Salem in 1980

World Events

• President Carter's attempt to rescue our embassy hostages in Iran fails. However, six American diplomats disguised as Canadians, escape.
•  Lech Walesa leads successful workers' strikes at Gdansk Shipyards. An agreement provides for the first free trade union in the communist bloc.
• In Winter Olympics, the "Miracle on Ice" brings hockey victory to U.S. team. The summer games in Moscow are boycotted by 50 nations because of Russia's invasion of Afghanistan.
• Republican Ronald Reagan is elected president with the support of the Conservative "Religious Right". Democrats and Moderate Republicans acknowledge that the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA), passed by both houses of Congress and ratified by 35 states by 1979 will not receive the necessary 3 more state ratifications due to Conservative opposition.
• Mt. St. Helens volcano in Washington State erupts creating a  transformation of the landscape, killing 57 and causing 3 billion dollars in damage.
• Voters in Quebec reject a proposal to seek independence from Canada.
• John Lennon is shot and killed outside his New York City apartment.
• Academy Awards:" Ordinary People" (US). "Moscow Does Not Believe in Tears" (USSR). Prize-winning books: Sophie's Choice, William Styron and The Executioner's Song, Norman Mailer.

In Salem
The character of downtown has now developed from local street-front merchants to commercial malls, enclosed areas filled with franchises of name-brand enterprises where the entrance is often through a parking structure. Nordstrom Mall is completed, bringing another nationally recognized name into the local business market. New competition is developing as large national retailers such as Costco, Shopko, Wal-Mart, Target, and Home Depot recognized Salem's market potential and open outlets in suburban Salem. The state buildings are rising ever northward from the Capitol as the Employment and Agriculture buildings are built north of Union Street and future major state construction is planned for the Mill Creek area bounded by Capitol, Summer, Winter and D Streets.

Residences just outside the traditional core of the city, the older neighborhoods of the 1920s-1930s, are being by-passed by newer residential developments, especially those further south. Fifteen of our nineteen neighborhoods have organized into associations; two more will be established this year. The photograph above is a home in one of these, Croisan-Illahe.
This romantic French Normandy style home is nestled among large oak trees, Croisan Creek running through the front yard of the home. It was built on the original Donation Land Claim of Henry Croisan who joined a wagon train for Oregon in 1846 and established a homestead here, three miles southwest of Salem. After a successful 1849 search for gold in California, he returned to farm on the original claim. The Croisans sold parcels over the years and in 1930 sold almost an acre to Earl S. Sandifer. This home, which he planned with his wife, was completed by new owners, Nels and Olga Tonning. Among the guests in their more than thirty years of hospitality were John Croisan and his wife who had lived in the old homestead on the back of the property. The property changed hands once again in May of 1969 when current owners purchased the property. This property has recently been designated by the City as a Local Landmark.

When you visit
This is a private residence, so enjoy the view from Croisan Creek Road.
The neighborhood covers 2,504 acres in the South Salem hills and has about 700 residents. Its borders are Kuebler Road, Croisan Creek Road and South River Road. The Association area is almost universally residential. Within the boundaries is one developed City Park, Nelson Park, and City owned land for a second park adjacent to the Bailey Ridge subdivision on S. River Road for future development. The Croisan-Illahe area offers easy access to Minto Brown Island Park, downtown Salem, as well as the multitude of resources throughout South Salem.

Other events

• Population reaches 98,830.
• South Salem neighborhood is also established this year. (It merged with Croison-Illahe to become SWAN.) Pioneer Cemetery is located here as well as the historic Salem Heights properties. Notable family residences are historically associated with the names Calaba, Thompson, Taylor, Nohlgren and Falk. The original owners of Buttercup Hill on Sunnyside Road are yet to be discovered. These have already been described in earlier years of this series.

