Salem in 1976

World Events

• Mao Zedong of Communist China dies after a mortality record of causing up to 70 million deaths due to executions and forced labor.
• IRA bombs explode in London. Ten thousand Protestant and Catholic women demonstrate for peace in Northern Ireland. (Irish rock band U2 is formed by drummer Larry Mullen.)
• The US celebrated its 200th anniversary. Jimmy Carter is elected as President after a Democratic convention keynote address is delivered by a first African-American, Barbara Jordan.
• "Legionnaires' Disease" strikes in Philadelphia causing 29 deaths. The Ebola virus occurs in Yambuku, Zaire.
• The (supposed) last U.S. convertibles roll out of Detroit, new Apple Company, founded by Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak.
• At Uganda's Entebbe Airport, Israeli commanders free 103 hostages held by Palestinian hijackers of an Air France plane.
• Viking 2 spacecraft lands on Mars: NASA releases Mars photo. 
• Nadia Comaneci earns the first of 7 perfect scores 10  in gymnastics at the Summer Olympics in Montreal.
• Academy Awards: "Rocky" (US) and "Black and White in Color" (France). Prize-winning Books: J R, William Gaddis and Humboldt's Gift, Saul Bellow.

In Salem
A 40-year Salem controversy between a local cooperative, Salem Electric and PGE over electric power service was resolved this year, bringing underground wiring to downtown. Salem Electric was founded in 1938 by a group of West Salem residents led by Harry Read. Mr. Read stubbornly refused to limit SE's growth into downtown Salem commercial area, linking its West and North Salem service areas. During 1968, after several years of discussions, Salem Electric and PGE reached agreement on service boundaries for the Salem/Keizer area. In 1972, Salem Electric received its third point of delivery, Brush College Substation, from Bonneville Power Administration, providing a 70% increase in the co-op's available capacity. In 1975, Salem Electric's Board approved a $1 million loan to continue its acquisition of the remainder of PGE facilities and for conversion of overhead to underground facilities in the downtown area. When the project was complete, Liberty Street gained this improved appearance (seen in 2007) as part of a revitalized business environment.

When you visit
Salem Electric has moved from its former headquarters adjacent to downtown Salem. In 1968, Salem Electric had constructed a new office building and warehouse located adjacent to the old headquarters on the northwest corner of Front and Union Streets. But in 1976, the City of Salem condemned the co-op's eight-year-old headquarters as a part of its Front Street widening project. The current headquarters are on Seventh Street in West Salem.

The historic downtown, one of our most attractive civic features, has been listed on the National Register of Historic Places. Many of the designated Local Landmark buildings have informative plaques at their entrances. For an online walking tour, please click on that image on the homepage of SHINE. For a copy of the 2011 booklet that is a guide through the history of downtown Salem, call the Community Development Department at 503 588 6173.

Other Events

• Craig Metten provides a dramatic sight for pedestrians on the ground as he scales the First Methodist Church tower during repairs. The steeple is replaced at this time. An even more startling photograph is taken looking down at Craig and the street below at the intersection of State and Church Streets.

View from Methodist Church steeple

Dining atop the Equitable Building

• The new Equitable Building at Center and High Streets, now completed, rises above the one-story businesses to the south at Chemeketa Street. This new six-floor tower has a bank on the ground floor with offices above. But the real treat is the opportunity for a downtown view from one of the floor-to-ceiling windows of the Loft Restaurant on top floor. Unfortunately, the restaurant was open only a few years.
• The Oregon State Capitol undergoes an expansion this year with wings at the north and south along State Street.
• Karr's Tavern occupies the historic Boon Store; the renovation to contemporary use of this 1860 building is yet to come. The interior had the appearance of a living room in a residence. The 1846 Boon House had been removed to Mission Mill Museum property and placed on the National Register of Historic Places the year before.
• Our McNary Airfield Air Control Tower receives an award for meritorious service by the Oregon National Guard. United Airlines is serving Salem this year with regularly scheduled commercial and passenger flights.
• In August, Salem residents enjoy rides over the city in a Goodyear blimp. Refer to Oregon Historic Photographs Collection for many aerial views of Salem in 1948 and 1976.
• The Downtown Development Advisory Board is created this year. Composed of a total of 11 members, 6 presently represent the interests of business, property owners and others with interest in the Riverfront Downtown Urban Renewal Area and 5 represent the community at large. Two members represent West Salem specifically.

