Salem in 2015

World Events

• Al-Queda kills 17 in attack on Paris Charlie Hebdo magazine offices after Muhammad cartoons.
• Black Lives Matter becomes an Africa-American based, international  organization campaigning against systemic racism.
• Queen Elizabeth celebrates 63 years on the throne, England's longest reigning monarch.
• The continuing Syrian civil war creates a refugee crisis with homeless 220, 000 victims.
• Greece becomes the first economy to miss a payment to International Monetary Fund in its 71-year history, causing a Greek financial crisis. 
• US joins international union of 200 nations to limit warming cycle in climate change.
• Trans-Pacific Partnership unites twelve countries with trade rules for 40% of global trade.
• Cuba and The US reestablish full diplomatic relations, ending 54 years of hostility between the neighboring nations.
• Academy Awards:"Spotlight" (US), "Son of Saul (Hungary). Prize-winning books: Fortune Smiles: Stories, Adam Johnson and All the Light We Cannot See, Anthony Doerr.

In Salem

A diminutive, but adult young lady traveling to Europe by ship was placed by mistake at the Children's Table in the Dining Salon. When she requested a glass of wine and was refused, Edith Schryver insisted on being moved to another table. There she met Elizabeth Lord who would become her lifetime companion and partner in one of the pioneer landscaping firms of the Northwest, Lord and Schryver.

 Gaiety Hollow

The photograph above was taken from their website and shows the rear of their home, Gaiety Hollow, and a portion of the garden. The property was purchased in 2015 by the Lord and Schryver Conservancy, dedicated to "preserving and Interpreting the Legacy of Lord and Schryver to Promote a Greater Understanding of their Contribution to Northwest Landscape Architecture". This active Salem group (with members beyond our city limits) has done a remarkable job in organization and fund raising to carry out their admirable goals. Recommended resources for more information include the official website that outlines their many social activities, opportunities for participation garden care that is most suitable to our climate and enjoyment of learning about local Lord and Schryver gardens you can visit. 

When You Visit
 The house is located at 545 Mission Street (across from the Bush House Museum) and is easily recognized by its handsome Clarence Smith architecture and careful landscaping in the small, contained front garden. Visits are scheduled throughout the year and gardening classes are also available. Use the website for more information. 

Other Events 

• In February, crews began the demolition of Howard Hall after an appeal to LUBA to save the Local Landmark as resident neighbors continue their objections to hospital expansion.   
• The Historic Landmarks Commission  designated SESNA as the second Heritage Neighborhood. Planned activities included an illustrated calendar, "toppers" for street signs indicating the historical names of individual areas within the neighborhood and signage at significant intersections.
• The Commission honored Ross Sutherland with the Historic Preservation Award for his efforts since 1996 to ensure Salem's historic resources are preserved, both in professional positions and in volunteer leadership.
• Salem Chamber orchestra filed for bankruptcy.
• The owner and skipper of the Willamette Queen vows to fight a Coast Guard decision to revoke the boat's inspection certificate.
• Hazel Patton was named Citizen of the Year. Hazel is not only a active, long-time advocate for local historic preservation, but for new enterprises that enhance Salem's appeal for residents and visitors.
• Our new City Manager, Steve Powers, plans to walk or ride to City Hall from his Crestview residence.
• Kristin Retherford becomes our Urban Development Director to lead efforts in determining the city's next investments for Riverfront Downtown, North Gateway and West Salem urban renewal areas. 
• Our rail tracks in the city are still dangerous: this year a man was struck and killed when struck by a train on Sunnyview Avenue.

• Commercial Street Bridge is renovated, providing a new Pringle Creek path under the structure (see above). In the future, the path in the photo will continue to the left, passing South Block Apartments and creating a future pedestrian pathway from City Hall to Riverfront Park.
• More than 500 gathered at Sprague High School to honor Rick Nelson, a student who died after he fell off a cliff at the Oregon coast.
• Former Gov. Kitzhaber resigned after scandal touched his fiance, Cylvia Hayes. Kate Brown, Secretary of State, replaces him.
• A motorcyclist died when he lost control of his bike and fell from the Marion Street Bridge.

Salem in 2014

World Events

• The Panama Canal celebrates its 100th anniversary.
• Robust global production causes oil prices to plummet, pleasing US drivers with lower cost for gas.
• Ukraine explodes into violence as Pro-Russian and Pro-European supporters clash.  Russia intervenes militarily and annexes Crimean Peninsula. The Dinetsk Peoples Republic declares independence.
• Malaysian airline shot down over Ukraine with loss of 295 on board.
• Ebola virus epidemic in West Africa begins, infecting 28,000 people.
• Belgium becomes the first country in the world to legalize euthanasia for terminally ill patients of any age.
• A Sunni militant group, Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIS) attempts to overthrow the Shite government, gaining control of Mosul and conducting a religious massacre in Sinjar.
• A referendum in Scotland results in a vote to stay as a part of the UK.
• Oregon passes Measure 91, legalizing the non-medical cultivation and uses of marijuana.  Sales to be legal from licensed dispensaries.
• President Obama thaws relations with Cuba, future travel possible.
•  Academy Awards: "Birdman" (US), "Ida" (Poland), Prize-winning books: Redeployment, Phil Klay and The Goldfinch, Donna Tartt.

