Salem in 2008

World Events

• The Australian Prime Minister formally apologies to the Stolen Generations: children of Aboriginal descent who were removed from their families to work for white families. In Canada, there are apologies to the indigenous First Nations for the removal of their children to Indian Residential schools.
• An earthquake strikes Sichuan, China killing at least 87,000 people. In August the Summer Olympics are held in Beijing.
• Israel invades the Gaza Strip in response to rockets fired by Hamas.
• Iran opens it first space center and launches a rocket into space.
• In the US national economic collapse, Lehman Brothers and Washington Mutual declare bankruptcy. The Dow-Jones Industrial Average falls 777.68 points, the largest one-day decline in history.
• President Bush  signs the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act, creating a 700 billion dollar Treasury fund to prop up banks, automakers & mortgage agencies. The "Great Recession" begins.
• Illinois' Democratic Senator Barack Obama wins the US presidency with 53% of popular vote. Our first African-American to hold that office.
• Academy Awards: "Slumdog Millionaire" (US), "Departures" (Japan). Prize-winning books: Shadow Country, Peter Matthiessen and The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, Junot Diaz.

In Salem

Hollywood Station

Portland Road was once just that: the highway to the city north of Salem. With the construction of I-5 in the 1960s, that changed: without the commercial stimulus of heavy traffic, Portland Road's economy faltered. Beginning in 1972, urban renewal attempted to make the area more productive and more livable. One of the most recent and most attractive projects is the area formerly the Goodwill site. The triangular property, owned by the Salem Urban Renewal Agency, is bounded by Portland Road, Brooks Street, Pine Street and the new senior facility, Center 50+. It was sold to Hollywood Renewal LLC, comprised of Mountain West Investment Company. (No commitment of public resources, in the form of a loan or grant, was required of the agency to support this project.) By 2008, unfortunately the year of the great "Recession", the new residences of Hollywood Station (above) are completed and ready for occupancy. The project includes 24 town homes and a 2-story, 23,ooo square feet office/retail building. This is one more civic project in North Salem where the business community and the city staff work together to make living in Salem more attractive for both the long-time residents who have shared its history and the newcomers who will make it their new home.

When you visit
Perhaps you have also driven east on Pine Street, or along Portland Road, during the last few years, wondering what the new highway configurations, landscaping and construction would produce. We may expect that even more improvements are on the way for the old Hollywood business district. The senior center relocation, Center 50+ and the new businesses (we wish them well!), the KROC Center and this Hollywood Station have all brought welcome new enterprise to the area of North Gateway, truly the historic entrance to our city. The North Gateway Redevelopment Advisory Board is an avenue by which residents can provide input to present and future projects in this part of our city.

Other events

• As new structures rise in Salem this year, old ones are threatened. In January, the Oregon State Hospital had been issued a report from the US Department of Justice siting violations of patient safety, supervision and treatment failures. The hospital sponsored tours through the unused, historic buildings as plans for a $458 million renovation and reconstruction are being formulated. Local historic preservationists, lead by Hazel Patton, submit a successful, whole-campus nomination for National Register to protect the most valuable parts of the institution, particularly the "J" Building. The Historic Landmarks Commission hears evidence that many buildings most be demolished.

Justice Ginsburg cuts the ribbon opening the Oregon Civil Justice Center

• The Carnegie Library on State Street, for 60 years our Salem Public Library, is rededicated as the Oregon Civil Justice Center of Willamette University. The ceremony includes a ribbon cutting by Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg of the US Supreme Court.
• With the retirement of Bob Wells, Linda Norris becomes Interim City Manager: she is officially appointed City Manager in June. Sean O'Day became Interim Deputy City Manager in February and was officially appointed to that position in October.
• John Ritter, a local historian and former professor, serves this year as a historian for the Oregon Corrections Enterprises. He produces an Exhibit Guide outlining the 150 years of inmate work programs as displayed in the interpretive museum at 3691 State Street. Exhibit artifacts and background photographs on the wall outline the various programs that have been active in this time span. As the brochure explains: the exhibit begins when the State Penitentiary had its start as the Territorial Prison in Oregon City as a small brick structure and moved to Portland in 1854 where inmates were used to grade streets, crush rock and log trees. In 1866 the Oregon State Prison was moved to Salem and remains here. Over 24 artifacts, actual products made at the Salem institution, are displayed in the exhibit, including the infamous Oregon Boot, a devise worn by inmates when outside to keep them from "wandering away". Other exhibits illustrate today's work programs. For times when the exhibit is open to visitors, call 503 378 2449 or 503 378 2677.
• The new YWCA facility is opened in the Broadway Plaza, a TELOS construction on the northwest corner of the Market and Broadway streets intersection. (This YWCA facility closed in 2014)
• Delta ends flights from McNary Field after less then a year of service. However, Salem is moving forward with plans to expand the terminal and lengthen the runway. Lottery dollars will help pay the $4.75 million improvements.
• Barack Obama has a town hall meeting at the Armory during his campaign for president: Bill Clinton speaks at Chemeketa Community College less than a week later, and returned twice more, on behalf of his wife's campaign. Hillary Clinton answers the phone in her Reed Opera House campaign headquarters: Senator Obama visits the Iris Fair in Keizer.
• The red-light camera system goes into effect at two of the city's most dangerous intersections: Mission at 25th street and Commercial at Marion Street. If a car passes over the sensor after the light has turned red, a video is taken to record the vehicle's license-plate number. That information is forwarded to the police.
• Fire guts the governor's ceremonial office in the Capitol and damages the building. This brought back memories of the two previous fires that destroyed our Capitols in 1857 and 1935.

