Salem in 1964

World Events

• In his first State of the Union address, Lyndon Johnson announces US will conduct "A War on Poverty." In November he defeats Conservative Republican Barry Goldwater in presidential election.
• 24th Amendment of the Constitution abolishes poll tax; Civil Rights Act passes in Congress. Martin Luther King, Jr. awarded Nobel Peace Prize for (in part) "having shown us that a struggle can be waged without violence."
•  John Lennon announces Beatles will not play to segregated audience.
• Nelson Mandela given sentence of life imprisonment in South Africa.
• Fifty-four East Germans use tunnel to escape under Berlin wall. Thieves steal the head of Little Mermaid statue in Copenhagen (it is recovered). Italy asks for help to prevent collapse of Pisa's Leaning Tower.
• Cassius Clay, world boxing champion, changes name to Muhammad Ali. He defeats Sonny Liston is one of the most watched games in that sport.
• U.S. Surgeon General reports smoking may be dangerous to health.
• Alaskan 9.2 earthquake, most powerful ever recorded North America, kills 125 and inflicts massive damage to Anchorage.
• The New York World's Fair commemorates 300th anniversary of British conquest of Dutch New Amsterdam, renaming it New York. The Verrazano-Narrows bridge across New York Bay opens.
• Academy Awards: "My Fair Lady" (US),"Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow" (Italy). Prize-winning Book: The Centaur, John Updike.

In Salem

Christmas Day brings a flood of the Willamette River and its tributaries within the city when snow and freezing temperatures early in the month gave way to warm temperatures and 4 inches of rain in a 48-hour period. Accumulated snow melted quickly creating a heavy runoff, which by December 22 swelled the Willamette at the rate of three inches per hour at Salem. The next day, the Willamette crested at 37.78 feet. More than 1,000 residents from their Keizer homes and National Guardsmen also helped evacuate 121 patients from Memorial Hospital that suffered from its proximity to Pringle Creek. Salem's new $3 million sewage treatment plant was disabled by floodwaters, and, although it remained structurally sound, raw sewage began flowing directly into the Willamette River. This happened at other locations along the river as well, creating a major health threat. The State, armed with supplies of typhoid vaccines, braced itself for problems, but fortunately no epidemic resulted.
The flood also hit Boise-Cascade. At the plant on Commercial Street, water filled the basement. 500 employees were put out of work when the plant was knocked out of operation. Some other downtown businesses had as much as 30 inches of water. In the farm areas around the city, agricultural losses were high because the ground had not been able to thaw before the floods hit.
Damages exceeded those of the Columbus Day Storm in 1962. Governor Mark Hatfield declared the entire State an emergency disaster area, and called the flooding, "the worst disaster ever to hit the state."
(Thanks to Kathleen Clements Carlson and Salemhistory website.)

When you visit
The newspapers of 1964 carried extensive articles and pictures that are still relevant.
The Capital Journal newspaper noted that, without the seven flood control dams on the Willamette River, the River would have crested at 37.5 feet at Salem rather than 30 feet: a height that would rival the 1861 flood that inundated Salem and completely drowned the historic towns of Champoeg and Butteville. In the photographs above, we get an idea of the flooded streets, but even more dramatic is the view of the Union Street Railroad Bridge. Walking across that that pedestrian bridge today, one notices the great distance to the river below. During this flood the waters seem to be just a few feet below the structure.
On December 26, the Oregon Statesman published a four-page pictorial section filled with photographs of the Western Oregon disaster. The front-page title, spread over the page, read, "It Began With Ice... Then Came Snow...Then-Rain...And Then-The Flood..." The final page was titled "Hospital Abandoned" with an aerial picture of the flooded hospital at the Winter and Oak streets intersection and two other photographs of rescued patients. Photographs of the flood waters around the hospital are displayed at the History of Salem Hospital mural in B Building.
Since the majority of downtown Salem and neighborhoods along the river are presently in the "flood plain", residents need to be aware of emergency services that are available. CERT, (Community Emergency Response Team), sponsored by the Salem Fire Department, is an excellent source of disaster information. Neighborhood volunteer groups are being established. A series of six classes teaches emergency skills that can save lives. Practice exercises are held routinely. The program is managed by Roger Stevenson who can be contacted by telephone at 503 763 3331 or by email at rstevenson@cityofsalem.net. New members are welcome.

