Salem in 1948

World Events

• After serving the remainder of the late FDR's term, Harry Truman is elected in a political upset. He signs the Marshall Plan to aid 16 war-torn nations. U.S. conducts an airlift, saving Berlin from Russian control. The World Health Organization is established by the U.N.
• Israel is established. 
• Mahatma Gandhi is assassinated. ("Gandhi" film, 1982)
• A Columbia River dyke breaks, obliterating Vanport, Oregon in 15 minutes: an unknown number die, thousands homeless.
• The first Olympics games since 1936 are held in London and St. Moritz, Switzerland. The Tournament of Roses and Rose Bowl game are televised by Warner Brothers as newsreel in color. ABC begins television services.
• Albert, the first monkey astronaut is launched into space, but parachute recovery was unsuccessful. 
• This year's film, "Hamlet", will prove the Academy Award winner. Prize-winning book: Tales of the South Pacific, by James A. Mitchener.

In Salem
In the 1930s, a small Temple Beth Sholom congregation began meeting in private homes. Gatherings moved to rooms in an old downtown building at Chemeketa and Commercial Street. Services were held three flights up, around a wood fireplace with twenty or thirty participants. As the congregation grew, they considered building a home of their own. The first building committee was established in 1934, but was interrupted by World War II. In 1947, a building fund campaign sponsored by 36 donors raised $18,000. The first meeting in the congregation's new synagogue, Temple Beth Sholom, was held on January 20, 1948. It is the only example of mid-century synagogue architecture in the city. A Mogen David (Star of David), identifying the building as a Jewish house of worship, is part of the brickwork facing Broadway Street.

When you visit
After five decades at its 1764 Broadway location, the congregation had grown too large for its home. As preparations were made for renovation, another option appeared. Our Savior's Lutheran Church in South Salem had also outgrown its facilities and was moving. That property was purchased. On September 17, 2006, the members of Temple Beth Sholom, with the participation of the Salem community, marched the Torahs 5.2 miles to their new home. The former temple property has been designated as a Local Landmark. In May (2010), the building was sold to Joslin's American Ballet Academy for a dance/performing arts center. This building has recently been designated by the City as a Local Landmark.

Other events

• A January flood in West Salem closes the vehicle bridge at Center Street. The railroad bridge is pressed into passenger service to rescue residents. After the emergency, it was discovered the trestle was heavily damaged and could have washed out with the weight of the trains.
• A smiling and confident Harry Truman poses for photographs at the airport during a visit to Salem during his cross-country presidential campaign in June.
• There is more airport excitement in August when the first jet plane arrives.
• The boyhood home of a former president, Herbert Hoover, at Hazel and Highland Avenues, is vacant and for sale. It has since been completely transformed and is no longer recognized as the same structure.
• Douglas McKay, a local businessman who had been mayor, is elected governor. McKay had come to Salem as a young man with a wife and three small children to make a living as a car dealer. His great success in such a competitive occupation was a testament to his drive and personality. His career in politics had one drawback ~ he took him and his wife Mabel out of Salem, where they were both more comfortable and could enjoy their family.
• Two old school buildings are demolished: the 1890 Grant School on Market and Cottage Street, demolished in 1954; and the even older 1867 South School between Mission and Kearny on the west side of Commercial Street.
• The "Statesman House" is part of a vanishing residential neighborhood at Church and Chemeketa Streets when it is scheduled to be demolished for the future Statesman Journal building.

The Piety Hill homes on Court Street and Capitol Street are demolished. Clockwise:  Bush,  Robertson, Thayer, Miles, Spaulding.

• Construction of the North Capitol Mall begins again with the demolition of homes on the Court Street block west of Capitol Street for the Highway Building, renamed the Public Service Building. Among the homes razed were those of Charles K. Spaulding and B. Clarkson Miles. These large homes were occupied by close friends whose driveway porte-cocheres almost touched. The electric power for both houses was supplied, for a fee, by the generator of their neighbor, A.N. Bush. A photograph taken a few years before Mrs. Thayer built her house shows the Miles house and neighbors.
• The 1926 Estelle Bush Thayer house on Capitol Street, around the corner from the Miles home, is also demolished. Mrs. Thayer had eloped to marry Claudius Thayer and lived away form Salem (and one suspects at a distance from her disapproving father) in Tillamook and then in California. Tragically, she lost first his husband (always in poor health) and then her only child, her young daughter Eugenia. As a widow she returned home and lived here until her death in 1942.

A. N. Bush home, last of the Capitol Street homes, just before demolition in 1948.

• A.N. Bush also had to leave his house, two doors north of the Thayer house, and so returned to his former home (now Bush House Museum) where his sister Sally had lived until 1946. However, his household staff, as elderly as himself, objected to the steps in the old "farmhouse". Henry Compton, on behalf of Mr. Bush, had to go to the State of Oregon Land Board to buy the elevator in the Capitol Street house before it was demolished. The elevator was moved to Bush House where it still operates.

