Abbie Bikila wins the marathon, running barefoot, to become the first Sub-Saharan to win Olympic Gold.
• After the first televised campaign debate, John F. Kennedy first Catholic and second-youngest candidate, wins election as President of the U.S.
• Birth-control pill approved by FDA.
• Academy Awards: "The Apartment" (US), The Virgin Spring (Sweden). Prize-winning Books: Goodbye, Columbus, Phillip Roth and Advise and Consent, Allen Drury..

In Salem

1960 ~ acid ball arrives in Salem

2010 ~ Eco Earth Ball as a symbol of our city's place in the world

In Salem
The 1960 Ben Maxwell photograph above shows a tugboat pushing a globe tank into a Salem facility identified as the Columbia Paper Company. The asphalt-covered stainless steel Acid Ball weighed 10 tons and was 25 feet in diameter. When installed, the pressurized tank held acid that was used to "cook" wood chips into pulp.
The Columbia Paper Company was associated with Oregon Pulp and Paper Company for the production of newsprint. The sawmill of Oregon Pulp and Paper closed in 1955 and Boise Cascade assumed that company's operations on the Salem waterfront in 1962. Boise Cascade demolished the portion on the mill that used this acid ball in 1982.

When you visit
When the city purchased the former industrial land along the Willamette River for a park, there was no plan for this relic. A community effort of 5 years, completed in 2003, turned this industrial tool into the work of art covered with 86,000 colored tiles. The Eco Earth Ball is positioned at the south end of Riverfront Park on a headland overlooking the Pringle Creek entrance into the Willamette River.
An interpretive marker recalls, " It was through community effort that the idea of Eco-Earth proceeded forward with generous local donations and countless hours of volunteer labor going into its creation. The final outcome was Eco-Earth, a vibrant symbol of our world's struggle for peace, cultural diversity and ecological awareness."

Other events

• The Salem population is 68,309.
• Willard Marshall accepts the Salem award as All American City.
• Five members of the Salem Diving Association are photographed in wetsuits and flippers as they prepare to jump from the deck of the "Maid of Bayne" into the chilly waters Willamette River.
• In August there is a groundbreaking ceremony for the new National Guard Armory on 17th Street. The armory building was completed that year. The auditorium was location for EJD sponsored concerts and dances for about twenty years and continues to host a variety of events, including visits from prominent entertainment and political personalities.
• In September, John Kennedy greets a supporter at the airport, and then visits the State Fair as part of his campaign for the presidency. His youngest brother Ted accompanied him.
• The Pringle Park building in completed in November. The present building and plaza were built after the flood of 1996. Funds from our Sister City in Japan, Kawagoe, helped with the restoration. (A Sister City Advisory Commission was established in 1966 that meets as needed.)

Prospects for Capitol Mall

• The state produces proposed scale models of how the Capitol Mall was expected to look when completed. It includes structures along the Winter-Summer-Capitol streets corridor as far as D Street. These plans, including the prospect that Summer Street would be eliminated south of "D" Street and a series of high-rise structures were envisioned for west of Winter Street, were never realized. Subsequent state buildings, located to the east of Winter Street and the State Archives Building are prominent alterations from this plan. Instead of the dome (pictured at the north end of the mall) there is now a Heritage Park along D Street that makes an attractive transition from state offices to the Grant residential neighborhood to the north.
• The Shasta Daylight, a fast west coast rail connection between Portland and San Francisco, makes stops in Salem. The train left Portland at 7:45 a.m., stopped in Salem a little over an hour later at 8:55, and arrived in San Francisco at 11:30 that night. The Southern Pacific Railroad maintained a freight station downtown on the northwest corner of Trade and Commercial. 

Religious Figures at Christmas at Capitol

• At Christmas, life-sized nativity figures were erected on the Capitol grounds. After the controversy over religious displays on government property, they were transferred to Willamette University the next year. Vandals later destroyed the figures.

Salem on the Willamette ~ the historic view

This is a copy of a Statesman Journal photograph showing how the Salem industrial riverfront appeared before our beautiful Riverfront Park was created in the 1990s. The triangular Fry warehouse shows clearly in the upper center. More news of this historic structure appears below.