Salem in 1924

World Events

• Fascist Benito Mussolini, using secret police to crush unions and enforce extreme nationalism, is elected Prime Minister and then Il Duce (the leader) in Italy.
• At the death of Lenin, Joseph Stalin purges his rivals to become ruler in the USSR.
• Congress passes the Immigration Act, excluding Asians. The Indian Citizenship Act grants U.S. citizenship to Native Americans born within territorial limits. With the close of the Apache Wars, all conflict with Native Americans ends after 302 years.
• The British Empire Exhibition opens in London with representations from its 58 nations. The International Olympic Committee is formed with the first modern games in Paris. (see movie "Chariots of Fire")
• J. Edger Hoover is named head of the U.S. FBI. Nellie Ross of Wyoming is named first woman governor.
• A tabulating company is renamed International Business Machines (IBM). A media company, MGM is founded in Los Angeles. Mercedes-Benz is organized in Stuttgart, Germany. Caesar Salad is invented in Tijuana, Mexico.
• Comedian Will Rogers is at the height of his career. The Pulitzer Prize goes to Edna Ferber for So Big.

In Salem
In Salem’s Crystal Garden Ballroom residents danced on Wednesday and Saturday nights to some of the best-known bands in the nation. Modern dancing was on the main floor and old time polkas, schottisches and two-steps upstairs. The building was constructed for Otto Klett who died in 1947. The next owner extensively remodeled the building for meetings, banquets and conventions in addition to the dancing. Ballroom dancing declined in popularity and the last “old time dance” was held in 1964. A 1961 photograph of the Crystal Garden Ballroom shows how little the exterior of the building has changed from its original appearance.

When you visit
According to an article written by Wilma Bonsanti for the Oregon Statesman in December of 1971, the crystal chandelier was stored in the home of Mr. Gwynn, a former owner. Of Czechoslovakian prisms, it was the twin to one hanging in the East Room of the White House in Washington, D.C. The building retains its original appearance and has housed several businesses and a successful restaurant. Until recently, the lobby contained a framed newspaper clipping recalling this building's important place in a past Salem social life that included the whole family.

Other events

• The Willamette freezes, wrecking sternwheeler vessels. The freighter Relief, operating between Portland and Salem, was crushed by an ice jam at the Salem waterfront moorage, then listed further to its side and sank.

The Doughboy Memorial at Oregon Veterans Building

• To commemorate the service and sacrifice of Marion County members of the American Expeditionary Force in France during the recently past World War, a statue of the "Doughboy" is erected on the Courthouse lawn. The Courthouse was demolished in 1954, but the statue remained in place until 1991. When the Oregon Department of Veterans Affairs building was constructed, it was moved to that military memorial park where it stands in a beautiful landscape near Mill Creek.
• The Circuit Rider, a memorial statue created by A. Phimister, was placed on the Capitol grounds. Robert Booth of Eugene, whose father was a Methodist Episcopal circuit rider, donated it to the State of Oregon.
• Busick and Sons Grocery is established in the Bush-Brey Building on Commercial Street and will be a feature of Salem household shopping until 1970.
• Parrish Middle School is built facing Capital at D Street on land that was originally a part of the Josiah Parrish Donation Land Claim. The Chamber of Commerce had fully supported the school bond of $225,000 to build this first Salem junior high school and Dr. H. H. Olinger, head of the school board, urged the construction. The school opened September 29 with HF Durham as Principal. In 1948 the first remodeling took place when an auditorium, gymnasium, and three new classrooms were added. In 1974 Parrish had its Golden Anniversary; 200 former students and teachers attended. In 1994 students and staff moved out for one year while Parrish was updated. In 1999, during the 75th celebration, a time capsule was buried.

Nelson Home

• On E Street, an English Cottage is designed by Jamison Parker for Carl Nelson, a securities broker who went into wool and hops businesses after the crash of 1929. After the death of Mrs. Nelson in 1944, the house was sold. In the 1990s it became the Cottonwood Cottage Bread and Breakfast business establishment. It is a National Register property (1997) in the Grant Neighborhood.
• In the Fairmount Hills south of Salem, three prominent families have lived in a Spanish Colonial Revival home built for Curtis Cross at the top of fashionable Fairmount Hill. The second owner was Asel C. Eoff, the owner of Eoff Electric Company. The third owner was Dr. Ralph Purvine. Dr. Purvine was significant in both the medical and education fields in Salem, having been a physician at Willamette University and a founder of the Salem Clinic. Dr. Purvine’s daughter lived there for many years. It became a National Register property in 1982.

Mahonia Hall

• A neighbor of the Cross House is the former Thomas Livesley family home on Lincoln Street, a Tudor-style mansion designed by Ellis Lawrence and occupied by the Livesley family for 34 years. It was sold in 1958 and had four more owners before being purchased by the State of Oregon as the official governor's mansion. It is now known as "Mahonia Hall" after the state flower, the "Oregon grape".

From the Capitol Journal:

• Some substance, which many car owners believed to be little flakes of sulfur cast off from the paper mill, was wreaking havoc with the finish of automobiles parked along Salem streets. The small flakes ate their way through and right down to bare metal surface.
• Rev. H. D. Chambers, rector of St. Paul's Church, in a sermon condemned the movement among local churches to bring Billy Sunday to Salem. Said Rev. Chambers, " When the pulpit has to degenerate into a place of sensationalism and emotionalism in order to compete with worldly agencies, it is time to admit failure."

