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 1894

World Events

• Japan invades Korea, beginning the first war between China and Japan.
• The International Olympic Committee is established in Paris.
•  New Zealand enacts the world's first minimum wage law.
• Russian emperor Alexander III is succeeded by his son, Nicholas II.
• After the queen of Hawaii is overthrown, a republic is proclaimed by Sanford B Dole.
• Coxey's Army, a protest march by workers, unemployed because of the national financial crisis that begun the year before, moves through the northwest commandeering a Northwest Pacific train on their way to Washington, D.C. Two months later, 3000 Pullman factory workers go out on a strike in Illinois.
• Oil is discovered on vast prairie land of the Osage reservation, making them the "richest people on earth." This brought wealth, but problems to the tribe as the Bureau of Indian Affairs allowed non-tribal people to claim membership to their profit. 
• Coca-Cola is sold in bottles for the first time.
• Notable new book: The Jungle Book by Rudyard Kipling and Pudd'nhead Wilson by Mark Twain. Stephen Crane's Civil War novel, Red Badge of Courage, is published as a serial in the Philadelphia Press, a newspaper.  The drama, Arms and the Man by Bernard Shaw, is staged in London.

In Salem


Dr. Luke Port, pharmacist and speculator, completes his new Queen Anne style home designed by William Knighton, but lived there with his wife Lizzie only 16 months. Perhaps the memories were too sad. The stained glass window over the fireplace in the parlor was dedicated to a teenage son lost at sea while sailing to Europe to study chemistry. It depicts three fully blooming roses representing the living Port family members and a rose bud symbolic of the son that was lost. The house was sold to the Bingham family the next year. Judge George Bingham, his wife Willie lived in the house until their deaths in 1924. Their daughter Alice married Mr. Keith Powell in 1915. Upon the death of her parents, she sold her childhood home to the Brown family ~ Clifford, his wife Alice and their two sons, Chandler and Werner. Mr. Brown died suddenly only three years later in 1927. In 1929, Alice Brown commissioned the new firm of Lord-Schryver, the first female owned landscape architecture firm in the Northwest, to design the gardens. They continued to advise this owner almost forty years. In 1935, Alice Brown named the estate "Deepwood" after a favorite children's book of her sons. The Deepwood Scroll Garden earned the nickname "Lower Wedding Garden" following her 1945 marriage to Keith Powell, Alice Bingham Powell's widower. The couple lived at Deepwood until they moved into a smaller, one-storey home in 1968. Following a community campaign to save the property from demolition, Deepwood became a City of Salem owned park and museum in 1971. 

When you visit

The house is located at the southwest corner of Mission and 12th streets, near Pringle Creek. With its Lord and Schryver garden, it is now a premier attraction for local social events and tourists. For more information about this National Register property in the SCAN neighborhood, refer to the Deepwood website.  It is also on the route of the SHINE Pringle Creek self-guided walking tour.

Other Events
•    In September, Company E, 3rd Regiment of Coxey's Industrial Army from Sacramento arrived in Salem 49 strong. At the depot, they set up camp and flew the national flag. They were reported as respectable American citizens on the way to Washington to protest the loss of American jobs due to immigration. Mayor Claude Gatch reluctantly agreed to feed the group at the Boston and P.Q. restaurants at a cost of $6.25 to the city. When the group left for Portland on the freight train that night, about 20 Salem men had joined the company. (See Ben Maxwell's Salem, Oregon, edited by Scott McArthur, 2006.)
•    Two Salem religious congregations build in this year: the German Methodist parsonage is erected on Winter Street. In 1944 the church sold the residence to Charles Warren. In 1977 the State of Oregon purchased property on the east side of that block for construction of the North Capitol Mall Office Building. A private builder bought this house and the one next door (the Moon house) and moved them to D Street in the NESCA neighborhood. Both historic homes have been renovated. (The story of these houses is found here.)
The Evangelical Church is built on the corner of Chemeketa and 17th Streets and the adjacent parsonage was built the following year. Both are in their original 1894-5 locations, but the function of the church has changed: it is now a private home with a large, ground floor living area and a place for sleeping in the former choir loft. They are in the Court-Chemeketa Historic District of the NEN neighborhood. See this house on the SHINE Court-Chemeketa Walking Tour.
 

From the left: Gray and Eckerlen Buildings as they appear today

   
•    The Gray family constructs another commercial building on Liberty Street adjacent to their own, the mustard-colored building at left above. The new building is seen here with three bays of windows on the second floor. In 1909 it was sold to Eugene Eckerlen who owned a saloon on Commercial Street. He rented this new building to merchants and it was known as the New Eckerlen Building. From 1936 to the 1960s, it housed Bishops' clothing store, a popular establishment for men. A fire in 1999 partially destroyed the building, but it has recently been renovated. It is located on an especially handsome block of historic buildings in the Salem Downtown Historic District.
•    Dr. W.Carlton Smith, the first attending physician at the Fairview Training Center, builds a residence on Oak Street near Willamette University. As the Salem Hospital expanded in that area, the house was moved to Canon Street in the Morningside neighborhood. Photographs of this Local Landmark in both locations are found here.
•    In her parents' Court Street parlor, Myra Albert Wiggins lights a fuse, then rushes to join her wedding group for a self-photograph. She had returned to Salem after three years of study at New York's Art Students League. In future years she would choose a professional career as well as being a wife and mother, becoming an internationally recognized photographer.

Original building of the Oregon School for the Deaf

In this year bids property was selected by the state for a school for deaf students and the first building erected. Later used as a tuberculosis sanitarium, it is now a part of Corban College.