Salem in 2009

World Events

• Hamas rocket attacks on Southern Israel answered with air strikes in 22 days of war. This conflict ends with a cease-fire and the Israeli forces withdrawal from Gaza.
• North Korea conducts a second successful nuclear test.
• The Icelandic government and banking system collapses amid the "Pots and Pans" protests by the citizens. This resulted an Icelandic Constitutional assembly of 26 common citizens of no political party. The new Prime Minister, Johanna Siguroadottir, is first openly lesbian head of a national government.
• An AirFrance flight from Brazil to Paris crashes in the Atlantic, killing all 228 passengers on board in addition to the entire crew.
• US Jobless rate hits 10.2 % despite stimulus measures.
• Congress wrestles with health-care reform as debates continue.
• The outbreak of H1Ni, "Swine Flu", is a global pandemic.
• Sonia Sotomayer becomes first Hispanic justice on Supreme Court. (My Beloved World, Sonia Sotomayor, 2013)
• Barack Obama is awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for his extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples.
• Academy Awards: "The Hurt Locker" (US), "The Secret in Their Eyes" (Argentine). Prize-winning books: "Let the Great World Spin", Colum McCann and Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout.

In Salem
After an intensive local campaign, 20 months and three competitive phases, the Salvation Army was awarded a portion of the Ray and Joan Kroc fortune to build and operate a Kroc Center in Salem. The Kroc grant provided nearly $35 million for construction and the same amount for an operating endowment, but the Salvation Army asked Salem residents to kick in $8 million, a royal sum in the city of about 154,500, without many deep pockets. They charged into fund raising. More than 1,700 donors pitched in, from kids who held penny drives, to foundations and individuals such as Gerry Frank who gave $1 million to help pay for the center's aquatics center. In all, residents raised more than $10 million. The center is faith-based and no tax dollars were used.

When you visit
The Kroc Center is within the circle of Bill Frey Drive and can be reached by car from Portland Road or Industrial Drive. There are bus lines that accommodate the site. The doors are open to visitors seven days a week and receptionists will supply information about recreational programs, classes and other services.
Salem sold the Salvation Army this 11-acre parcel in the Northgate neighborhood, which borders Keizer and is defined by industrial properties, a city natural park area, housing and vacant lots. Designers, craftsmen and construction workers built an angular, L-shaped structure, filled with materials and decorative themes that evokes Oregon: boulders from the Columbia River Gorge, sturdy wood beams, and massive glass walls that let in ample light even under slate-gray Northwest skies.

Other events

• Linda Norris, the City Manager, conducts community meetings before the first Budget Committee meetings in April to explain the shortfall in the city budget and cuts that would have to be made. The Library is reduced from a Department to a division of Administration and the Director position eliminated. Other department responsibilities and personnel are shifted in order to cut the budget by $5 million.

•  In May, the transformation of the Union Street Railroad Bridge and Trestle is complete and opens to the public with an official ceremony and parade led by Mayor Taylor. Three interpretive panels had been produced by Ed Austin, local designer and author of books about regional railroads, and were places at either end of the bridge and trestle. The bridge was an immediate success and was filled with local families, bicyclists, individuals with their dog companions, and visitors to the city. The lofty walk over the Willamette River gives views at one of the widest parts of the river to the north and toward the city and Willamette Slough to the south. The Trestle continues over Wallace Marine Park and at the end, paths lead down into the park or straight on the Wallace Road in West Salem. (The pedestrian/biker path closed in November in order to encapsulate the lead paint, but opened again in May of 2010.) This City of Salem project has already gained recognition, winning an Engineering Excellence Award, the Oregon Heritage Award and the national Transportation Planning Award.
• Sanyo Solar of Oregon LLC opens a $40 million plant in Salem. In the 80-acre Renewable Energy and Technology Park, Sanyo's 130,000-square-foot factory houses the first two steps of solar manufacturing: growing crystals and slicing them into wafers.
• Oregon State Hospital continues to be the target of complaints about patient care while the demolition of the historical buildings continue on that site. Taking measures to save the original front aspect of the "J" building has been a local concern: the tower has been removed for repair. Creating a museum to honor the former patients and the staff is still being planned within the renovated building.
• Broadway Town Square, a TELOS mixed-use project on the site of the former Eagles Building at the intersection of Market and Broadway is completed with a ribbon cutting as the Salem Cinema moves into the new 3-theater facility. Town homes, apartments and retail spaces are also available.

