Salem in 1959

World Events 

• The Tibetan government is abolished by China's Zhou Enlai. A puppet ruler replaces the Dalai Lama who granted asylum in India.
•  Fidel Castro's new, revolutionary Communist government in Cuba is recognized by the US and the Soviet Union.
• Alaska and Hawaii  become states this year.
• NASA selects seven military pilots as the first US  astronauts. Two monkeys are first living beings to successfully return to earth from space flight. Explorer 6 sends back first pictures of earth from orbit.
• The St. Lawrence Seaway, linking the Great Lakes to the Atlantic,  is opened by President Eisenhower and Queen Elizabeth II.
• Buddy Holly, the musician considered a creator of  rock-and-roll and who influenced many other pop artists, died in the crash of a chartered plane. 
• Frank Lloyd Wright's eye-catching, cylindrical building, the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, opens to the public in NYC.
• Mattel's Barbie doll and the Xerox copier are both introduced.
• "The Twilight Zone" premieres on TV. Academy Awards: "Ben Hur" (US), "Black Orpheus" (France). Prize-winning Books: The Magic Barrel, Bernard Malamud and The Travels of Jaimie McPheeters, Robert Lewis Taylor.

In Salem
Mark Hatfield has been elected as governor, but his High Street residence, purchased the year before, has to be renovated before he can move in. [Meanwhile he and family are living at the Royal Court Apartments on Chemeketa Street.] In the photograph above, the view of his property is from Kearney Street looking toward High Street with Bush's Pasture Park in the background.
It is a sign of the times that extensive electronic networks and a bomb shelter must be added in the basement. J. Warren Carkin designed a large kitchen and servants' wing that was added at the rear. The Oregon Centennial of 1959 was celebrated with many social engagements at this house and during the Legislative sessions of the Governor Hatfield's two terms, the governor's wife, Antoinette, held weekly open houses. Thousands of residents and visitors attended these events. Both Governor Hatfield and his wife posed for photographs inside the house. All four of the Hatfield children were born here.

When you visit
This house was built c. 1880 for Virgil Pringle (1804-1887) and was occupied by him until his death in 1887 and by his widow, Pherne, until her death in until 1891. His obituary recalls, "Mr. and Mrs. Pringle lived to a ripe old age and died at their home near Salem where shortly before they had celebrated their sixtieth wedding anniversary, surrounded by children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren. This was a happy reunion". The nearby Pringle Creek was named for this Salem pioneer of 1848. Note: Mission Street was the southern border of Salem city limits at the time of his death.
Even after the Mark Hatfield sold the house in 1968, it remained as a private residence. This SCAN neighborhood residence is in the Gaiety Hill/Bush's Pasture Park Historical District. It is featured on the SHINE Gaiety Hill/Bush's Pasture Park Walking Tour.

Other events

• Russell F. Bonesteele is elected mayor. The house associated with Russell and Valerie Bonesteele is at 396 18th Street in the NEN neighborhood. Mr. Bonestelle's family was in the automobile business. He served on the hospital board and the Salem City Council before his election as mayor.
• The Thomas Kay Woolen Mill announces it will close. The advent of synthetic fabrics and advances in manufacturing technology left the traditional methods of the Kay Wooden Mill unable to compete. The property has served as a non-profit entity since then. Originally known as Mission Mill Museum, it is now Willamette Heritage Center. Four pioneer structures have been moved onto the property and the institution is preserving the city's history as well as providing tours of the former mill.

Vice President Nixon and Oregon dignitaries at Centennial Celebration in Salem

• In February, the Vice President of the United States, Richard Nixon, attends the Oregon Centennial Celebration at the Capitol. From a second floor balcony, the dignitaries listen as the Portland Symphony concert opens the ceremonies. The governor was still living at the Royal Court Apartments that February and the Vice President visited the Hatfields there. In this year, less security is required for our Vice President: the tenants, aware that Mr. Nixon would be visiting, lined the railings of the lobby balcony and applauded when he entered.
• On June 9, the Capital Journal publishes a 116-page issue, entitled Oregon Centennial. Four special sections feature the 100-year history of the Willamette Valley. It is edited by William Mainwaring, son of the late publisher, Bernard Mainwaring, and is his first "major assignment" since returning from military service.
• The much-debated use of a bequest by Carroll Moores, is finally resolved with a 12-foot statuary group entitled "Guidance of Youth". An earlier suggestion that a Renoir nude be purchased with the $34,000 had been met with indignant local protest. Avard Fairbanks of Salt Lake City created a more suitable statue that was accepted by Salem public vote. It presents a pioneer father with a hoe, a pioneer mother properly attired with skirt sweeping the ground and a pioneer youth. This group statue is sited in Bush Park’s southeast corner overlooking a playing field to the east.

Lancaster Area of Salem

State Street as "Four Corners"

• An aerial photograph of the Four Corners area of Salem (State and Lancaster intersection) taken this year shows a residential suburb of homes on generous lots surrounding this business corner. The street level view shows the small businesses on the unpaved State Street in this unincorporated section of Salem.