• One of the aeration ponds of Windsor Island is photographed this year. The towers and buildings of the Willow Lake Wastewater Treatment Plant are mirrored on the water's surface. Since 1976, the facility has been improved with a larger capacity and a significant reduction in discharged pollutants into the Willamette River.
• Two local newspapers, the afternoon Capitol Journal and the morning Oregon Statesman, having already merged into the Gannet Company in 1974, now unite into one publication, a morning newspaper named the Statesman Journal.
• From the Oregon Historical Society comes Thomas Cronise ~ The Art Perfected, a book illustrating many of that local photographer's sensitive portraits taken in his studio on the second floor of the Bush-Brey Building on Commercial Street during the years between 1902 and 1927. An Oregon Historical Society article of this year describes the studio and equipment: The reception salon of the studio was haphazardly decorated with photographs. In the rear was the camera room where the usual array of photographic equipment, backdrops and props were located. A skylight allowed diffused north light to enter the camera room providing the soft, natural illumination so essential to fine portraiture. Cronise used a 11X14 inch studio portrait camera made of mahogany with brass fittings, which sat on a table specifically designed for raising and lowering the camera. Always accommodating and sociable to his clients, a brass birdie was supplemented by a "Jocko" hand puppet for holding children's attention.
• Another important book about local history published this year is Elizabeth McLagan's A Peculiar Paradise: A History of Blacks in Oregon, 1788-1940, published in Portland by The Georgian Press. This has been an important resource in learning about Salem's African American cultural heritage and has been one of the starting points for the further research and publication by the Oregon Northwest Black Pioneers.
• At Willamette University, an $18 million fund raising drive begins. This project will sponsor the renovation of several major academic buildings, campus grounds will be improved and the Mark O. Hatfield Library built.
• Mount St. Helens, fifty miles northeast of Portland, erupts on May 18 causing the deaths of fifty-seven people and the loss of homes, bridges and railroad tracks in addition to severe highway traffic disruption. The fall-out was apparent here in Salem and caused a new awareness of the west coast potential for geologic disaster in the future.

Salem in 1970

World Events

• The Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty is ratified by 56 nations.
• Norway announces rich oil deposits found off its North Sea coast.
• Four students are killed and nine wounded at Ohio's Kent State University during a protest against the U.S. extending the Vietnam combat into Cambodia.
• Earth Day is inaugurated; Environmental Protection Agency created; Clean Air Act passed in Congress. Norman E. Borlaug is awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for his contributions to the "Green Revolution".
• Wichita State University football team's "Gold" plane crashes on the way to Utah State game. 29 died including starting players, coach, athletic director and wives.
• Soviet author Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, who helped raise global awareness of the Gulag forced labor camps of Russia, is awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature, but declines to go to Stockholm for fear he would not be allowed to return to his family.
• The wreck of the Confederate submarine Hunley is found off South Carolina. It was the first submarine in history to sink a ship.
• Academy Awards: "Patton" (US), "Investigation of a Citizen Above Suspicion" (Italy). Prize-winning books: them, Joyce Carol Oates and The Collected Stories of Jean Stafford, Jean Stafford.

In Salem
The Salem Public Library is part of the new Civic Center being built on a hill south of Pringle Creek. Hugh Morrow was completing a thirty-three year career with this visionary project that will be completed before he retires in 1972. Mr. Morrow came to Salem in 1939 as director of the Salem Public Library. He had a great interest in history, was a member of the Oregon Historical Society and a founder of the Marion County Historical Society. He was the first president of the Oregon Library Association and secretary of the Downtown Rotary Club for 15 years. Mr. Morrow died July 20, 1990. He was an outstanding cultural leader and an honored member of the Salem community.

When you visit
Mr. Morrow is remembered at the library today by a collection of historical materials. These shelves contain not only books and pamphlets about Salem, many by local authors, but our City Directories including editions from the 1890s to the most current. For anyone doing genealogical or historic property research, these resources are invaluable.

Other Events

City Council Meeting photograph from Salem City Library collection

• 1970 City Council meetings are conducted with a slightly different physical layout than in the Civic Center of two years later. Mayor Miller, City Administrator Moore, and the city attorney are seated on a raised platform at the front of the chamber with four councilors on each side (as would be continued). Directly in front of the mayor, also facing the public, sit the city recorder, Betty Marsh, and secretary to the administrator, Mary Brady. Historically, the City Recorder had an important position in Salem city government, keeping records of meetings, being ex-officio clerk of the common council and assessor. The recorder previously had jurisdiction over all violations of city ordinances and presided in the absence of the mayor. It was an elected office from 1857 to 1964 when it became a position appointed by the City Administrator. Voters approved an amended charter in May 1996 and in June 1996 an ordinance was passed that created the office of City Recorder with in the legal Department.
• A new fire station on Lansing Avenue is completed in May. The Lansing area had been annexed into the city in 1920, but it had remained rural farmland until after the accelerated residential boom of the 1950s and 1960s that transformed farmlands surrounding the city into suburban neighborhoods. Because of the increased population between Market Street and Silverton Road, Lansing would, in 1973, become one of the first neighborhoods to become a recognized association.
• In July, a photographer snaps a dramatic picture of the traffic congestion on the Center Street Bridge ramp as cars make their way into Salem. The problem of traffic crossing the Willamette River remains a concern. Emergency access has been partially relieved by the project to remodel the Union Street Railroad Bridge and Trestle for pedestrians and bicycles. It was approved by the City Council when the plans included a provision for emergency vehicle use. A "Third Bridge" has been in the planning stages for a number of years and will need considerable federal financing to be a future reality. In 1966, a Citizen's Advisory Traffic Commission was established that meets to address all concerns about traffic on our roadways and make recommendations to the City Council in the area of traffic movement and safety. The nine appointed members meet as needed, usually on a Thursday at 7 pm. Residents are encouraged to apply for volunteer service on this important Salem commission.