Historic and Modern buildings at Willamette University: Gatke and Ford

• The modern, copper-clad Ford Hall rises next door to the historic Gatke building on the Willamette University campus.
• Several other construction projects are put on hold during the economic crisis. Downtown they include demolition of the First National/Wells Fargo Bank on Liberty Street for a mixed-use project including the parking lot where the old City Hall stood and prospective building on the McMahon Furniture Store site. The Meridian and Rivers condominiums projects are completed.
• In legal and criminal news: Sunwest Management Inc. and founder Jon Harder of Salem are sued by the Federal Securities and Exchange Commission; parents are arrested after three children report abuse since their arrival from the Ukraine in 2003; Marion County Sheriff Russ Isham resigns after accusations of personal misconduct.

Salem in 2008

World Events

• The Australian Prime Minister formally apologies to the Stolen Generations: children of Aboriginal descent who were removed from their families to work for white families. In Canada, there are apologies to the indigenous First Nations for the removal of their children to Indian Residential schools.
• An earthquake strikes Sichuan, China killing at least 87,000 people. In August the Summer Olympics are held in Beijing.
• Israel invades the Gaza Strip in response to rockets fired by Hamas.
• Iran opens it first space center and launches a rocket into space.
• In the US national economic collapse, Lehman Brothers and Washington Mutual declare bankruptcy. The Dow-Jones Industrial Average falls 777.68 points, the largest one-day decline in history.
• President Bush  signs the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act, creating a 700 billion dollar Treasury fund to prop up banks, automakers & mortgage agencies. The "Great Recession" begins.
• Illinois' Democratic Senator Barack Obama wins the US presidency with 53% of popular vote. Our first African-American to hold that office.
• Academy Awards: "Slumdog Millionaire" (US), "Departures" (Japan). Prize-winning books: Shadow Country, Peter Matthiessen and The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, Junot Diaz.

In Salem

Hollywood Station

Portland Road was once just that: the highway to the city north of Salem. With the construction of I-5 in the 1960s, that changed: without the commercial stimulus of heavy traffic, Portland Road's economy faltered. Beginning in 1972, urban renewal attempted to make the area more productive and more livable. One of the most recent and most attractive projects is the area formerly the Goodwill site. The triangular property, owned by the Salem Urban Renewal Agency, is bounded by Portland Road, Brooks Street, Pine Street and the new senior facility, Center 50+. It was sold to Hollywood Renewal LLC, comprised of Mountain West Investment Company. (No commitment of public resources, in the form of a loan or grant, was required of the agency to support this project.) By 2008, unfortunately the year of the great "Recession", the new residences of Hollywood Station (above) are completed and ready for occupancy. The project includes 24 town homes and a 2-story, 23,ooo square feet office/retail building. This is one more civic project in North Salem where the business community and the city staff work together to make living in Salem more attractive for both the long-time residents who have shared its history and the newcomers who will make it their new home.

When you visit
Perhaps you have also driven east on Pine Street, or along Portland Road, during the last few years, wondering what the new highway configurations, landscaping and construction would produce. We may expect that even more improvements are on the way for the old Hollywood business district. The senior center relocation, Center 50+ and the new businesses (we wish them well!), the KROC Center and this Hollywood Station have all brought welcome new enterprise to the area of North Gateway, truly the historic entrance to our city. The North Gateway Redevelopment Advisory Board is an avenue by which residents can provide input to present and future projects in this part of our city.

Other events

• As new structures rise in Salem this year, old ones are threatened. In January, the Oregon State Hospital had been issued a report from the US Department of Justice siting violations of patient safety, supervision and treatment failures. The hospital sponsored tours through the unused, historic buildings as plans for a $458 million renovation and reconstruction are being formulated. Local historic preservationists, lead by Hazel Patton, submit a successful, whole-campus nomination for National Register to protect the most valuable parts of the institution, particularly the "J" Building. The Historic Landmarks Commission hears evidence that many buildings most be demolished.

