Salem in 1974

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World Events

• Emperor Haile Selassie of Ethiopia, highly respected by world political and religious leaders since 1916, is deposed after a critical famine. This ends the Solomonic dynasty begun in 1270. He died the following year.
• When impeachment conviction by Congress becomes certain, Richard Nixon resigns. Gerald Ford becomes President and pardons Nixon.
• India detonates a nuclear weapon, being the 6th nation to do so.
• OPEC oil rises from $4 to $12 a barrel; concern rises over nuclear energy.
• Patty Hearst, grand-daughter of publisher, Willam Randolph Hearst, is kidnapped by the Symbionese Liberation Army with whom she participates in a bank robbery and other crimes. Imprisoned for two years, she was later pardoned. (Read the complete story in American Heiress, Jeffrey Toobin, 2016)
• Muhammad Ali regains his boxing title at the "Rumble in the Jungle" in Kinshasa, Zaire.
• After 23 years, "Here's Lucy" ends its TV series. The Rubik Cube is invented. Hank Aaron becomes all-time MLB home run leader with his 715th. Rosenkowitz sextuplets all survive in the Cape Town birth.
• The Academy Award: "The Godfather Part II" (US),"Amarcord (Italy). Prize-winning Books: Gravity's Rainbow, Thomas Pychon and A Crown of Feathers and Other Stories, Issac Bashevis Singer.

In Salem

Mill Race Plaza with SAIF building in background

The cannery industry continued to shrink. The Salem Fruit Union plant is razed for part of the urban renewal project. Photographs of 1974 show construction of buildings being completed and large landscaping projects underway. The open, raw acres are dotted with thin new trees and concrete blocks mark the edges of new paths for the waterways flowing through the city. In 1974, Salem is a city that is changing its image to become more welcoming to the visitor and provide more amenities for the residents, but it is losing a vital factor in its economy by the demise of its canning industry.

When you visit
Today it is hard to remember that for much of Salem's history there was a railroad track in the center of Trade Street. And it now seems natural that Trade Street takes a curve southward into Pringle Parkway and onto Bellevue, traveling east between the expanded Willamette University campus to the left, Shelton Ditch and the Salem Hospital to your right. At 12th Street, we meet the natural barrier that our Southern Pacific railroad tracks have made. Turning north, Mill Street is on our right with Mission Mill Museum and the historic SESNA neighborhood. Turning south on 12th Street, we are just a block away from a left turn over an overpass taking us, without railroad interruption, to Mission Street and the I-5 corridor.  Ignoring the overpass, one more block south on 12th Street will take us to Deepwood Estate and its gardens. This contemporary thoroughfare, creating in the 1970s, gives contemporary traffic easy access to important cultural features of our city. This 1970s restructuring of Trade Street and the new uses of land south of Pringle Creek and Shelton Ditch continue to have a positive effect on downtown traffic and adjoining land uses.

Other Events

• Cars wait in long lines for gas at local stations. The Capitol is the scene of protests concerning the gas shortage.
• Politics is in the news this campaign year: Robert Straub, a candidate for governor of Oregon (he wins in November) has a booth at the state fair in August; Bob Packwood (already elected) congratulates a Baker City student for winning the Centennial Essay and Art Contest during that city's celebration. Mayor Lindsey helps out the Salem Bike Club by posing by an old-fashioned penny-farthing bike while members of the club watch from their own bikes. Lindsey Towers, named for this mayor, is a high-rise, senior residential facility located at the intersection of Church and Trade streets.