• In November, a groundbreaking ceremony is held to begin the construction of the new Statesman Journal building at the corner of Chemeketa and Church Streets. (The building is for sale in 2014.)  A photograph features Jenny Mainwaring, Blanch Sprague and Wendell Webb. The construction of this building completed the transformation of the former residential area east of Church Street into commercial properties. During the previous thirty years, during the expansion of the state buildings north of the Capital and the relocation of the First Presbyterian Church, the substantial homes of many prominent citizens were either demolished or moved to other sites. Fortunately, the Court-Chemeketa Historic Residential District, between 13th and 18th streets, has preserved a flavor of an early Salem urban neighborhood and recorded the history of many pioneer families.
• Miller's Department Store closes in the historic Reed Opera House. When the Odd Fellows Hall and Grand Opera House was built in 1900, the auditorium space in the Reed Opera House was converted to Joseph Myers and Sons store. New stores adjacent to the former opera house included E.P. McCormack's smaller building to the south and the new J. C. Penney store. Liberty Street soon surpassed Commercial Street as the hub of local shopping. In 1920 Miller's department store took over the Myers store and later the entire building, creating an enterprise supplying fashions and household products in a family shopping environment typical of the next 30 years. Salem seniors still remember their youthful fascination with the system of vacuum tubes that controlled cash payments in the years before credit cards and electronics. After the close of Miller's, a major rehabilitation of the retail space would not occur until 1976.

• Christmas lights on a temporary tree decorated the old City Hall for the last time in 1970. In 1913, Salem had the first outdoor tree in the United States to be decorated with Christmas lights. The Marion County Courthouse tree was a Norway spruce tree planted by Judge J. J. Shaw in 1882. Over the years, this tree had been featured in many photographs of the old courthouse.

Salem in 1952

World Events

• King George VI dies. Daughter Elizabeth, on safari in Africa with Prince Phillip, prepares to come home and become Queen Elizabeth II. 
• Republicans Dwight Eisenhower and Richard Nixon win the US presidential election. The U.S. National Security Agency is established. Puerto Rico becomes a self-governing commonwealth of the US. On Eniwetok Atoll in the Pacific, the U.S. tests the first hydrogen bomb.
• West Germany has 8 million refugees. East German government announces the formation of National People's army.
• The United Nations meets for the first time in the New York headquarters.
• Eva Peron dies in Argentina and the legend of "Evita" begins.
• Successful Medical Firsts: In Denmark, Christine Jorgensen is recipient of a sexual reassignment procedure. In Ohio, Siamese twins recover from surgical separation. A mechanical heart is used in a human patient.
• "I Love Lucy" is the favorite TV entertainment for 10 million viewers. Academy Awards: "The Greatest Show on Earth" (US) "Forbidden Games" (France). Prize-winning books: From Here to Eternity, James Jones and The Caine Mutiny, Herman Wouk.

In Salem
Family life moves out of the dining room as the TV dinner is introduced by Swanson and little folding tables are set up in front of the TV to watch the "The Jackie Gleason Show" and Edward R. Morrow's "See It Now". National news is made local as General Eisenhower and his wife Mamie make a fifteen-minute stop at our railroad station during his campaign as Republican candidate for president. In the series of photographs taken that day, our Governor McKay is shown prominently as an enthusiastic supporter. After Eisenhower wins the election in November, he appoints the Oregon governor as Secretary of the Interior and Douglas McKay resigns to take up his new duties in Washington, D.C.

When you visit
Our Southern Pacific train station has been the scene of many happy celebrations and tearful goodbyes over the years since the first was built in 1871. It was the place of departure for troops leaving for the Spanish American War in 1898 and for battle veterans' return the next year. It was used for military transport in the both World Wars as well as the mustering station for Americans of Japanese descent who were sent to internment camps in 1942. Tourists and business travelers along the west coast of the United States, and those making connections across the country, have relied on our railroad station. This history has been recognized by the designation of the station building and the freight depot on the National Register of Historic Places. It is included in the self-guided walking tour Salem in Oregon History featured on the SHINE website. This station is on the AMTRAK west coast route.