Justice Ginsburg cuts the ribbon opening the Oregon Civil Justice Center

• The Carnegie Library on State Street, for 60 years our Salem Public Library, is rededicated as the Oregon Civil Justice Center of Willamette University. The ceremony includes a ribbon cutting by Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg of the US Supreme Court.
• With the retirement of Bob Wells, Linda Norris becomes Interim City Manager: she is officially appointed City Manager in June. Sean O'Day became Interim Deputy City Manager in February and was officially appointed to that position in October.
• John Ritter, a local historian and former professor, serves this year as a historian for the Oregon Corrections Enterprises. He produces an Exhibit Guide outlining the 150 years of inmate work programs as displayed in the interpretive museum at 3691 State Street. Exhibit artifacts and background photographs on the wall outline the various programs that have been active in this time span. As the brochure explains: the exhibit begins when the State Penitentiary had its start as the Territorial Prison in Oregon City as a small brick structure and moved to Portland in 1854 where inmates were used to grade streets, crush rock and log trees. In 1866 the Oregon State Prison was moved to Salem and remains here. Over 24 artifacts, actual products made at the Salem institution, are displayed in the exhibit, including the infamous Oregon Boot, a devise worn by inmates when outside to keep them from "wandering away". Other exhibits illustrate today's work programs. For times when the exhibit is open to visitors, call 503 378 2449 or 503 378 2677.
• The new YWCA facility is opened in the Broadway Plaza, a TELOS construction on the northwest corner of the Market and Broadway streets intersection. (This YWCA facility closed in 2014)
• Delta ends flights from McNary Field after less then a year of service. However, Salem is moving forward with plans to expand the terminal and lengthen the runway. Lottery dollars will help pay the $4.75 million improvements.
• Barack Obama has a town hall meeting at the Armory during his campaign for president: Bill Clinton speaks at Chemeketa Community College less than a week later, and returned twice more, on behalf of his wife's campaign. Hillary Clinton answers the phone in her Reed Opera House campaign headquarters: Senator Obama visits the Iris Fair in Keizer.
• The red-light camera system goes into effect at two of the city's most dangerous intersections: Mission at 25th street and Commercial at Marion Street. If a car passes over the sensor after the light has turned red, a video is taken to record the vehicle's license-plate number. That information is forwarded to the police.
• Fire guts the governor's ceremonial office in the Capitol and damages the building. This brought back memories of the two previous fires that destroyed our Capitols in 1857 and 1935.

Salem in 1954

World Events

• In Indochina, a Cease-Fire line between French forces in the south and Vietnamese forces in the north is drawn by a Peace Convention in Geneva with free elections to follow. Failure to keep this agreement led to the wider Vietnam War in which the US  engaged..
• The Iwo Jima Memorial is erected at Arlington Cemetery. The Air Force Academy established in Colorado Springs, Colorado. The first nuclear-powered submarine, U.S.S. Nautilus is launched.
• As a result of his public denouncements of prominent Americans as Communists, the US Senate condemns Senator Joseph McCarthy for "conduct that tends to bring the Senate into dishonor and disrepute"
• Salk polio vaccine given to children. US Supreme Court strikes down "separate but equal" racial segregation in public schools with Brown vs Board of Education, Topeka. (Begun by father of 3rd grader Linda Brown in 1950.).
•  While Salem's Douglas McKay is Secretary the Interior, the Western Oregon Indian Termination Act ends recognition of the Grand Ronde tribe as a nation.
• In Los Angles, the 17 Watts Towers (Nuestro Pueblo) of Simon Rodia are completed after 33 years of his naive artistic construction.
• Ellis Island, the New York Harbor main immigration point, is closed.
• Academy Awards: "On the Waterfront" (US) "Gate of Hell (Japan). Prize-winning book: The Adventures of Augie Marsh, Saul Bellow.

• 

In Salem
Salem residents were getting used to the fact that their 1872 Victorian courthouse, once described as a "wedding cake", had now turned into a "cake box". The austere lines of the new Marion County Courthouse building, dedicated in June, reflect the mid-twentieth century architecture of Peitro Belluschi found in Salem and echo his design of the 1935 State Capitol. The only thing familiar to residents at the time this photograph was taken is the 1924 "Doughboy" statue, still standing on the lawn. The courthouse grounds are awaiting the landscaping to be supplied by the local firm of Lord-Schrvyer.

When you visit
In 1991 the "Doughboy" World War I memorial was moved to the new Oregon Department of Veteran Affairs Building on Summer Street. It can be seen there at the south end of the Veterans Memorial Park along Mill Creek. At the Courthouse itself, the entrance has been modified and barriers erected. These were put in place after a driver crashed his car up the front steps and into the building in 2006. The public may attend trials in the Courthouse, but should inquire about scheduling and restrictions. The office of the County Clerk has property records and clerks supply help in looking up specific properties of interest. The Marion County Recorder's Office maintains a website to direct viewers to other services.