Other Events

• This year the City establishes the Salem Human Rights and Relations Commission. This Board aids all, particularly minorities, disabled, and other diverse members of the community, by hearing and resolving discrimination complaints and promoting harmony. Meetings are held the second Tuesday of each month at 6:00 p.m. Special meetings, complaint hearings, and forums may be held as needed. An outstanding 2009 program was a film presentation about past Ku Klux Klan activities in Oregon. It drew a standing-room-only crowd at Loucks Auditorium.
• City Manager Kent Mathewson resigns and Doug Ayers is appointed.
• Mission Mill Museum, Inc. (later Mission Mill Museum Association), is incorporated with the intent of buying the old mill and moving the 1841 Jason Lee House and Methodist Parsonage to the site. David Duniway, Oregon State Archivist 1946-1972, is the first Director of the Association. He also wrote the Salem entry for this year's edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica.
• Since 1955, Chemeketa Community College classes, operated by Salem Public Schools, had been held at a West Salem elementary school on McNary and 3rd Street. This year it moves to the site of its present site on Lancaster Drive. The campus soon included a one-story brick building, a machine shop, a welding shop, and a number of temporary buildings.

Water Pumping Station

• The 1871 water pumping station at Commercial and Trade Streets is razed. In the early years of the city, this station provided power for water distribution from cisterns at various points downtown. The two round buildings were part of the operations between the millrace and Trade Street in the block between Commercial & Liberty streets. The Salem Firehouse #1 is located there now. Construction of the water works was begun in early 1871 and water was being pumped to the homes in Salem by the end of the year. Huge cisterns were located at various points in downtown Salem.
• A former Salem citizen who became President of the United States dies this year. Herbert Hoover, as a ten-year-old orphan, came to Salem in 1885 to live with his uncle and aunt, Henry and Laura Minthorn in their Highland Addition home. Through working with his uncle, president of the Oregon Land Company, he learned many skills that helped him be successful as a member of the "pioneer class" at Stanford University in 1891 and to earn a fortune as a mining engineer. Hoover served as President of the United States from 1929 to 1933. Growing up in Salem, he became acquainted with another orphan, Charles McNary, who also became leading Republican politician of the 1920s and 1930s. In 1947, President Truman brought Hoover back into national service to help make the federal bureaucracy more efficient through the Hoover Commission.

Salem in 1960

World Events 

• President Eisenhower authorizes a million dollars toward relief of Cuban refugees arriving in Florida at a rate of 1000 a week.
• Gary Powers, U-2 pilot,  shot down over Russia, was given 10-year prison sentence for espionage. At a United Nations Assembly, Soviet Premiere Khrushchev pounds his shoe on the lectern to protest discussion of Soviet policies toward Eastern Europe.
• U.S. nuclear submarine USS Triton completed the first underwater circumnavigation of the earth.
• In Buenos Aires, Mossad agents abduct Adolph Eichmann for trial in Israel for crimes against humanity.
• Wilma Rudolph, Cassius Clay and Rafer Johnson star in Rome Olympics. Ethiopian Abbie Bikila wins the marathon, running barefoot, to become the first Sub-Saharan to win Olympic Gold.
• After the first televised campaign debate, John F. Kennedy first Catholic and second-youngest candidate, wins election as President of the U.S.
• Birth-control pill approved by FDA.
• Academy Awards: "The Apartment" (US), The Virgin Spring (Sweden). Prize-winning Books: Goodbye, Columbus, Phillip Roth and Advise and Consent, Allen Drury..

