Salem in 2002

World Events

• British al-Quada convert, Richard Reid, the 2001 "Shoe Bomber", pleads guilty. (Subdued, the Miami-Paris flight had returned to Logan Airport in Boston.)
• When a vote is taken in Gibraltar, the citizens reject Spanish sovereignty to remain a British Overseas Territory.
• Queen Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom celebrates her Golden Jubilee  in her 50th year on the throne.
• Homeland Security Act is established " to insure a homeland that is safe, secure, and resilient against terrorism and other hazards".
• "Sour Biscuit" fires rage in Oregon and California.
• Winter Olympics are held in Salt Lake City. Utah is the fifth state to host the Olympic games.
• Murder charges against Ward Weaver of Oregon City dominate national newspapers.
• Jimmy Carter is awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for untiring efforts find peaceful solutions to international conflicts, advance democracy and human rights and promote economic and social development.
•  Academy Awards: "Chicago" (US). "Nowhere in Africa" (Germany). Prize-winning Books: Three Junes, Julia Glass and Empire Falls, Richard Russo.

In Salem
In this year, due to the declining use of industrial property and the age of residences in the Edgewater and Wallace Road areas, the West Salem Redevelopment Advisory Board is established as an eleven-member group advising the city's West Salem Urban Renewal Agency. The duties of the Board include considerations of conservation, rehabilitation, and redevelopment matters within the West Salem Urban Growth Renewal Area. The formerly prosperous canning industry, which brought business and residential growth to the Edgewater and Wallace Road areas, had declined to the extent that the neighborhood needed assistance in promoting new business, recovering property values and increasing public services.
Notice was already being taken of the historical value of some residential properties. The Historic Landmarks Commission had designated nine properties as West Salem Local Landmarks. The new Board could now work with the city agencies and departments to recognize both the residential needs and the potential for business improvement of the whole urban renewal area.

When you visit
Among the attractive residential areas of West Salem, Kingwood in the Edgewater area stands out. This house at 270 Kingwood Drive was featured on the cover of the Edgewater Walking Tour brochure of 2009. The neighborhood spans over a century of construction dates, beginning in 1900. The first plats were dated in the late 1800s and Kingwood Park in 1909. Homes were built by different builders or by homeowners themselves, giving the neighborhood a diversity of style and size not always reflected in newer residential areas. There are several large homes, but small cottages are really the heart of Edgewater, many built in the 1930s as jobs were created in the local canneries or the paper mill across the Willamette River.
A subject for discussion by the West Salem Redevelopment Advisory Board (2010) is the possibility of a future West Salem branch of the Polk County Museum. (See 2000 in this series.) To learn more about current activities of the Board, contact a city staff member at 503-588-6178.

Other events

• Janet Taylor is elected as mayor to take office in January of 2003. Mike Swaim gave up a run for a fourth term as mayor in a bid for Oregon's House of Representatives. He lost to Billy Dalto.
• The Statesman Journal reports the top story of the year is the opening of the West Salem High School in September, "a $49 million dream come true for residents on the other side of the Willamette River and Salem-Keizer's first new high school in 23 years. It immediately became home to more than 1,300 students and a center of activity for the area Friday night football games." At the same time, the state's ongoing budget crisis affected local schools as bus routes are longer and classroom programs cut or scaled back.
• As Superintendent of Public Instruction, Susan Costello is the first Hispanic woman to be elected to statewide office. She served until the 2012 reorganization of Oregon's public education.
• The City Council approves a downtown Conference Center facing Commercial Street on the former Marion Hotel site. The project will constructed in cooperation with VIPS, owner of Phoenix Inns. A hotel will be adjacent on the Liberty Street side of the block south of Ferry Street. Our newspaper reports, "Supporters see the conference center as the engine to pull downtown out of an economic rut."
• Property crime increases due to Salem being a hub for narcotics activity and budget problems causing jail capacity to dwindle as property thieves are released to make room for violent offenders.
• Section 62 of the City Charter adds Ethical Standards. The goal of the measure is to ensure public confidence in the impartiality of elected or appointed city officials. Each is required to disclose any past or present business or family relationships, any direct and indirect campaign contributions or gifts that might influence any decision.
• A Community Police Review Board is established to review unresolved complaints against members of the Salem Police Department.
• Former governor Bob Straub dies. The Statesman Journal reports, "He has been praised been for his many public contributions during 20 years in office, including the governorship 1975-79: protecting Oregon beaches and the Willamette River, defending land-use planning. He was also remembered for many personal acts during the three decades he and Pat lived in a farmhouse in West Salem: helping others less fortunate, donating land for a city park..."
• The Olympic torch passes through 8 miles of Salem, between lines of school children and state workers. A crowd of 2,500 converged on the State Capitol to celebrate the lighting of the cauldron.

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).