Other events

• The Grant School building, at Market and Cottage Streets NE, is being prepared for demolition after serving the community for 64 years. It will be replaced by a more modern structure now in use (2014).
• While Salem High School, on Marion Street between Center and High Streets, is being torn down, a historic Class of 1906 plaque is found. Several houses of the neighborhood are also demolished as the property is prepared for the new Meier and Frank Department Store.
• The South Salem High School on Church Street is completed this year. Students whose parents lived south of State Street could attend the new three-year high school that was then adjacent to Leslie Middle School.
• Dr. Dean Brooks, becomes Superintendent of the Oregon State Hospital. He will temporarily become an actor in 1975 when he plays a small part in the Academy Award movie, "One Flew Over the Cookoo's Nest", filmed in that Salem institution. In 1954, a new geriatrics building opens on the north side of Center Street. Dr. Brooks was born in Everett, Washington in 1916. He attended the University of Kansas Medical School in Kansas City, Kansas and graduated from there on the 1st of June 1942. He was first licensed in Oregon to practice Psychiatry on the 21st of January 1950. He retired from the practice of Psychiatric Medicine on the 31st of December 1999. He never had a single complaint filed against him in his long and distinguished career as a Psychiatrist.
• St. Paul's Episcopal Church moves its parsonage. Another photograph shows it in its original location. Currently, the former rectory is located on Leffelle Street in the Gaiety Hill/Bush's Pasture Park Historic District, directly south of the park. It is seen on the SHINE Court-Chemeketa Walking Tour.
• A new YWCA of Pietro Belluschi design is built on State Street.  This former YWCA has had various tenants and is used periodically for CERT training purposes.

The John Carson House on High Street

• The John Carson house, a landmark of many years at the southwest corner of High and Kearney Streets, is about to be razed for the construction of a church. The original structure may have been constructed about 1860.  By 1889 it was the home of John and Helen F. Carson. They raised a family of two daughters (Ester and Catherine), and three sons (Wallace, John and Allen). Mr. Carson died in 1916, but his widow continued to live there until her death in 1939. The senior Mr. Carson was one of most eminent attorneys in the Northwest and a State Senator. His grandson is Wallace P. Carson, Jr. of Salem who served as Chief Justice of the Oregon Supreme Court for 14 years and was named Citizen of the Year by the Chamber of Commerce in 2010. In 1943, a photograph of the large house with "sleeping porches" was taken from Kearney Street. The family of Evelyn Andrus lived there at that time.

The John Scott House on Court Street

• The undated photograph represents the beautiful home of Supreme Court Justice John Scott that occupied the northwest corner of Court and 12th Streets. Judge Scott died in 1952, his widow Maud lived there until her death this year. The couple, married 7 years, is enumerated in the 1910 census with her parents, James and Miranda Martin. This Victorian house may have been their home. What year it disappeared, or if it was moved, it not known.
• The annual Salem Art Association Art Fair that had moved into Bush House the year before, now becomes a "clothes-line" exhibition and sale on the Bush House grounds. The expanded Art Fair is a major tourist attraction in 2012 providing venues for art sales and family entertainment.

Salem in 1913

World Events

• The Romanov dynasty celebrates the 300th anniversary of their rule of Russia. Emperor Nicholas II is destined to be the last.
• Gandhi is arrested in South Africa during peaceful demonstration.
• Suffragettes continue to campaign for the right to vote. The women of the Social and Political Union in England begin radical response to the imprisonment and forced-feeding imposed on them.
• Woodrow Wilson is inaugurated as 28th President of the United States.
• The 16th Amendment to the US Constitution provides for the collection of an income tax.
• The 17th Amendment to the US Constitution provides for the direct election of Senators by popular vote instead of by state legislators.
• Henry Ford creates the assembly line for manufacturing.
• The new "zipper" is popular.
• Writer Ambrose Bierce, in Mexico to gain first-hand experience of the revolution, disappears. His short story, An Occurrence at Owl Creek (1890) is described as "one of the finest and most anthologized stories in American literature".
• Marcel Proust publishes (in Paris), Swann's Way, an influential novel noted for the theme of involuntary memory. New American Books:  O Pioneers! by Willa Cather and Pollyanna by Eleanor H. Porter.

Opening Day Celebration, 1913

Opening Day Celebration, 1913

In Salem
A new railroad bridge across the Willamette is completed, intended for interurban passenger and freight traffic. The new McKeon gasoline coach made three trips a day between Salem and Black Rock on the Salem, Falls City and Western Railway by way of this new bridge. Forty passengers could be accommodated aboard this coach that traveled 27 miles from terminal to terminal.
As you travel through Salem on Union Street from the bridge going east,  you will curve south to meet 12th Street. The rail tracks ran along the center of Union Street to the depot. That curve in the street reminds us of the train traffic this street accommodated.
 Between 1850 and 1900, transportation in the Willamette valley had been mainly by steamboats and railroads on each side of the river, but there were no rail crossings, only a highway bridge or ferry. By the time the railroad bridge was built, the future of interurban rail service was in doubt, but it was increasingly used for lumber, freight and canneries. Except in emergency, few passengers used the bridge and even freight use was rare by the 1970s.