Other Events

• Salem's city water system is improved by a 54-inch water line and state-of-the-art slow sand filters provided North Santiam River water. The system finally produced high quality drinking water demanded by residents and local industries. Of equal importance was the building of the city's first sewage treatment plant on North Front Street. In 2009 the facility was rebuilt and expanded.

• This year residents of Salem saw the demolition of Marion County Courthouse. The 1873 structure was designed by Wilbur F. Boothby who is also credited with the original Kirkbride Building of the Oregon State Hospital and the Asahel Bush house. In French Renaissance style, popular in the Victorian era to symbolize pride in public buildings, the building rose 136 feet with 33-inch walls. It was topped with a 51-foot cupola containing a clock of four faces and, above that, a wooden statue of Thelma, the Greek god of wisdom. In 1904, this statue was covered with 900 pounds of copper. She was known around the Courthouse by her catalog number, "4762". With the demolition of the courthouse, the clock went to Mt. Angel and the statue to Willamette University where is stands in the lobby of the School of Law. Finally, only the 1924 World War I Doughboy statue is left standing before a pile of rubble. The ornate Courthouse was replaced with a severe structure of Vermont marble and in 2000,when that structure became too small, an annex, Courthouse Square, was completed across Court Street to the north.
• Salem's Municipal Judge, Peery Buren, resigns due to ill health and Douglas Hay is appointed. He will continue in the elective office until 1966.
• The new Marion Street Bridge opens. At that time, this bridge was the longest of its type west of the Mississippi River. The Oregon Pulp and Paper Mill dominates the shoreline and continues to pollute the downtown air.
• The new Statesman Journal building is erected at Chemeketa and Church Streets. The traditional downtown residential neighborhoods are disappearing.
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• 

  Area outlined in blue is described below.

• The third section of Piety Hill has been demolished. Houses were either demolished or moved for the new the State Transportation Building. One of these is the Cora Moores house on Chemeketa Street (She was the daughter of Salem pioneers Obed and Charlotte Dickinson.) Purchased by Ridgely and Wanda Miller, it was transported by Augie Koenig across Bush's Pasture Park to Leffelle Street where it is today. The Frederick Thompson house, a few doors away on Summer Street, was purchased by the Stephens family and was also moved to Leffelle Street by Mr. Koenig and placed next door. (The Thompson house was also the home of Judge James Brand, who served in Nuremburg Trials.) Kathy Miller Reed and her husband, Wallace E. Reed, now live in Thompson/Brand house. The only other house saved in this third section of North Capitol Mall construction was the David Eyre house on Summer Street. You can now see this beautiful home on the northeast corner of High and Mission streets. These three residences are in the Gaiety Hill/Bush's Pasture Park Historic District in the SCAN neighborhood.
• Blue Lake Beans received considerable publicity from association with Lou Costello when he and Abbott made a movie entitled "Jack in the Beanstalk" this year. Both the movie and Blue Lake's beans were promoted at grocery stores and restaurants and Costello had over forty cases of the beans sent to his journalist and radio commentator friends.

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.

Their House Fell on Them

photo from the collection of Eileen and Doug Ebanks

Eileen and Doug Ebanks had already done a lot of research on their 1909 house when we met them in 2007. It was probably built by Adam Korb or his son David, both concrete contractors whose name can be seen pressed into many older sidewalks in Grant and SESNA neighborhoods. By 1962 when this photograph above was taken, the house was owned by Kenneth and Lucille Bass.

Walking in our Grant neighborhood one afternoon, we saw this house and were attracted by the handsome, blue-painted residence with matching fence, flowers and landscaping softening the strict lines. We introduced ourselves to the Eileen and Doug Ebanks who owned the property.

Photograph by Timothy Gonzalez of the Statesman Journal

Not many months after we met the Ebanks, we were alarmed to hear the house, on supports to excavate for a basement, had fallen in the middle of the night, July 24, 2008. Eileen, Doug and one of their young sons were sleeping inside. Eileen was seriously injured, the others only superficially. The photograph above was published in the Statesman Journal with an article stating that the Ebanks planned to rebuild their home as close to the original as possible.

Now, almost a year later, here is the rebuilt house as it appeared on June 21, 2009. They have stayed true to the spirit of the house, considering the present code requirements and the need to accommodate their careers and their family. Eileen is recovering from her back injury and so this is a happy ending to a story that could have been tragic. Yes, it has a basement ~ and will be painted blue.