In Salem

Howard Hall shortly before it was demolished

• In July, the Salem City Council voted to overturn a decision made by the city's Historic Landmark Commission by a vote of 8-0. The question was one that had engaged public opinion for the last several years: whether to demolish the last building of the former Oregon School for the Blind, the Local Landmark known as Howard Hall. Salem Hospital had purchased the property when the school closed and the other buildings had been demolished in order to expand hospital facilities, but this last building had special value to former students who used it as a dormitory and classroom. It was in poor condition and the hospital claimed to have no use for it. When hospital representatives made the case before the Historic Landmarks Commission, the hospital plan was rejected.  The City Council then, in a specially called meeting. took up the question on behalf of the hospital administration and overruled their own commission, composed of members selected by the Council for their expertise in historical preservation.

When You Visit 
 The site on the corner of Church and Mission Street is now the location of an elaborate play yard designed especially for children who have physical limits. It is fenced to keep children safe, despite its being close to traffic. There is interpretive signage to recognize the former school for the blind.

Other Events

• A group of citizens who would later become Progressive Salem recruited a local lawyer, Tom Andersen, to run for the City Council. He lived in the ward that included the politically active Gaiety Hill-Bush's Pasture Park Historic District. The property use in question for the former Oregon School for the Blind is adjacent. The Progressive campaign was funded by people, not business interests, using individual funding and door-to-door contacts with voters. The result can be read here. 
• A downtown historic building enjoyed a better fate than Howard Hall. The McGilchrist Building, along with the accompanying Roth Building were completely renovated during more than a year of careful construction, removing the non-historic elements and preserving the exterior charm of the 1916 structure. Before and after photographs show the difference as color highlights features of the windows and the corner entrance becomes more prominent.

 

•  Another state-owned, local National Register historic site was the subject of local discussion and controversy. At the Oregon State Hospital, two buildings on the campus were planned for preservation: one was the Kirkbride (already described) and Building 60 (below)

• Perfectly preserved, this small structure is thought to have been an infirmary at one time. When the cremains of long ago inmates were discovered in a neglected condition, it was determined to preserve them in an artistic setting. Building 60 was chosen although it would require removing one wall, changing the historic significance of the building. This decision was appealed unsuccessfully and the project was completed. See below.

• The Historic Landmarks Commission establishes the Heritage Neighborhood program to encourage residents to learn about the history of their neighborhood and to engage in our City's historic preservation efforts. Grant is the first neighborhood so recognized.
• The Commission also awarded a Historic Preservation Award to a gentleman who generously donated to both the Historic Residential Tool Box Fund and to the restoration of the Baggage Depot, leveraging more than twice that amount for restoration of local historic resources.
• This year, the First Citizen award was presented to Jim Brenau, the founder and president of the Willamette Valley Winery. This vineyard along I-5, south of the city,  is among the many local vineyards attracting tours and individual visitors.
•  City parking meters downtown were under controversy: the two hour limit was abolished, then a new three limit was established.
• A local teacher, Julie Wojcicki, won one of five national Milken Educator Awards ~and was presented with a check for $25,000.
• In October, Cylvia Hayes, engaged to Gov. Kitzhaber and considered "First Lady" of the state, was revealed to have previously contracted a "sham" marriage to an immigrant so he could retain residency in the US. There was also an ethics commission inquiry into her work as a private consultant.

Salem in 1872

World Events

• New Zealand Wars end after 17 years when the Maori spiritual leader crosses the Waikato River and enters the territory of the king who grants him amnesty.
• Horace Greeley, founder and editor of the New-York Tribune, President Grant's defeated opponent, dies three weeks after the election. He had urged the settlement of the American west for opportunity and to relieve urban unemployment, popularizing the phrase, "Go west, young man, and grow up with the country"
• Transportation enhancements: Railroad safety improves with Westinghouse's new automatic air brake and Rudolf Diesel applies for patent on his compression ignition engine.
• Edison's electric company merges with Thomson-Houston Company to create General Electric Company, a multinational institution now one of the largest in the world.
• The Metropolitan Museum of Art opens in New York City and Popular Science is first published in the U. S. and Jules Verne's Around the World in 80 Days.

• In Salem
  This year the Oregon Legislature allocates $4,000 for the education of the blind. In 1884, when this photograph was taken, the school was located on 12th Street. By 1894 it returned to a permanent home at Cottage and Mission Streets. [An original 1872 school building may have been the former Leslie house.] In 1913 Governor West recommended closing the blind school as it had become a fire trap and was "so located that a railroad track, a mill race and a creek, at times a raging torrent, must be crossed by the blind children in going to or from the school or city." A new fireproof cottage on the enlarged campus was built in 1923 when Howard Hall at Church and Mission street, seen below, was constructed as a boys' dormitory at a cost of $33,388. After many years of debate among school supporters and the legislators, the school closed permanently in 2009 with blind education becoming the responsibility of local school districts.