Salem in 2007

World Events

• Benazir Bhutto of Pakistan, first woman elected (1988, 1993) Prime Minister in a Muslim country, is assassinated by an al-Qaeda militant in Rawalpindi during a welcome home rally after serving in exile.
• Global financial crisis is triggered by the collapse of U.S. housing market and mortgage banking crisis.
• Nancy Pelosi, a California Democrat, is elected as first female Speaker of the House of Representatives in the US Congress.
• Virginia Tech shooter, Seung-hui Cho, kills 32 persons and wounds 17.
• Apple introduces the first modern "smartphone". This iPhone model uses a touch screen (instead of dial-up) and has a Home button.
• Al Gore and The UN share the Nobel Peace Prize for efforts to build up and disseminate knowledge about man-made climate change and measures to counteract such change.
• The TGV, French passenger train reaches a speed of 357.2 mph, breaking the record for a conventional train. In England, High Speed 1 (68 mile mph), the Channel Tunnel Rail Link between London and the UK end of the Chunnel is opened to passengers.
• The last Harry Potter book is published. Academy Awards:"No Country for Old Men" (US), "The Counterfeiters" (Austria). Prize-winning books: Tree of Smoke, Denis Johnson and The Road, Cormac McCarthy.

In Salem
Two Salem developers, Larry Tokarski and Dan Berrey, purchase the industrial site occupied for 46 years by Boise Cascade's paper-converting plant. Bisected by Pringle Creek, with Commercial Street to the east and the Willamette River to the west, adjacent to Riverfront Park, this is prime land for the redevelopment encouraged by the ULI representatives last year. The prospects for this $7.25 million investment depend on the outcome of environmental studies (considering the past contamination of the land and water) and rezoning the property for mixed-use development.
To the left in the wintertime photograph above, the 1926 Fry Warehouse looks like a fortress, rising behind Eco-Earth. The main body of the plant is in the center of the picture and above Pringle Creek, which emerges into the slough of the Willamette River at this sand bar location. The section of the plant to the right, in the distance behind the orange towers, is another structure on the site of the old mill building. Unseen is the railroad track running along the structures in this side.

When you visit
By 2014, there were substantial changes. The Fry Warehouse is gone, the first structure to be demolished, with Mayor Taylor punching out the first block of concrete with a wrecking crane. Also in 2009, the main structure fell until only the substantial building south of the creek remained. The northern section will have new buildings for retail business and offices, restaurants, condos and other purposes. The site south of the creek will be retained as a parking garage and apartment complex. Of great interest are two public-use features of the future: one is "day lighting" the creek by removing all but the railroad crossing so a pedestrian path can lead from the Civic Center Park, under the Commercial Street Bridge and to the slough; the other is a bridge from near the Eco-Earth to Minto Brown Island. Due to economic conditions, no new business or housing construction has been accomplished, but Pringle Creek, running between the cement walls of the old industrial plant, is now visible from west of the Commercial Street bridge to the Willamette River with only the railroad track suspended above. The much anticipated walkway from the southeast corner of Trade and Commercial to Riverfront Park, passing under the bridge, will be the next project. Bridge reconstruction was completed in 2013.

Other events

• Bill Wingett, a resident of the Sunnyslope neighborhood, returns to the European battle sites in May of this year as a guide for a historical project. A veteran of World War II, he is a former member of the celebrated Band of Brothers, the 101th Airborne Division of the US Army, recently honored in a TV mini-series based on the book by Steven Ambrose.
• Air service returns to McNary Field with Delta offering twice-daily flights between Salem and Salt Lake City.
• Marion County lost its first deputy in the line of duty when Kelly James Fredinburg, 33, headed to Gervais to assist police, siren and lights running, is struck by a car that unexpectedly pulled into his lane on Highway 99E. He died at the scene of the crash as well as a passenger in the other car. The other driver survived, critically injured. More than 1000 people filled the Salem Armory for his memorial service.
• The Vision 2020 Action Plan, originated by City staff and 3500 involved residents, aims to revitalize downtown into a vibrant community gathering place and a magnet for visitors. Committees organized this year will work to realize the concepts of the program and will make quarterly progress reports.
• The land-use conflicts continued with Measure 49 that left owners confused about which set of rules apply to projects they filed under the 2004 property-compensation law, Measure 37. The new measure limits the number of houses built on prime farm and forest land, but projects underway may have "vested rights" to proceed.
• Salem's oldest resident, Luella Patton Charlton, died on December 23, just a 7 weeks before her 110th birthday. Luella was born in 1898 in her family's Cooke-Patton mansion on Court Street (demolished in 1938 for the construction of the State Library). Her great-grandfather (who built the house) was an early Salem steamboat owner and merchant, her grandfather was a US consul in Japan and her father and uncle, Cooke and Hal Patton, were prominent in Salem political and business life. After her marriage in 1925, she and her husband built a home on 23rd Street where she lived the rest of her life. The couple had one son; Luella became a widow in 1959. She read widely, kept up with the news on TV, generously entertained friends, enjoyed humor in conversation and was a beloved neighbor. Luella was possessed of a sharp intellect and invested wisely in the stock market: she owned original issues of Coca-Cola stock and remarked with a smile that they had "split many times". Luella was a treasury of historical year-old facts about Salem families, businesses and state institutions (Gov. Chamberlain rented a room in her family's home in 1903 while serving in Salem). She is the last of the Pattons to be buried in the family mausoleum in Pioneer Cemetery.