Salem in 1991

World Events

• US and UN forces enter Gulf War with operation "Desert Storm" to expel Iraqi forces from Kuwait. Seventh months later, Iraqi soldiers in retreat set fire to Kuwaiti oil fields. These fires put out after extensive efforts.
• The 74 year-old Soviet Union collapses as 11 member nations become independent. Russia is renamed as the Russian Federation with Boris Yeltsin as elected president. The city of St. Petersburg regains its name. Yugoslavia is divided into Croatia and Slovenia. Germany regains complete independence from WW II occupying countries.
• Exxon pays one billion dollars to clean up Valdez oil spill.
• Thurgood Marshall, the first African-American Supreme Court Justice, retires. In the confirmation hearings for nominee Clarance Thomas, former aid Anita Hill testifies to his abusing her. Her testimony is disregarded and he is confirmed.
• The police beating of Rodney King is caught on tape and shown on world-wide on TV. Four Los Angeles police officers go on trail.
• The Academy Awards: "Silence of the Lambs"(US),"Mediterraneo (Italy) Prize-winning Books: Mating, Norman Rush and Rabbit at Rest, John Updike.

In Salem

Oregon State Archives Building

In 1991 the Cecil L. Edwards Archives Building was completed. Prior to 1946 Oregon had no Archive structure, no unified approach existed for preserving historical state records. The Secretary of State had custody of the records of the Legislative Assembly and the Governor. All other departments and agencies cared for their own records or placed them in the State Library, however many were presumably destroyed. Moreover, the fire that destroyed the state Capitol in 1935 consumed additional valuable records. The 1945 Legislative Assembly allocated a small amount of money to start the program under the State Library. David Duniway was hired in 1947 as Oregon's first state archivist and served for almost thirty years. He set up shop in the basement of the State Library Building, developing policies and procedures designed to improve government record keeping and preserve the most valuable documents. Eventually, the operation moved into a large warehouse with four floors of storage. Further growth and the need for climate controlled storage areas led to the opening of the current building.

When you Visit
In the Lobby of the Archives visitors are processed into the building and its records for individuals use. Archivists within the Reading room will help find the appropriate records.

North Capitol Mall Review 1937-1991

North Capitol Mall before 1984

North Capitol Mall was now complete except for one more building that would be erected in 2002-3, the Capitol Mall Office Building. This undated photograph (also featured in an earlier year)  was taken before 1984 when the state had not finished constructing buildings in the area within the dotted lines. The State Agriculture and Employment buildings are completed, facing south to Union Street. Residences remain in the blocks north, toward D Street (lower dotted line) between Capitol and Summer Streets. They will be moved or demolished for the Veterans' Affairs Building and for the Archives (see below).
At left center of the photograph above, where the Mill Creek crosses Capitol Street, stood the Cole house, now on Hood Street. To the north (toward the foreground of the photograph) was the Hinges/Kimball house, now a private residence at 1075 Capitol Street. The neighboring Parrish and Rockenfield houses, owned by the City of Salem, are at A. C. Gilbert Discovery Village. These properties are all designated as Local Landmarks.
Before the state construction, Parrish Street cut west across from Capitol Street, and many smaller houses on each side were moved to Williams Street. The small courtyard apartments on D Street (see them at left above dotted line) are in an adjoining Williams Street development created for them.
On the area between Summer and Winter streets, the State Lands Building was completed in 1990. Several houses on the east side of Winter Street escaped demolition: the historic Moon House and German Methodist Parsonage were moved to complex of older homes off D Street and completely renovated to retain their original integrity; the Stiff, Huntington, and McGilchrist house were incorporated as offices into the Capitol Mall Heritage Park at D Street between Summer and Winter Streets. This natural area south of "D" Street and bordering Mill Creek is landscaped for pleasant moments of reflection by this historic waterway. Grant Neighborhood is directly north of "D" Street.
Other events

• R.G. Andersen-Wyckoff becomes mayor.
• This busy activity of the Salem Public Library is interrupted this year by a major renovation that caused the facility to temporarily relocate for several months during construction. One handsome addition of the main floor was the Heritage Room, the result of the generosity and the foresight of the descendants of two Salem Area families. It honors Max and Martha Gehlar and Gov. Douglas and Mabel McKay. Handsome tables, chairs and cabinets were built by Dave and Bob Anderson as their contribution to the Heritage Room. The new Loucks Lecture hall was named for former mayor, Al Loucks, an active library supporter. Not so apparent to the public was the establishment of the library's database, with its Oregon Historical Photograph Collections (used generously in this feature).
• Jim Scheppke is appointed the State Librarian, a position he held for 20 years until his retirement in 2011. As a convenience for visits to the State Library and other buildings of the North Capitol Mall, an underground parking garage serving the North Capitol Mall is added at this time.
•  

  

  The World War I Doughboy at Oregon Veterans Memorial Park

  The 1924 World War I Doughboy statue is relocated to the memorial park at the Veterans' Building. It is now a part of a collection of military memorials north of the building and along Winter Street on the west side of Mill Creek. 
•  To acknowledge the health risks of tobacco use, the Salem Hospital becomes smoke-free. In the next ten years, smoking in Oregon's commercial establishments and all public buildings will disappear.
• Proposition 5 passes: Property taxes dedicated for school funding were capped at $15.00 per $1,000 of real market value per year, and gradually lowered to $5. Property taxes for other purposes were capped at $10 per $1,000 per year. Thus the total property tax rate would be 1.5% at the end of the five-year phase in period. The measure transferred the responsibility for school funding from local government to the state, to equalize funding.
• A local ballot proposal to fund a Willamette riverside park and hotel on city property purchased from Boise Cascade is defeated.
• The Willamette Landing condominium complex is completed on Water Street in North Salem offering housing directly on the shore of the Willamette River. The lack of interest in purchasing "condos" leads the owner to offer the units as rentals.