Capitol Funeral of Douglas McKay

• The funeral of former governor Douglas McKay, later US Secretary of the Interior, is held in the Capitol. It had been the intention of the family to hold the funeral in his church, First Presbyterian, but that structure was in the middle of Winter Street, still on its journey to its new location. Governor Hatfield led the procession out of the Capitol.

Salem in 1880

World Events

• Cologne Cathedral is completed, 632 years after the the construction was begun in 1248.
• James Garfield, having served nine terms in the House of Representatives, is elected 21st President.
• Wabash, Indiana is the first electrically lit city in the world. The SS Columbia is lit up at the foot of Wall Street in New York City before sailing for Portland, Oregon via Cape Horn.
• Barnum and Bailey Circus is created. Bingo is invented.
• The first cash register is patented by James and John Ritty of Dayton, Ohio.
• The blizzard of 1880 is considered the most severe winter in our history, beginning in October and lasting into March, 1881: snow up to second floor windows and no transportation. A good reference is Laura Ingalls Wilder's book, The Long Winter that tells of her own family's efforts to survive.
• New American Books: A Tramp Abroad, Mark Twain and Ben Hur, Lew Wallace.

In Salem
Samuel Adolph constructs the brick, Italianate Adolph Block to replace wooden buildings destroyed by fire on that State Street site. It offered space for three businesses: Smith and Millican, butchers, and Adolph’s saloon were the first two. The third store included jewelers and The White House Restaurant. The Cooke/Henery family has operated a stationery store in the western two stores since 1935. It is listed on the National Register of Historic Places and is in the Downtown Historic District. A slide show of the District, including this building can be found on this SHINE web/blog.

When you visit
A renovation of this block in the 1990s has added a luncheon restaurant in the eastern half and loft apartments on the second floor. The 1868 Gill Building, also listed on the National Register, completes the photograph. The Gill Building has often been the site of a tavern, but it also has a more dignified history: the first Presbyterian congregation met here in 1869.

Other Events

• The city population reaches 2538. The city's growth was accelerated by the expansion of agriculture and logging, and the continued development of markets for these products.

• T. B. Waite, the former Fire Chief, is elected mayor. By 1886 he had become a merchant with a hardware and farm machinery business at the northeast corner of Commercial and State Streets. A photograph of the Salem Stallion Show of that year (above) clearly shows the sign advertising his establishment above the Durbin Building and horses exhibited along State Street. On the south side of the street, from the foreground, are businesses named for the Patton and Adolph families (see the same Adolph building as featured photograph for 1880 ). In the distance the new First Methodist Church.
• The city council vacates Summer Street between Court and State Streets, allowing Willson Park to enlarge and become adjacent to the State House. Located in the original Willson land, and the exact center of city, it became the focus of many early photographs.
• Christian and Christina Frickey build a house and establish a nursery at what is now 1210 Garnet Street, just east of 12th Street and the railroad tracks. Penitentiary inmates helping clear the heavily forested land. The house, also photographed in 1978, is now designated as a Local Landmark in the NEN neighborhood.
• The Italianate Virgil Pringle House is built at 883 High Street, named for one of the early pioneers of the city. Virgil K. Pringle farmed, on his acres south of town (where Pringle School was built) but mostly operated a boot and shoe shop. In those days the lighter manufacturing trades were usually carried on in the home, and he had his shop in his home and had very prosperous business. We do not know where this shop was located, but it must have been on his Salem land near the creek named for him. In middle age, he spent a good deal of his time on his farm. The High Street residence was built late in his life when he was 76 year old ~ perhaps it was his "town house". His daughter Emma, Mrs. John Hughes, built a home on the northwest corner of High and Oak streets, only a few block away. His funeral was in his "south Salem" home, presumably this one. A photograph of his widow, Pherne Brown Pringle, daughter of Tabitha Moffat Brown, is found with an article about her life, on Salem Lifelines. This residence achieved significance as the Salem residence of Mark O. Hatfield and his family home while governor 1959-67. It is a National Register property in the Gaiety Hill/Bush's Pasture Park Historic District.
• A. E. Gilbert, brother of A.C. Gilbert, builds a Queen Anne house at what is now 1950 Water Street, then several miles north of town, now in the Highland neighborhood. In 1926, Walter G. and Margaret A. Baker purchased the property. In the 1930s Baker changed his name to Zero Polaire because he felt he had been "left out in the cold" in the matter of his family's will. Mr. Polaire lived in the house into the late 1950s. It is now a Local Landmark in the Highland neighborhood.
• Situated near the southeast corner of Union and Cottage Streets in Salem, the LaFollette tree grew to be one of largest trees of its kind in Marion County. The Harry Widmers moved into the adjacent residence in 1905 and said the tree was big then. An old man about town named LaFollette told the Widmers he started the big tree about 1880 or earlier as a nut brought by wagon from Nebraska. In tree was fronted by the Heritage Tree Restaurant on Cottage Street. When this restaurant closed, the building sold and moved (c. 2006-7) to 2580 State Street. Despite many resident objections to the loss of the tree, the new owners cut it down.