Bush House Museum

• Bush House Museum and historic structures on the Bush property are listed on the National Register this year. The majority of these acres were obtained by the city in 1946 by purchase from the Bush family just before Miss Sally's death. After this death of her brother, A. N. Bush, in 1953 the "homestead" was obtained. The Salem Art Association planned to make the house into a gallery and so held a "yard sale" to depose of furnishings (many of which have been returned or repurchased). At that time alterations were made in the upper floor of the Bush residence, but the house still qualified for the National Register. A volunteer committee, under direction of the SAA, regulates the public use and the events held in the house museum.
• One more neighborhood organizes this year: Northeast Neighbors, known as NEN, stretching between Market and State streets. Urban development of the 1970s changed the Court and Chemeketa streets residential section of NEN east of 14th Street. In 1984, a federally funded street reversal project closed both streets with barriers at 13th Street, supplying a fourth boundary line. The homes on these streets were located in a natural progression from downtown, Willamette University and the Capitol. They have a unique physical presence with Mill Creek at the north and to the east, State Street on the south, and the railroad to the west. By 1986, resident historical research, led by Bonnie and Roger Hull, produced a nomination for the National Register that created the Court-Chemeketa National Historic Residential District. Other individually recognized National Register properties in NEN include the Lee Mission Cemetery on D Street, The Stratton House at 1599 States Street and the Samuel Adoph House at 2493 State Street. There are also 23 Local Landmarks and several more candidates whose history you may not know.  It is a tribute to the present owners of these NEN sites that all these properties are preserved so well.

• Among the unofficially recognized sites in NEN is the Friends Meeting House at 490 19th Street, home successively of the Nazarene Church (1913-1931), the Foursquare Church (until 1950) and the Unitarian Universalists (until 1997).

Salem in 1927

World Events

• As the controlling Chinese Nationalists murder members of the opposition Communist party in Nanchang, the Communist Chinese People's Liberation Army is formed.
• Leon Trotsky is expelled from the Soviet Communist Party, leaving Joseph Stalin with control of the Soviet Union.
• Iraq gains independence from Britain
• Charles Lindbergh makes a solo flight across the Atlantic in his single-engined Spirit of St. Louis. There is a huge ticker-tape parade in New York city to welcome his homecoming. The Holland Tunnel opens linking NYC with New Jersey.
• The Iron Lung is invented for the relief of polio sufferers.
• The popular Harlem Globetrotters take to the road for performances. Babe Ruth hits 60 home runs.
• Columbia Phonographic Broadcasting System (CBS) goes on air with 47 stations.
• The Academy Awards are established with "Wings" winning best picture. The Pulitzer Prize goes to Bridge of San Luis Rey, Thornton Wilder.

In Salem
This year Lee Eyerly establishes his flight school in Salem at what would become McNary Airfield. In 1921 he had been Salem’s pioneer commercial pilot. Using the latest training methods, he opened a ground school and taught mechanical work, rigging, meteorology, and navigation. Salem high school administrators caught the spirit and were offering flight-training classes to students. By 1928, Eyerly's planes were doing cross-country business as well as passenger hops over the State House, thought by many to be a prospective landing place. By this time, Salem had progressed so that any major plane overhaul or rebuild job was possible. The successful Salem airport campaign was presented in the form of a charter amendment calling for issuance of $50,000 in bonds for the purchase of land and the establishment of the landing field.

When you visit
Commuter air service in Salem was briefly served by SeaPort Airlines in 2011. Seaport took off from a terminal with a newly completed 4.000-square-foot expansion, a $1.5 million project paid for by grants from the Federal Aviation Administration and the State of Oregon. A great way to see the airfield is to visit the Flight Deck restaurant. The dining area has large windows overlooking the airfield.

For residents who are interested in commercial air service in Salem, the Salem Airport Advisory Commission meets on the 3rd Wednesday of each month at Fire Station #6. The public is welcome.

Other Events

• Thomas A. Livesley becomes mayor.
• The new YMCA Building, just completed, is much larger than the neighboring Court Street residences of the Boise and McNary families. To the east, toward the State House, the street was lined with handsome homes of other prominent "Old Guard" familes. None have survived.
• The last of the Ford Model-T automobiles are produced this year.

