Salem in 1901

World Events

• Queen Victoria dies on January 22 at the age of 81. Her son becomes Edward VII. (He is the great-grandfather of Elizabeth II.)
• William McKinley, 6 months after his second inauguration, is assassinated on October 21st at Buffalo, N.Y. Pan-American Exposition: Vice President Theodore Roosevelt becomes the 28th U.S. President.
• A month later, Roosevelt invites African-American leader, Booker T. Washington, to the White House. Southerners react angrily at the visit and racial violence increases in that region. Booker's autobiography, Up From Slavery, published this year, is a best-seller.
•  In foreign relations, Roosevelt advised, "Speak softly and carry a big stick".
• The Hays-Pancefote Treaty cedes control the Panama Canal to the U.S.
• J. P. Morgan's US Steel is the first billion-dollar corporation.
• Guglielmo Marconi, the inventor of radio, sends a signal spanning the Atlantic Ocean: Cornwall, England to Newfoundland, Canada.
• August Deter is examined by German psychiatrist Dr. Alois Alzheimer, leading to a diagnosis of a condition to be known by the doctor's name. 
• Influential new book: The Octopus by Frank Norris. It depicts the conflict between traditional ways of life (farming) and the power of industry (the railroads). 

photo used courtesy of Carole Smith

In Salem
This undated photograph of Court Street shows the commercial architecture of this period. To the left, the 1877 Italianate England Block where "Wades," sells agricultural and household equipment, later pioneering the use of sprinkler irrigation equipment known as "Wade Rain." W.S. Fitts acquired this building in the mid-1920s. In 1901 he opened Fitts Fish Market in the 400 block of Court Street, between Liberty and High Streets. On the opposite side of the street (to the right in photograph) is the "White Corner" mercantile store of the Breyman Block. Further down Court Street is the Reed Opera House and Odd Fellows Hall.

When you visit
Both corner buildings were extensively renovated after World War II, removing all decorative elements to achieve a more modern style. "Fitts" is still in business after over a hundred years, but is now in a different location. This downtown corner is featured in the SHINE Historic Downtown Walking Tour slide show.

Other events

• The ninth grade is added in East School.
• Rural mail routes are established outside city limits and federal funds were allocated for a Salem post office building and construction began on a site near the Marion County Courthouse for Salem's first federal post office. The two-story steel and brick edifice would feature Oregon products; granite and sandstone from Ashland, brick and interior woodwork of Salem manufacturer. The relocated building is now the Gatke Building at Willamette University.
• A train wreck occurs near the Salem rail station. An engineer and fireman are killed.
• According to the Capitol Journal: While F.R. Funk, who supported his family by hauling wood, was driving across the track of the Salem Light & Traction Company's State Street car line, was involved in an accident that caused the death of one of his mules. The trolley wire on the State Street line was broken and lying in the street, and the animal, stepping on the deadly wire, received the full force of the current and dropped dead in its tracks. Mr. Funk has called on the management of the company for a settlement, but refuses $90, asserting that he could have $100 for the mule.
• The Oregon Statesman reports that "The Capital City has an excellent sewerage system and has one of the best and most complete water works systems on the coast. Salem also has a well-equipped and popularly conducted fifteen miles of road-bed, an electric light and power company, a gas light company and a paid fire department."

• McEvoy's is a shop in the Bush-Breyman Building. A photograph of this year is in several local collections. It seems to record a celebration, or sale, at the shop with a crowd of young boys clustered at the doorway and on the sidewalk, many holding sheets of paper. Several are turned toward the camera in an upper floor across the street. Notice the unpaved streets and the seemingly unoccupied city lots looking toward the river. Riverfront property would would be used for industry for the next century ~ until the development of our Riverfront Park.

• The Brown House, now a Local Landmark, is built on 21st Street in the present SESNA neighborhood. Rebecca N. Shenafield purchased the lot in 1901 and she is recorded living in this house with her carpenter husband, Isaiah Shenafield, the next year. In 1910 Charles E. and Margaret Brown bought the property; Mr. Brown was listed as a farmer and later was employed as an electrician for Pacific Telephone and Telegraph. Charles Brown died 1915, but Margaret Brown continued to live here until 1937.

• On a large farm several miles south of the city (on the present Boone Road) the Dent farmhouse is built. The farm property stretched north from this homestead to the present Hrubetz Road and east to Commercial Street. In addition to the responsibilities of his property, Mr. Dent worked at the State Hospital. After his retirement, he moved to another nearby residence, selling the farm to his niece and her husband, Marie and Richard Chesley. The farm home property became the Boone Road Nursery, later known as Chesley Flowers. The general profile of the house retains the original character of the more than 100 year-old home. It is in the Faye Wright neighborhood of South Salem.
• The Oregon Historical Society is organized with a first duty to recognize the Champoeg territorial meeting of 1843 by erecting a memorial at the site of this town, drowned in the 1861 flood.
• In January, 1896, the First Church of Christ Scientist, Salem, Oregon, was officially organized with the congregation meeting in a rented room at the corner of Court and Liberty streets. The Second Church of Christ Scientist, Salem, Oregon, was organized in 1900, and in 1901, purchased a lot on the south side of Chemeketa St. between High and Liberty streets. Here, the first Christian Science Church to be built in the state of Oregon was constructed. It was dedicated on Easter Sunday April 12, 1903. This handsome building was demolished in 1963.