In Salem

1960 ~ acid ball arrives in Salem

2010 ~ Eco Earth Ball as a symbol of our city's place in the world

In Salem
The 1960 Ben Maxwell photograph above shows a tugboat pushing a globe tank into a Salem facility identified as the Columbia Paper Company. The asphalt-covered stainless steel Acid Ball weighed 10 tons and was 25 feet in diameter. When installed, the pressurized tank held acid that was used to "cook" wood chips into pulp.
The Columbia Paper Company was associated with Oregon Pulp and Paper Company for the production of newsprint. The sawmill of Oregon Pulp and Paper closed in 1955 and Boise Cascade assumed that company's operations on the Salem waterfront in 1962. Boise Cascade demolished the portion on the mill that used this acid ball in 1982.

When you visit
When the city purchased the former industrial land along the Willamette River for a park, there was no plan for this relic. A community effort of 5 years, completed in 2003, turned this industrial tool into the work of art covered with 86,000 colored tiles. The Eco Earth Ball is positioned at the south end of Riverfront Park on a headland overlooking the Pringle Creek entrance into the Willamette River.
An interpretive marker recalls, " It was through community effort that the idea of Eco-Earth proceeded forward with generous local donations and countless hours of volunteer labor going into its creation. The final outcome was Eco-Earth, a vibrant symbol of our world's struggle for peace, cultural diversity and ecological awareness."

Other events

• The Salem population is 68,309.
• Willard Marshall accepts the Salem award as All American City.
• Five members of the Salem Diving Association are photographed in wetsuits and flippers as they prepare to jump from the deck of the "Maid of Bayne" into the chilly waters Willamette River.
• In August there is a groundbreaking ceremony for the new National Guard Armory on 17th Street. The armory building was completed that year. The auditorium was location for EJD sponsored concerts and dances for about twenty years and continues to host a variety of events, including visits from prominent entertainment and political personalities.
• In September, John Kennedy greets a supporter at the airport, and then visits the State Fair as part of his campaign for the presidency. His youngest brother Ted accompanied him.
• The Pringle Park building in completed in November. The present building and plaza were built after the flood of 1996. Funds from our Sister City in Japan, Kawagoe, helped with the restoration. (A Sister City Advisory Commission was established in 1966 that meets as needed.)

Prospects for Capitol Mall

• The state produces proposed scale models of how the Capitol Mall was expected to look when completed. It includes structures along the Winter-Summer-Capitol streets corridor as far as D Street. These plans, including the prospect that Summer Street would be eliminated south of "D" Street and a series of high-rise structures were envisioned for west of Winter Street, were never realized. Subsequent state buildings, located to the east of Winter Street and the State Archives Building are prominent alterations from this plan. Instead of the dome (pictured at the north end of the mall) there is now a Heritage Park along D Street that makes an attractive transition from state offices to the Grant residential neighborhood to the north.
• The Shasta Daylight, a fast west coast rail connection between Portland and San Francisco, makes stops in Salem. The train left Portland at 7:45 a.m., stopped in Salem a little over an hour later at 8:55, and arrived in San Francisco at 11:30 that night. The Southern Pacific Railroad maintained a freight station downtown on the northwest corner of Trade and Commercial. 

Religious Figures at Christmas at Capitol

• At Christmas, life-sized nativity figures were erected on the Capitol grounds. After the controversy over religious displays on government property, they were transferred to Willamette University the next year. Vandals later destroyed the figures.

Salem in 1868

World Events

• The 14th Amendment is passed guaranteeing citizenship to all persons born or naturalized in the United States.
• President Johnson is impeached by the House, but acquitted by the Senate.
• The game of badminton is introduced.
• Louisa May Allcott writes Little Women.

In SalemThe disastrous earthquake along the Pacific this year affected world populations in their most basic need, clean water. The property seen above along Pringle Creek is typical of the beautiful streams that have flowed through Salem since its founding. Although you would not want to drink this water, it is certainly cleaner now than it was in 1868 when there was no city water or sewer system and all human and industrial waste was emptied into local streams and into the Willamette River. The best source of household water then was a shallow well on your own property. For those without wells, an enterprising Chinese citizen, Lee Tong, collected water in discarded oil tins and sold it to his customers. The health of residents was affected by all local sources of water: typhoid was a common cause of death. The few doctors in Salem were most often self-educated, and remedies for illness came from general stores selling drugs of uncertain origin.