Salem in 1884

World Events

• Charles Gordon is sent to Khartom during a revolt by a Muslim leader to evacuate the British civilians. He remained to defend the city, but the city fell and he was killed.("Khartom", 1966)
• Grover Cleveland, a "Bourbon Democrat", is elected President on a campaign of political reform  so popular that the "Mugwumps", like-minded Republicans, jumped party and voted for him.
• May 1: the 8-hour work day proclaimed by Federation of Organized trades and other labor unions. This date, "May Day" is recognized in almost every industrialized country.
• In New York harbor, work on the pedestal for the Statue of Liberty is begun, the arm of the statue having been displayed for many years. In Washington, D.C., the Washington Monument is completed ~ the tallest structure in the world at that time.
• The International Meridian Conference in Washington, D. C. fixes the Greenwich meridian as the world's prime meridian from which the world takes the exact time.
• American Books: Huckleberry Finn, Mark Twain and Ramona, Helen Hunt Jackson.

In Salem
This 1884 Italianate house on High Street also has a Washington connection: it was built for lawyer, state legislator, and U.S. Senator Benjamin F. Harding who was elected to the Oregon Territorial Legislature in 1850 to represent Marion County and thereafter served as Speaker of the House of Representatives. From 1854 to 1859 he served as the Secretary of the Oregon Territory. In 1861 Harding was elected as Speaker of the Oregon House of Representatives, but in the next year was elected to the United States Senate to fill the seat of another Salem resident, Edward Baker, after the latter had died in the Civil War. Harding served from 1862 to 1865 when he retired and returned to this home. Harding was married twice, first in 1851 to Elizabeth Cox, with whom he had several children. After she died in 1868, he married F.W. Bush, a relative of Asahel Bush, his neighbor. A few years later Harding moved to Cottage Grove where he died on June 16, 1899.
The house is perhaps better remembered for the second owners, Jacob and Louise Amsler. He was a trusted employee of the Bush family, sometimes known as manager of the estate when it was the home of "Miss Sally". Stories of “Jacob” are woven into the history of the Bush House. One recalls his taking over as chauffeur for the lady of the house after Sally's first attempt to drive her new electric car resulted in her crashing into the front window of a downtown pharmacy. An Amsler family tradition concerns a beech tree that Jacob planted in 1902 at 1678 Liberty Street. His son, William, operated the Nob Hill Dairy in that area. Dr. Rogers, the dentist at the address, named his clinic Liberty Beech Dental after the large tree.

When you visit
A National Register property since 1982, this remains a private home. It is located at 1043 High Street SE in the Gaiety Hill/Bush's Pasture Park Historical Residential District and is included in the Gaiety Hill/Bush's Pasture Park walking tour on this SHINE website. The house is in the South Central Area Neighbors association (SCAN) that meets monthly on the 2nd Wednesday, 6:30 pm, at South Salem High School, 1910 Church Street SE. The association is active in preserving the residential integrity of the historic district, especially as new commercial developments are being anticipated along its borders. The public is welcome.

Other Events

• The Capital Journal newspaper, in collecting news stories, is one of the few Salem telephone users. An exchange system was set up in Lee Steiner's drug store about 1890.
• Joseph and Charley Meyers pay off an election wager as they chop firewood in front of a Commercial Street business establishment. An all male audience joins them in posing for the camera.
• Sanborn Fire Insurance maps first record Salem properties. These maps, now available online from the Salem Public Library, are invaluable tools for seeing what structures were in place at various years of our local history.
• In this year Edwin Cross succeeds his father, Thomas Cross, one of Salem's earliest meat processors, manager of the family business. In 1867, their market and slaughterhouse on Center Street was photographed as an attractive white two-story wooden building with a wide porch and picket fence and tall trees around it. The pre-1894 home of Edwin Cross was located at the northeast corner of Liberty and Chemeketa Streets.
• Estelle Bush and Claudius Thayer, after an a front porch courtship at her home, elope and marry against her father's wishes. Claudius was described as "physically crippled" in his obituary and that is given as the reason her father opposed Estelle's marriage. Claudius was the son of Oregon's sixth governor, William Wallace Thayer and later a Supreme Court Justice. A reception was held in the groom's family's residence in Portland.  The couple first made a home in Tillamook where they operated a bank, then moved to California for Mr. Thayer's health. Their only child, Eugenia, died of influenzain 1918. Estelle returned to Salem after Claudius' death in 1923.

• Dr. Luke A. Port and wife Lizzie move to Salem and build their first home (now the National Register designated Port-Manning House on Halls Ferry Road) where they live with their daughter and son, Alpha and Omega. On the corner of Winter and Ferry streets, it was in an early residential neighborhood near the new First Methodist Church and State House structures. In 1887, their son, destined to be a partner in the father's pharmacy in the Patton Building, was lost at sea while on the way to Germany for further study. The Ports left Salem for extensive travel (including futile investigations into the fate of the ship their son has taken) and new real estate enterprises. They sold the house to Major William Manning. They will not return to Salem until 1894 when they build their second home here, later to be named Deepwood.