From left: Commercial Street from State Street looking north

• Marion County conducted a Health Demonstration Project between the 1926 and 1930. The parade of 1927 (above), led by the governor, proceeded down Commercial Street while automobiles and spectators lined the route.
• Salem Lutherans of German descent begin worshiping in old 1894 Presbyterian Church on Church Street. They buy the church and rename it as the Lutheran-American Church to indicate the services will be English. According to church records: "Mr. (Max) Gehlar, the Sunday School superintendent was a leader and through his efforts the Sunday School became one of the most active and well attended in the city."
• Notice is received from Redlands, California that Libbie Patton has died at the age of 85. She was the second wife of two noted Salem pioneers: she married Joseph Holman (1815-80) in 1875 and Thomas McFadden Patton (1829-92) in 1889. In both cases, she was the second wife.
• Ercel Kay establishes the Salem Golf Club with the first nine holes completed on the former John Hughes Land Grant. The fee for playing was 25 cents.
• Outdoor activity may have been handicapped by the weather in July, as reported by the Capitol Journal, Ben Maxwell recalled. During that month, the government thermometer on the 23rd registered 108 degrees, an all-time high. The climax came that evening when an electrical storm rattled windows and frightened children.
• In this year of booming economy, Salem families are building new houses. In a developing residential section of Salem, Sam and Lottie Adolph build a Mediterranean styled home on South Commercial Street. Photographed in 1978 by Bob Koval, and again recently, the house retains its original appearance. It is a Local Landmark in the SCAN neighborhood.
• Two blocks south of the Adolph House, is the Colonial Revival home built by Leland and Mildred Geer. The house was sold to Rollin and Alice Page in the next year. Mrs. Page continued to live here after her husband's death in the late 1940s and the house stayed in family ownership into the 1950s. This is also a Local Landmark and is in the SCAN neighborhood.
• A third Local Landmark in this neighborhood is the Mediterranean Meier House on Rural Street, then at the city limits. Fred Meier purchased it in this year and lived there off and on for the next twenty years, renting it out periodically. In 1946 the house was sold to Harold and Eva Jory who lived there until 1953.
• The Rosecrans House is built on Chemeketa Street by D. A. and Etta Hodge for their daughter Margaret Rosecrans, a widow, and clerk for the State Highway Commission. Mrs. Rosecrans resided here until 1942 at which time it was sold to John and Lela Jerman. Later owners were Linn C. Smith and Lulu Marie (Jerman) Smith. There is also a 1978 photograph. This house is a Local Landmark in the NEN neighborhood.
• A famous pooch, resident of Silverton, died this year. Bobbie, the Scotch collie that was lost from his owner and made his way from Indiana back to his former home in Silverton, is honored in that city where he is buried in a child's casket.

Salem in 1914

World Events

• Diplomatic relations with Mexico break down, U.S. Marines land in Veracruz which they will occupy for 6 months.
• Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria assassinated. As European nations begin World War I, President Wilson promises to keep America out of the conflict. (He signs a Mother's Day Proclamation.)
• German trips invade Belgium: The British Empire declares war on the German Empire, including Austro-Hungary, which declares war on Russia. China declares neutrality. Japan extends its influence in China and seizes German territories in the Pacific and East Asia.
• Ford Motor Company establishes an 8-hour day for workers with a minimum $5 a day wage.
• Panama Canal opens in Panama with the passage of the SS Ancon, a 1901 steamship that had played a major part in ferrying supplies for canal construction. (The Path Between the Seas, David McCullough, 1977)
• Charlie Chaplin makes his first movie debut with the character of the tramp in "Making A Living". Mary Pickford's name appears above the title of film "Hearts Adrift", beginning the "Star" recognition.
• New American Books: The Titan, Theodore Dreiser; Penrod, Booth Tarkington, The Congo and Other Stories, Vachel Lindsay.

In Salem

William C. Knighton, the official state architect of that time, designed this handsome Supreme Court building costing $320,000. The exterior is finished with cream-colored terra cotta and the interior is marble and tile. At the rear of the ground floor, there is an ornate stairway leading to a handsome columned library. The third floor contains the Court Chambers with a glass skylight that includes a replica of the seal of the state of Oregon.
Former Oregon Chief Justice Wallace Carson, Jr. was honored as the Salem Citizen of the Year 2010 at the Chamber of Commerce banquet February 11, 2011.

When you visit
The building is open to visitors after passing a security officer inside the front door. You will be told whether the upper floors are available for visiting at that time. The beautiful library and courtroom are well worth a visit and you may be able to hear some of the deliberations of the court.
It is easy to see the impact the Oregon State Government has on the life of the city. It provides stable local employment and helps make Salem a destination for many visitors, but also increasingly occupies properties, particularly in the core of the city, for which the city provides services but receives no tax revenue.