Salem in 1951

World Events

• People's Republic of China takes control in Lhasa, Tibet. The Dalai Lama is welcomed in India where he lives to the present.
• Relieved of duty by President Truman, General McArthur makes an emotional farewell address, "And like the old soldier in that ballad, I now close my military career and just fade away..."
• China enters into Korean military action. After inconclusive combat up and down the peninsula, a stalemate results in the first armistice talks.
• 22nd Amendment to the US Constitution limits presidents to two terms. 
• Julius and Ethel Rosenberg are convicted of espionage for the Soviet Union and given the death penalty.
• Severe weather: avalanches in the Alps, forests are destroyed by fires in Oregon and other western states, floods in Kansas and Northern Italy,
• This year's musical, "American in Paris", wins the Academy Award (1952). Classic US films of this year: "African Queen" and "Streetcar Named Desire". "Rashomon" (Japan) is judged best foreign film. National Book Award: Collected Stories of William Faulkner, William Faulkner. Pulitzer Prize: The Town, Conrad Richter.

Then: this site along our river was an industrial area

In Salem
Salem families are still getting their news from the radio in the living room: Salem would not have TV for another few years. The evening news broadcasts informed them about a country many had never heard of, Korea. A neighbor had been called back into service and been sent there to fight with United States Marine Corps. But not Dad, so Mom does not worry as she sends her family off to school or work into a city that is being transformed by construction projects. The largest is the new bridge across the Willamette River at Marion Street. This street, adjoining Marion Square Park, once a fine residential neighborhood surrounding Marion Square Park,  is now being sliced up for ramps that will be entrances to the bridge. One overpass was almost directly over the old Gilbert residence that had been transformed into modest apartments. The photograph above shows one of the familiar arched supports near Gilbert House at the Water Street walkway along east side of the river.

And now ~ Riverfront Park invites visitors

When you visit
Archways under the bridge, such as the one in this photograph, enhance the river scenery we enjoy while walking along Water Street north of Riverfront Park. The former A. C. Gilbert residence, almost under the bridge itself, is now the core of the Gilbert House Children's Museum for the education of children through play activities. Four other historic structures have been relocated in this complex along Water Street. These include historic structures from Capitol Street where state purchases for office buildings is transforming the neighborhood north of the capitol building.
The Marion Street Bridge is now one-way with approaches from the east side of the river: going south, cars turn right from Commercial Street; going west cars enter the bridge on Marion Street itself. The Center Street Bridge allows vehicles to travel from West Salem into the downtown area. Although the vehicle bridges do offer some pedestrian or bike lanes, it is advised to take the renovated Union Street Bridge if walking or riding a bike. Traffic across the river has always been a factor in city planning and continues to be a concern.

Other Events

• Alfred W. Loucks becomes mayor. The auditorium of the Salem Public Library is later named for him.
• The city is covered in three inches of snow after a surprise March snowstorm.
• Under the sponsorship of the Baptist Church, United Gospel Mission is established to aid the homeless of the downtown area.
• Local Rotary clubs become involved with the Willamette Scholarship Fund and the Rotary International Scholarship Fund. Since 1950, Rotary Club members adopt American Field Service students and pay travel costs.
• The Scottish Rite Temple of the Masonic Order holds services in a new facility in the 500 block of South Commercial Street. Purchased the year before, much volunteer as well as professional labor had gone into preparing this site.
• The third structure of the First Christian Church is erected on the 1902 church site at the southeast corner of Church and High Streets. The original sanctuary, built in 1867, was known as the "little brick church".

North Capitol Mall in 1951

• Three of the new state buildings are complete on North Capitol Mall. Since construction began in 1937, it was known that the fourth building would have to wait until the First Presbyterian Church was moved diagonally across Winter Street. The church structure on the northeast corner of Chemeketa and Winter Streets (at right center in the photograph above), facing Chemeketa, had been erected and dedicated in 1928 on what was thought to be a permanent site. In anticipation of a move (1958-9), the church began purchasing property on the west side of Winter Street in 1946. By 1951, the Rigdon house at the southwest corner of Chemeketa and Winter Streets, had been demolished. Four more on Winter and around the corner would follow by 1963 when the church property extended around the corner onto Court Street. This signaled the end of the historic residential neighborhood of "Piety Hill" associated with the most prominent pioneer families of Salem. Its proximity to Willson Park, the capitol and Willamette University had made it a fashionable place to live, but the posh residential neighborhood was already that of Fairmount Hill.
• A barnlike structure serves as a facility for car parking at Liberty and Ferry Streets. This is an earlier version of the current Liberty Parkade and the other covered parking facilities downtown that were created in the next twenty years to relieve the problem of parking for potential shoppers.