The Reed Opera House undergoing renovation

• A major rehabilitation of the Reed Opera House provides space for almost two dozen small retail stores in the basement and first floor. An attractive mezzanine opens the area for attractive vistas of the interior. Due to the attention being given to Salem historic preservation, the building is successfully nominated for the National Register in 1978. The Reed Opera House is featured on the Historic Downtown walking tour slide show on SHINE website.

Five neighborhood associations are organized this year:

• Morningside, which is generally bordered by Madrona and Kuebler Drive as you travel south, east of Commercial and west of Fairview Industrial Drive. Businesses line both sides of Commercial Street, but the neighborhood remains residential. It was originally an area of orchards and a few properties still reflect that history. The SHINE Morningside photograph album shows 2 Local Landmark structures moved to the neighborhood, 3 that were in orchards, a significant International style home and another associated with one of Salem's most prominent early families.
• Southeast Salem Neighborhood Association (SESNA) is located south of State Street where early middle class families as well as laborers of the Kay Mill and the railroad built their small craftsman houses 100 yeas ago.
• Sunnyslope, is a relatively new South Salem section of the city and has had little historical research. The Wingate house on Kuebler Drive is the only representative so far.
• Highland was organized by Henry Minthorn as a Quaker community. It later featured the suburban Hollywood Business area along Portland Road.
• Grant, just north of downtown, is one of our oldest neighborhoods (and the smallest), containing many historic properties. The neighborhood is working on establishing a historic district. The city maintains support of these organizations and provides information on the Neighborhoods page of the city website.

Salem in 1860

World Events

• The first Japanese ambassadors to the U.S. arrive in San Francisco. The Chief minister of Japan is assassinated by Ronin samurai to protest opening Japan to foreign powers.
• After defeating Neapolitan forces, Garibaldi gives Naples to Victor Emmanuel II, naming him King of Italy.
• Abraham Lincoln is elected as first Republican U.S. President in November. South Carolina secedes from the Union the next month. (Team of Rivals, Doris Kearns Goodwin, 2006)
• In San Francisco, organized baseball played for the first time.
• "Pony Express" begins mail service from St. Joseph, Missouri to Sacramento, California with riders carrying a small Bible.
• Idaho white settlement begins at Franklin.
• Joseph Jefferson stars in "Rip Van Winkle" in New York City.
• In England, Wilkie Collins's Woman in White, an early detective novel, as well as George Eliot's Mill on the Floss, are published. New American Books: The first "Dime novel" is published: Malaseka, The Indian Wife of the White Hunter.  Not even Walt Whitman's sensitive Leaves of Grass, can surpass the most-read  book (except the Bible) in America, which is Uncle Tom's Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe.

• .

In Salem 
Residents of Salem are more interested in state politics than anything happening in Japan or Italy: Oregon had become the nation's 33rd state the year before with John Whiteaker as Governor, Lucien Heath as Secretary of State and John Boon as Treasurer. Because Salem is the capitol city, John Boon, a local merchant, builds this store at 888 Liberty Street. It will also serve as the first State Treasury. A favorite trading place in Salem's early history, the next owner, William Lincoln Wade, who built his residence on the same block, opened the building's upper story to serve as a community hall. With the repeal of Prohibition in 1933, Fred Karr transformed into a "beer parlor". A 1940 photograph shows John and Martha Boon's house next door, now relocated to Willamette Heritage Center. After 1976, the commercial building was sold and reopened as "Boon's Treasury". Purchased by the McMenamins in 1988, it is perhaps the oldest Salem business building in its original location.

When You Visit: Boon's Treasury
 Boon's Treasury offers food, drinks, and live music.
While you're there, check out the 1960 historic marker at Mill Creek, across High Street behind Boon's Treasury, to read about Salem's founding at this location along Mill Creek in 1842.