Other Events

• B. L. Steeves is elected as mayor. The family's 1926 Dutch Colonial home still stands at 1694 Court Street, however the lawn and trees of the property were lost when 17th Street was widened in the 1960’s. The home was owned and occupied by the family into the second generation. The house next door at 1674 Court Street was built for the Steeves daughter, Muriel. Her family occupied this home until 1960. These properties can be seen on the SHINE Court-Chemeketa Walking Tour.
Three blocks, away in this same historic district, is the Buchner House also built this year. It was owned by Walter Buchner and his wife May. Mr. Buchner grew hops on 160 acres he owned south of Salem and established a feed store and mill in town. The family sold the house in 1942. It had long since been converted into rental apartments when it was firebombed in the early 1990s. The neighbors bought the structure, restored it and sold the house to new owners.
• The Roberts Store is established south of Salem and a farming community (complete with train stop) grew up around it. The store remained open until a recent closure (the photograph was taken in 2008), then opened again. The school was put to other uses and the abandoned church collapsed.
• The local YWCA is started in the spring of 1914 with Mrs. C.K. Spaulding heading the board. The organization’s headquarters were in the Knight home on North Liberty Street and the Salem Women’s club made the arrangements and gift of money which made the organization possible. An excerpt from the front page of the Daily Oregon Statesman on April 1, 1914 says, “Salem business men have heartily endorsed the organization plan and have promised to assist in any manner possible should the association care to call on them”.

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  Richmond School in its first year, 1914

  Students of the new Richmond School pose for a photograph.
• Two years after the completion of the new Carnegie Library on State Street, the city takes over financial responsibility for this cultural institution. The Salem Public Library Advisory Board (our first Advisory Board) is created with members appointed by the mayor and councilors. The nine members presently meet at the library with the Director on second Wednesday of each month at 7 pm. The public is welcome.
• Another public structure, the Mt. Crest Mausoleum, was completed this year. The architect was Ellis Lawrence who designed the Mahonia Hall, Elsinore Theater and other Salem structures. The building has been added to 9 times, have 6 governors interred there and a number of other prominent people of Salem through out the years. It is a part of City View Cemetery, just to the west of Pioneer Cemetery, sharing a fence.
• April 18 on this year, John Zachary began serving an indeterminate sentence of three to twenty years in the Oregon State Penitentiary.  He did not survive his sentence, dying in the prison hospital on November 27, 1915.  He is buried a short distance from his great-grandmother, Tabitha Brown, in Pioneer Cemetery. His widow, Maud Hill Zachary, moved to Front Street with their five children, making a living as a laundress.

From the Capitol Journal:

• Governor Oswald West made an official visit to Washington, D. C. and the round trip cost the state of Oregon just $1.50. In New York, Governor West made a speech for which he was paid $375. This he turned over to Secretary of State Ben Olcott when he filed his expense account. The state's share of $1.50 was the cost for the governor's travel between Salem and Portland.
• Benjamin S. Via and C. L. Imus, sponsors of the organization of a cavalry troop in Salem to participate in a possible war with Mexico, said they had their quota signed up and were ready for a call by the proper authorities.
• In December, "Old Tiger", the fire engine that had seen service in Salem for many years, was taken to Willamette Slough to pump water on the ice and make the surface smooth for skaters.

(See Ben Maxwell's Salem, Oregon, edited by Scott McArthur, 2006.

Salem in 1896

World Events

• The first modern Olympic games are held in Athens. 13 nations (including the U.S.) competed. Most athletes are from Greece, Germany and France.
• In July, Democrat presidential candidate Willam Jennings Bryan delivers his rousing "Cross of Gold" speech, but it is not enough to win the election: Republican William McKinley, representing Progressives, is elected.
• Plessy v. Ferguson in the Supreme Court introduces  "separate but equal" concept and upholds racial segregation in the U.S.
• Utah is admitted as the 45th state after the Mormons, who were the majority of residents, renounced the practice of bigamy.
• A group of 12 industrial stocks were chosen to establish the Dow Jones Industrial Average to calculate the value of the companies (now 30 of largest public owned) in current trading.
• Perry and Hutchinson begin offering "Green Stamps" to U. S. retailers. Fanny Farmer publishes her first cookbook.
• The first volume of Theodore Roosevelt's The Winning of the West is published. Notable fiction of this year: The Country of Pointed Firs by Sarah Orne Jewett, Tom Sawyer, Detective, by Mark Twain.