When you visit

 Restoration for pedestrians, 2009

In 2001, long after the railroad traffic ceased, the bridge was offered it to the city of Salem for $1. The offer was accepted in 2004 and the restoration to pedestrians, bikes, and emergency vehicles was completed for a reopening in April 2009. Stimulus funds from the federal government provided funds for a temporary closing during the winter of 2009-10 in order to encapsulate the lead paint applied many years ago. In May of 2010 the bridge reopened for public use. Three interpretive panels (one on the Union Street side, two at the end of the trestle) highlight the historical uses of this structure. An award for engineering excellence was awarded in January of 2010 and three more since then.

Other events

• C. Siegmund became mayor.
• The new transportation opportunities across the Willamette River accelerated the growth of West Salem in Polk County: it incorporated as a city this year.

View of Front Street Viaduct from Mill Creek

• On Front Street, a bridge is built over Mill Creek to accommodate rail traffic. This is currently the oldest concrete viaduct in Oregon.
• Salem Cherrians were organized as the group to organize the annual Cherry City Parade. The former mayor, George F. Roger is the first King Bing.
• The Oregon State Insane Asylum is renamed the Oregon State Hospital.
• Salem votes to go "dry" and the local Salem Brewery Association moves to Portland.
• After the death of Asahel Bush this year, his daughter Sally boards a private railway carriage, travels east, and brings her fifty-year old sister, Eugenia, home to Salem. They live here, together again, for the next twenty years.
• The Boise Building, designed by Fred Legg, is constructed on State Street for Reuben P. Boise, Jr. Over the years it has been leased as a farm machinery store, a garage and automotive center, as steel warehouse and currently as retail store again. Reuben Boise, Jr. was the owner and editor of the Oregon Statesman. He was named for his father, a distinguished Oregon jurist, and married Minnie, the daughter of Eugene Breyman. The building is seen on the SHINE Historic Downtown Walking Tour.
• The First Church of the Nazarene builds a church 490 19th Street NE. After that congregation left, the Foursquare Church occupied the building during the 1950s. The Unitarians next purchased the property, but also moved to a new location. Since 1997, it has been our local Quaker Meeting House.
• The Christian Wiedmer house built this year, and later enjoyed as a popular cottage restaurant, has been moved to State Street and now serves as an antique shop.
• The Jones-Sherman House is built on D Street in the Grant neighborhood. Ralph Jones built this Craftsman residence and lived there until 1926. Charles Sherman, a professor of Philosophy and Psychology at Willamette University, then purchased the house. Professor Sherman died in 1963, but his wife Grace and four children owned the house until her death in 1978. The present owners, Jeanne and Corbey Boatwright, assumed a purchase contract with Sherman heirs in 1984. The property was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1989. Jeanne describes their neighborhood: "Encompassing just ninety city blocks, Grant is the smallest of the recognized Salem neighborhoods. Located adjacent to the north end of downtown, it provides the north gateway to the Capitol Mall and is a beautiful, historic part of Salem. Nearly all of the homes and buildings date to between 1900 and 1940. The many tree-lined streets and intimate lot sizes provide a friendly and close-knit neighborhood. Our treasured Grant Park is adjacent to Grant Community School - a dual language immersion school. Since 1976, the vibrant Grant Neighborhood Association has been actively working to protect this jewel of a neighborhood."

Salem in 1883

World Events

• The Orient Express makes its first run from Paris to Giurgiu in Romania and by ferry and train on to Istanbul.
• U.S. and Canadian railroads institute 5 standard continental time zones, ending confusion with local times. These are the zones we use today.
• In his hometown, Dunfermline, Scotland, Carnegie opens the first library named for him.
• The Brooklyn Bridge opens as millions of viewers wave flags and cheer this "Eighth Wonder of the World."
• Ladies in Cincinnati, Ohio can shop in the first Kroger grocery store. Families across the country are reading the new Life and Ladies Home Journal magazines,
• Bill Cody organizes his "Buffalo Bill's Wild West and Congress of Rough Riders of the World" with the added attractions of Annie Oakley, Sitting Bull, Arabs, gauchos, Turks and Mongols.
• Great year for children's books: Robert Louis Stevenson's Treasure Island is published in London, Carlo Collodi's The Adventures of Pinocchio in Italy and The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood in New York.