 

 When you visit
This is the last building of the now-closed Oregon School for the Blind. In 1990, the Historic Landmarks Commission of the city of Salem designated this Howard Hall as a Local Landmark. This former school property is between a residential historic district and the expanding Salem Hospital facility. The hospital purchased the property in 2009, dismantling playground, demolishing many buildings and erecting a temporary, chain-link fence around the entire facility. An application by the hospital to demolish Howard Hall was denied by the City of Salem Historic Landmarks Commission on February 17, 2011 and again in 2014. A few months later, the City Council over-ruled that decision in favor of demolition. The fate of Howard Hall is still uncertain as it sits alone, still encircled by a fence as the rest of the former school grounds becomes a rolling, grassy parkland, awaiting the transformation into a level, treeless parking lot for the hospital. Further legal challenges to this demolition project are expected.

Other Events

• Dr. Daniel Payton becomes mayor.
• To improve the supply of water distributed in the city, a suction line with steam-powered pump is laid in Willamette Slough replacing the Salem Water Co. tank downtown.
• First Sacred Heart Academy building is demolished for new structure on the east side of Cottage Street between Center and Chemeketa. The school remained in the location until the 1960's, when it moved to Lancaster Drive.
• Oregon Institute, founded by Methodist missionaries in 1842, is destroyed by fire.  The Institute was classroom, dormitory and home for the instructors (sometime missionaries) in the earliest years of the settlement that became Salem. The Walton Building of the present Willamette University, which grew from this enterprise, stands on this historic site. In front of this modern building is a stone with a metal plaque, identifying this site.

The Cooke-Patton residence in the 1930s.

•  The Cooke-Patton family moves into their new Court Street mansion. Thomas McFadden Patton was Marion County Representative to the Oregon State Legislature. He was the son-in-law of Mr. Edwin Cooke who was Salem's second mayor. Thomas Patton married Mary Frances Cooke in 1854 and after a year in Jacksonville, the younger couple returned to live in the Cooke residence on Davidson Street. By this year the Pattons have moved with the Cookes to their new Victorian mansion across Court Street from the State House construction. The two couples found this a satisfactory arrangement and the tradition continued into the next generation with the two grandsons, Edwin (1869-1929) and Hal Patton (1872-1932) living there, with their wives, for their entire lives. The house was demolished in 1938, when Hal's widow was the sole occupant, for the construction of the Oregon State Library, the first building of North Capitol Mall. Luella Patton Charlton was born here and lived in the mansion until her marriage in 1927. She was generous in sharing Salem memories of her 109 years. She died in 2007.
• To emphasize the problem of public drunkenness, the 1872 City Recorder's report cited the arrest of 81 persons for drunkenness in the previous eleven months. The usual penalty for such public displays of inebriation was a fine and/or a night in the City jail to "sleep it off." At a previous Salem Council meeting, a committee was appointed to recommend a plan for building a new City jail. This was built on Liberty Street below State Street to replace the old wooden calaboose constructed in 1853 on Ferry Street between Church and High Streets. (The new lock-up served its purpose until 1894 when the jail facilities became part of the new City Hall.)
• A traveling salesman is peddling Sequoia gigantea, Redwoods. Judge William Waldo buys a small sapling and plants it on his property outside the city limits. When the time came for Waldo's property to be platted and taken into the city, the judge's influence was great enough so he could successfully insist that the tree be preserved before he vacated his land for a state highway. And that's how the giant Redwood on the west side of Summer Street NE, immediately north of Union Street, became, according to some, the world's smallest park. Various writers and publications have taken note of the tree's plight in the battle against the automobile as the adjacent streets were widened and then paved. At intervals through the years, angered motorists have condemned the ever-spreading Redwood as a traffic hazard that ought to be chopped down. To insure that motorists spare the tree, a group called the American War Mothers moved on Salem's City Council in 1936 to establish the tree as a park. On June 15, 1936, the city council passed a resolution naming the tree "Waldo Park". The giant tree now stands at Summer and Union Streets in what many consider the world's smallest park.
• This year, Wilbur F. Boothby designed the elaborate Italianate style Marion County Courthouse in Salem (completed the next year). He also planned and built the state mental institution and contributed to the erection of most public buildings in the state capital. A native of Maine born in 1840, he was educated at Fulton College in New York, and arrived in Salem, Oregon, in 1864. He would later design the South Eldridge Block on Commercial Street, a small section remaining today. By that time, Boothby had operated a sash and door factory in Salem for many years as well as being a contractor and architect. Boothby also served as first president of the Salem waterworks.