                              The former School for the Blind becomes Salem's first hospital in 1896

Glen Oaks Orphanage becomes the Salem Hospital in 1899

In Salem

It was time for Salem to have a hospital. A small one (above) opened its doors on January 1, 1896 in the building at 204 12th street (between Ferry and State) that had formerly housed the School for the Blind. Organized by local physicians and private citizens, it was funded with $752 raised in a public solicitation. Salem Hospital treated its first patient, sewing machine salesman Fred Demeler at the five-bed converted school.
The second photograph is of the Glen Oaks Orphanage that was offered by the Oregon Children's Aid Society in 1899 as a new home for the Salem Hospital. It was on ten acres on Center Street, then called Asylum Street, adjacent to the state hospital.

When you visit
Neither of these buildings exists today. Ferry Street is now interrupted west of 12th Street by the Willamette University campus. The location of the 1892 photograph of School for Blind, our first hospital, was to the rear of the present Gatke Building. The Center Street location of the former orphanage has also had new development as the Oregon State Hospital expanded to the east. In 2010 the area is being rebuilt with demolition of buildings and landscape, and with alterations to Center Street itself.
In 1916 Salem Deaconess Hospital was founded and the former Capital Hotel at 665 Winter Street was acquired for a new hospital facility. The current Salem Hospital continues to expand along both sides of that street and incorporating Capitol Street between Bellevue and Mission Streets.

Other Events

• Our Capital Journal newspaper joins the Associated Press network.
• The First Church of Christ Scientist is officially organized as meetings continue at a hall at the corner of Court and Liberty Streets.

The Wiggins- Crawford House on Court Street

• A house  built at 1759 Court Street will later be associated with the Wiggins-Crawford family. The Wiggins son Fred ran a farm implement store and sold the first automobile in Salem. He married Myra Albert, daughter of John Albert and Mary Holman, and granddaughter of Joseph Holman, pioneer settler. The house went to a Wiggins niece, Mary Follrick Crawford, who lived there with her family in 1972. The house is a significant contribution to the Court-Chemeketa Historic District in the NEN neighborhood. It is featured on the SHINE walking tour.
• Amos Long builds a house at 774 Winter Street. Historically, it is known as the Moon House and been designated as a Local Landmark. In 1997, during the expansion of the North Capitol Mall, it was preserved by being purchased from the State of Oregon and moved to D Street in the NESCA neighborhood.
• On Owens Street, the Italianate/Eastlake Scovell House may have been built as early as 1889. In this year of 1896 Alexander Daue buys the property and lives here with his wife Ida Mae Turner Daue until their new home was built. The family owned the property until 1945; during that time it was probably the residence of Earl Daue and his wife Dorothy. It is now a Local Landmark in the SCAN neighborhood.

Children and young ladies of Salem made news this year in the Capitol Journal:
In May, Salem's W.C.T.U. took up a new work. Children not in attendance at Sunday School in any of the city's churches were gathered up and brought to the the W.C.T.U. headquarters where Mrs Snelling served as their superintendent.
In December, Salem's new curfew ordinance became effective. No person under 17 would be permitted on streets or in public places after 8 p.m. from September to February. After February, curfew time was extended one hour. A bell in the First Methodist Church would ring at 7:45 p.m. in the winter and 8:45 in the summer months.
In August, Miss Brown drove from the Red Hills south of town into Salem. En route a masked man stepped from the brush, grabbed the bridle of her horse and demanded that Miss Brown surrender her purse and watch. She reached into her pocket, drew a revolver and threatened to blow out the brains of her assailant if he did not desist and vanish. The story said he did both and expeditiously.
In the next month, Miss B. F., daughter of Mrs. J. A. J., a Salem widow, swore out a warrant in Justice H. A. Johnson's court charging B. D. with seduction committed last December. B. D. , known as a hard-working young man with a good reputation, was arrested and lodged in jail since he could not post bail for $200. This morning, on motion of Charles Park, district attorney, the prosecution was dismissed and the pair was married by the justice before whom the case was brought.
(See Ben Maxwell's Salem, Oregon, edited by Scott McArthur, 2006.)