Lincoln Wade's Gothic-style 1870 home, formerly next door to Boon's Store, is now located at 1305 John Street S. It is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

Other events in Salem this year

• With the passage of the City Charter, Lucian Heath, who had been our first state Secretary of State in 1859, was now elected our first mayor and took office on Nov. 22. Realizing the shallow wells used by residents and businesses were unhealthy, he initiated a committee of aldermen to discuss diverting water from Willamette Woolen Mill's Salem Ditch (itself a diversion from Santiam River) to Mill Creek. Negotiations with John Force, who owned the water right, failed.
• Edward Dickinson Baker, one of Abraham Lincoln's closest friends, is invited to Salem. He leaves his law practice in San Francisco, to establish residence here and become a US Senator from Oregon. 
  
• Drake's Iron Works is established on Front Street, beginning industrial use of our Salem downtown riverfront. Further north at Mill Creek and Liberty Street, Lucian Pratt and Joseph Watt build the successful Willamette Wooden Mill. B.M. Durelle moves his lumber mill machinery from a floating steamboat to a plant on the riverbank just north of Trade Street, but fire destroys his first plant and the replacement is washed away in a flood with in a year.
• Asahel Bush II, prominent pioneer newspaper publisher and banker, purchases 100 acres, farmhouse and barn from Dr. David Leslie, a pioneer Methodist missionary at the Willamette Mission, who held a Salem donation land claim, for $4,000. (Mary Kinney Leslie and Rachael Beardsley Beers were among the five wives who had accompanied the missionaries to the 1837 settlement abandoned in 1841.)  The Bush family will live in the former Leslie home for the next 17 years.
  
• The Rural Gothic Waller-Chamberlain house (above)  is built on State Street, probably in the present 1600 block. It was the home of Alvin Waller, a pioneer Methodist minister and supporter of the school that became Willamette University. He raised funds and oversaw construction of the First Methodist Church. In 1901, after a move to 1658 Court Street, the Chamberlain family was photographed on the front steps. This is the earliest home now in the Court-Chemeketa Historic Residential District. The present owners house remodeled the house in 1982. A few blocks away, on the northeast corner of Chemeketa and 14th streets, Joseph Holman built his log home and the first bridge across Mill Creek.
• At 738 North Front Street, John Webster Huntington, Superintendent of Indian Affairs builds a home. In this neighborhood, bordering Marion Square Park, other notables live including E. N. Cooke, our second mayor, and Obed Dickinson, first minister of the Congregational Church. The only residence to survive is the rebuilt 1861 Wilson-Durbin House on Water Street.
• This year, Chemeketa Lodge No. 1, Oddfellows (IOOF), established as the "Mother Lodge of Oregon". It moves to the Holman Buildin for the next 30 years. Members of the Lodge at this time include many prominent Salem names: B. F. Harding, E. N. Cooke, Joel Palmer, Cyrus Reed and Albert Zieber.
• Charles I. Roe becomes the second man hanged in Salem: he confessed to the murder of his (second) wife, Angelica, the motive being he "loved his wife better than life, and killed her to prevent others from enjoying her." The hanging was 150 feet east of Church Street toward near Trade Street, adjacent to the present Lindsay Towers. Roe's first marriage, to Nancy McKay, was part of the 1838 wedding festivities that also united Jason Lee and Anna Maria Putman at the original Willamette mission.
• John Phillips farm is already established in Polk County by this year. This historic 1853 vernacular Greek Revival house was built for pioneer John Phillips, who came to Oregon via the Oregon Trail in 1845. He finished his journey to Oregon on the Meek Cutoff as part of Stephen Meek's "lost wagon train". Phillips was a native of Wiltshire England who arrived in the U.S. in 1834 and married Elizabeth Hibbard in 1839. He came to Oregon and bought the Turner donation land claim in Polk County for $100. The locale was once known as Spring Valley Ranch. John Phillips' daughter Hannah married Samuel Barker. The grandson, Samuel E. Barker and his wife Velma were the last occupants. Their niece remembers stories that the local Native Americans would come in the back door to warm themselves by the pot-bellied stove. In 1976 the house was placed on the National Register of Historic Places. In 2014 it is the oldest residence in Polk County and was owned for 156 years by the same family. This National Register property on Spring Valley Road has been unoccupied since 2002.