Oregon State Hospital Kirkbride "U" Building 2008

In Salem
In this year, Salem is introduced to the Kirkbride building of the new Oregon State Hospital. Located at 2600 Center Street NE, it stood in expansive grounds. Envisioned as an ideal sanctuary for the mentally ill, it promised to promote a healthy environment and to convey a sense of respectability. But growing patient populations and insufficient funding led to unfortunate medical conditions, impeding this goal. Over the years, much of the oldest section of the hospital became unusable and unsafe. In 2008, when this photograph was taken, the state planed an extensive renovation. In the same year, the entire campus of this 1883 institution was placed on the National Register of Historic Places. It is now returned to a red brick color.

When you visit
The campus is open to cars and all the walking paths are usable.  The new facility features a different treatment model and most of the older buildings on the south side of Center Street, in progress of renovation for several years, have been demolished and replaced. The cupola seen here, a landmark in Salem, was taken down for repair and returned to its place.  Only the front section of the "J" building was preserved and a Museum of Mental Health was created just inside the former main entrance.

Other events

• Andrew Kelly is elected mayor and will serve for two years.
• Salem Engine Company No. 3 is created in March. Equipped with the Hunneman hand pumper from Tiger Engine Company No. 2 and a hose cart. This pumper can be seen at Fire Station No. 5. It is also featured in our post entitled Fire Station Museums.
• Dr. Daniel Payton, who was one of the organizers of the Willamette University Medical School in 1866, retires from his local practice of gynecology this year. At the university he had served as Chair of the new medical specialty, Obstetrics and Diseases of Woman and Children, holding that position for thirteen years.

Rockenfield house in its original Court Street Location

• The Rockenfield House is built on the northeast corner of Court and Summer Streets, across from State House. Originally owned by C.S. Rockenfeld and his wife Sally, it later became the home of Henry Bean, Justice of the Oregon Supreme Court. In 1937, two years after the State House burned, the state purchased this property and moved the house to 755 Capitol Street to make room for the gardens adjacent to the new State Library. In 1991, during the further expansion of the Capitol Mall for construction of the State Archives, the house was moved to its present location. In the next year it opened as a part of the A.C. Gilbert’s Discovery Village. After a colorful renovation, it continues to be an attractive part of our cultural community.
• A prison break at the State Penitentiary in July of this year (prior to the building of a brick stockade to enclose the facility) resulted in five casualties; fourteen prisoners broke through the first gate, four convicts were killed outright, another died during recapture.
• Quinaby Station on the Oregon Electric Railway was named after one of the most colorful Indians in the region. In 1854, when all the Indians in the Valley were removed to the new reservation at Grand Ronde, Quinaby decided life was much more comfortable in Salem. So, despite regulations to the contrary, Quinaby, who was about 50 at the time, mounted his old horse and headed for Salem on the Fourth of July. He arrived shouting praises of the Great White Father in Washington, D. C. Actually, he expected to share in the barbecue he knew was held annually on that date. Unfortunately, it wasn't held that year. That didn't stop Quinaby, who scrounged food from his white friends, reminding them of how he had stood up for the whites in the early days. He lived in Salem for about 30 years, cadging food, conducting Indian gambling games and being generally accepted by the populace. "Chief" Quinaby died this year.
• This year the Oregon School for the Blind found its third new home. Opened in 1873, it had closed twice, but now reopened with C. E. Moore as superintendent on 12th Street between Ferry and State. The school's mission--to provide a residential facility for the state's blind people to receive training in self-help skills, language development, and work skills--remained the same. Physical education was also emphasized as "in many cases the cause which produced blindness brought also a weakening of the entire constitution." Music and debating societies were featured activities, and, just as with the other Salem institutions, a small garden and orchard was attached to the facility to provide food for the table and employment for the older students. A library stocked with books in Braille had, almost from the school's first inception provided reading opportunities for the boys and girls, men and women.

Demolition of a Historic Landmark

Looking from the east toward the Tower of the J Building at Oregon State Hospital, the beginning of the demolition is apparent. All except the original, 1894 Kirkbride section of the building is scheduled to be replaced. The entire hospital campus is on the National Register of Historic Places and only the buildings south of Center Street are effected by the construction of the new hospital facility. (Click on image to enlarge.)