Salem in 1877

World Events

• On January 1, Queen Victoria is proclaimed Empress of India. Charles George Gordon ("Chinese Gordon"), much respected British diplomat and general, becomes General-General in Anglo-Egyptian Sudan.
• The US presidential election is finally decided in favor of Republican Hayes after a compromise. Southern Democrats benefit by federal troops leaving former the former Confederate states.
• In January, at the Battle of Wolf Mountain, Chief Crazy Horse and his warriors fight their last battle with U.S. Cavalry. In May, realizing his people are weakened by cold and hunger, Crazy Horse surrenders. In August, near Big Hole River, Montana, a small band of Nez Perce are defeated in a clash with U. S. Army.
• Cornelius Vanderbilt, the wealthy shipping and railroad magnate, who founded the modern corporation, dies. In 1873, to compensate for his support of the Union in the Civil War (and please his second wife, a native of Mobile, Alabama), he founded Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee. (The First Tycoon, T. J. Styles, 2009)
• In November, Edison demonstrates his phonograph ~ considered his first great invention.
• Popular dime-novel: Deadwood Dick by Edwin Wheeler. New Books: The American, Henry James  Black Beauty, Anna Sewell.

In Salem
Asahel Bush begins building his new residence to replace their home of 17 years. That house had belonged to the Leslie family and was a part of the land assigned to David Leslie in 1843 when the Methodist Mission was discontinued. Mr. Bush purchased the house and the 100-acre property in 1860. The new Italianate structure, completed the next year, was designed by Wilbur F. Boothby. It would be home to the Bush family for the next 75 years. It was part of a farm complex which included a barn, greenhouse, various gardens, orchards, and open ground serving as pasture. When Mr. Bush acquired the land it was outside the city original limits, but as the years passed it became a central portion of the growing City of Salem.
Asahel Bush died in 1913, but his daughter, "Miss Sally" continued living there and brought her sister Eugenia home for the last years 20 years of her life. After Miss Sally died in 1946, her brother A.N. Bush returned to the house in 1948 when his Capitol Street home was demolished for the construction Oregon Highway Building (now the Public Service Building) of the North Capitol Mall. The family had sold the property before his death in 1953 at the age of 93. The sale to the city specified Bush's Pasture Park be named in honor of the father and be restricted to park and playground use. There was no provision for preserving the buildings, but they have since been occupied by the Salem Art Association and maintained by the city.

When you visit
The Bush House Museum, operated by the Salem Art Association, is open to the public ten months of the year (closed January and February). Tickets may be purchased at Bush Barn. In July an art fair is held in Bush's Pasture Park, attracting artists and craftsmen with a wide range of creative works for sale. The property is in the SCAN neighborhood, is listed on the National Register of Historic Places and is in the center of the Gaiety Hill/Bush's Pasture Park Residential Historic District. A self-guided walking tour of the district can be found on this web/blog.

Other Events

• T.M Gatch is mayor 1877-8.
• Rachel Belden Brooks, an African-American who lived in Waldo Hills with the Delaney family in 1844, is found on the 1877 tax records with 144 homestead acres on the west side of Willamette River. "Aunt Rachel" was a familiar Salem figure, well remembered after her death in 1910. She is buried in the Delaney plot in Pioneer cemetery.

• The elegant, Italianate-styled England Block is constructed downtown at 216-20 Commercial Street NE. Like many other downtown buildings, this has been significantly altered through the years, especially in the 1950s, and no longer contributes to the architecture of the historic district. The 1886 photograph above shows the original, dignified appearance of the building as it blended with the others stretching between Court and Chemeketa Streets. At about the time of the photograph, William England's commercial property was sold to R. M. Wade, another merchant of agricultural and household equipment on Commercial Street. Mr. England was a pioneer Salem wagon maker and successful banker, but a business failure and death of his young son contributed to his own loss of health as recalled in his 1901 obituary. The family's Victorian home was a block north at 340 Liberty N. It was demolished in 1951.
• Elijah Colbath builds a residence near what is now 334 Wyatt Court. Gabriella, his wife, was the original owner of the house as was the common practice of the day: putting property in a wife's name as it was the only investment she could claim free of debt after the husband's death. Elijah came to Salem as a ship's carpenter, went into the lumber business and was a building contractor. He also served with the Capital City Volunteer Fire Company. The family owned the property until the 1920s. The next owner, Homer Wyatt, divided the property and moved the house about 100 feet to the present location. It is a Local Landmark in the NEN neighborhood.
• State Fair goers are treated to their first, amazed glimpses of inventions that would soon be commonplace: Thomas Edison's gramophone and Alexander Graham Bell's telephone.
• An 1880s photograph shows an industry created in 1877, the White Mill on North Front Street, using the water power of Mill Creek as it falls into the Willamette River. It appears to have been on the south side of the creek, probably on the riverfront where the bridge now crosses Front Street.