When you visit: Pringle Creek
The Willamette River has not recovered from the years of human and industrial waster. However, Riverfront Park offers panoramic views of that important historic waterway. Scenes like the one photographed above can be enjoyed along Pringle Creek in Bush's Pasture Park. Entering on Mission Street at the parking lot near University Street, walk into the wooded park over trail nearest the creek, on your left. Several byways, useful in summer, take you to the creek itself. The trail extends to Leffelle Street at the south end of Bush's Pasture Park in the SCAN neighborhood. Both of these self-guided walking tours are available for viewing on SHINE.

Other Events

• Salem has a lively theatrical community at this time: the dramatic society offers "Kill or Love" and "The Toodles" at Griswold’s Theater at the southwest corner of State and Commercial Streets. Admission ranges from 25 to 75 cents.
• In January, African-Americans from Salem and Albany gathered to celebrate the fifth anniversary of the Emancipation Proclamation. In a rare display of racial harmony, the celebration was attended by whites of both political parties. The Salem Daily Record reported that six of the blacks at the celebration had been freed by the Emancipation Proclamation.
• The Hall's ferry began operating this year, but did not acquire the name until 1882 when B. F. Hall, its operator, purchased the enterprise in 1882. Hall's Ferry Road, crossing South River Road in south Salem now marks the approximate location of this early transportation across the Willamette River. 
• John G. West, father of Oswald West, later a governor of Oregon, built a home on Oak Street. It was moved to D Street in the late 1990s.

Knight Memorial Church

• Rev. Plutarch S. Knight becomes pastor of the First Congregational Church where he gains fame as the "Marrying Preacher", performing at least 1,332 marriages. He was a founder and leader in both civic and business institutions of the new city as attested by his 1914 obituary: "P. S. Knight ... came to Salem in December of 1857. He attended Willamette University from 1857 to 1860. He was married to Eleanor Smith April 21st, 1861 in the old Methodist church building in Salem that now serves as a laundry. [They celebrated a 50th anniversary of their marriage.] He was reporter and editor of the Statesman from 1862 to 1864, being engaged in this work when the daily issue was commenced. He was also state librarian for 1862 to 1864 and was city recorder in 1863, when the fees of the office amounted to not more than $100 a year. He also read law, and was admitted to the bar in 1864. He was ordained a Congregational minister at Oregon City in 1866, and was pastor of the Congregational church of Salem from 1867 to 1883 sixteen years. He was superintendent of schools for Marion County from 1870 to 1872. He had charge of the Oregon School for Deaf Mutes from 1871 to 1892. His salary part of the time was nominal, part of the time nil. The degree of Doctor of Philosophy was conferred upon him by Willamette University in 1890, on account of actual work, illustrated by a course of lectures.
  "He platted Knight's addition to Salem in 1888; bought Capital Park addition in 1889; Central addition and part of Capital Home addition in 1890; Simpson addition in 1891. Substantial improvements have been made in all of these and more than 500 lots in all sold. Mr. Knight has built about thirty houses in the two years past, which have been sold mostly on the "installment plan" to working people. Mr. Knight was the moving spirit and the largest original stockholder in the Capital City electric railway, started in 1890, which has grown into such an extensive and valuable property. As a minister, a writer, a public speaker, a public spirited and useful citizen, as a business man--Mr. Knight has kept the esteem, respect and confidence of the people among whom he has led such a busy, active and useful life." A monument marks his grave in Pioneer Cemetery and the Knight Memorial Church, named in his honor in 1926 was the second Congregational Church in Salem. It now houses a Korean religious community.

Opening Up the City to the River

It's a little ironic to see the sign for a Historic Tour in front of the demolition of the old paper mill on Front Street. One of the advantages we can anticipate when this building is removed is a Pringle Creek Trail through city parks to the Willamette. Salem's attention is finally turning toward its beautiful urban river!