Salem in 1866

World Events

• The Canadian Parliament has its first meeting in Ottawa, its capital city.
• In Sweden, Alfred Nobel, a manufacturer of cannon and other armaments, invents dynamite. Condemned as the "merchant of death", he bequeathed his fortune to establish the Nobel Prizes in areas such as culture, science and world peace.
• The Reconstruction begins in Tennessee, the first Confederate state readmitted to the Union.
• The first Civil Rights Act is passed by Congress to affirm that all citizens, including African Americans recently freed from slavery, are equally protected under law.
• Two household products known today have their beginning:  Nestle and General Mills.
• The ASPCA is founded in NYC to provide an organization working to protect animals from cruel treatment.
• A new US coin, the "nickel," is circulated.

In Salem
The first Equal Rights Law, established this year, does not speak of education, but in a prosperous democracy, it is vital. Salem began educating its youth in 1851when a log cabin on the southwest corner of Marion and Commercial Streets became Salem's first school, supported mainly by tuition. By 1857 a larger school was needed, and Central School (above) was built by the county near High Street between Center and Marion Streets. By 1859 there were 227 school age children in the district, but there is no record of how many children actually attended school. Ten-year-old T. T. Geer, a future Governor of Oregon from 1899 to 1903, attended Central School in 1861. By 1865 the number of children in the district had grown to 632 with 200 students in attendance at Central School.

By 1866 there are 600 children of school age in Salem, 200 of these crowded into Central. For the photograph above, they leaned out of windows and clustered outside. This year the district levies a 5-mill tax to build two new schools. One was built in north Salem and the second school, South School, as it was named, was originally located at Fir and Myers Streets, but was moved to South Commercial Street in 1892. The school building was later used in turn as a cider mill, machine shop and as the W. A. Barkus Feed Mill. The building existed as late as the 1960s.

Between the years of 1866 to 1869 "Little" Central School and East Salem School were built. "Little Central," " School was near the original Central School with fifteen non-Anglo students taught by Mrs. R. Mallory. It would be Salem's only segregated school. (This may be the smaller building seen in the photograph above.)

When you visit: Central School site
These 1866 school buildings do not exist today. In 1906, Central School gave up its site for the new Salem High School. This school was demolished in 1954 for the Meier and Frank Department Store, now Macy's.

Other Events

• The Oregon State Penitentiary is moved to Salem with inmates transferred from Portland to a temporary wooden facility in Salem and set to work manufacturing bricks for a permanent prison structure. The photograph above was taken in the 1880s when the brick establishment was completed. This building has been replaced by a new, heavily enclosed, buildings on a large property in the 2600 block of State Street. It is adjacent to the Oregon State Hospital with an entrance on Center Street. 

An instrument used in these early years to restrict prisoners from escaping was the "Oregon Boot," a weighted shoe to hamper prisoners' walking. One of these can be seen in an exhibit at Oregon Corrections Enterprises at 3691 State Street. Call (503) 378-2677 for an appointment.

• In this same year, an editorial in the Oregon Statesman called for the establishment of a County infirmary to care for "the aged and infirm who are thrown upon the charities of the world". A Poor Farm account on a farm near Silverton was set up in 1870.
• New businesses in 1866 include Capitol Lumber on Front Street along the Willamette River (submerged by flood of 1890) and Pioneer Oil on the property that in 1889 would house the Thomas Kay Woolen Mill.Westacott Brewery was established on Commercial Street at the site of the present Meridian Building.
• Individuals chosen to care for the indigent in Salem were often doctors or owners of boarding houses. A contract between Dr. G. W. Brown and Marion County in October of this year stipulates that the doctor would take in any county charges for $4.00 per week. An editorial in the Oregon Statesman called for the establishment of a County Infirmary to care for "the aged and infirm, who are thrown upon the charities of the world."
• Dr. Daniel Payton, who had moved with his family to Salem in the previous year, organized the medical department of Willamette University. He took the chair of Therapeutics, after wards Obstetrics and Diseases of Women. He held that position for thirteen years and received the honorary distinction of Professor Emeritus. From 1874 and 1875 he was dean of the medical school at Willamette University. In 1878, the Medical Department was moved to Portland, Oregon. Payton retired from active teaching when the Medical Department closed. In that year, his wife Elizabeth died. He continued to conduct his medical practice in Salem until 1883 and devoted his efforts to his newfound specialty, gynecology. He was a distinguished citizen of Salem, serving as director of the Salem public schools for twelve years, Mayor of Salem for one term, and Representative of Marion County in the Oregon State Legislature for one term.