Salem in 1891

World Events

• After the Hawaiian regent David Kalakaua dies, his sister Liliuokalani is proclaimed Queen of Hawaii. Her attempts draft a new Constitution and extend voting rights led to her overthrow by the U.S. within two years.
• Java Man, considered the "missing link" between apes and humans is discovered by Eugene Dubois. The fossils are at least 700,000 years old.
• In France, troops fire on a workers' May Day demonstration in support of the 8-hour workday, killing 9 and wounding 30.
• New Scotland Yard becomes the HQ of the London Metropolitan Police.
• Croatian-born Nicola Telsa invents the Tesla Coil, a high voltage transformer. With Westinghouse, Telsa produced the electricity that lit the 1893 World's Columbian Exhibition in Chicago.
• Edison exhibits his kinetoscope, creating an illusion of movement on film.
• In Coney Island, Jesse W. Reno patents the first escalator.
• Appearing this year in British magazines:" A Study in Scarlet", by Conan Doyle and "The Light That Failed" by Rudyard Kipling. Also published in  (in a censored and serialized version), "Tess of the d'Urbervilles: A Pure Woman Faithfully Presented" by Thomas Hardy.

In Salem
Willamette students at a YMCA Conference in Massachusetts came home to Salem excited about the new game of basketball, invented by James Naismith. Frank E. Brown, a first year student at Willamette University Academy, was the leader in promoting the game after hearing about it from students who attended the conference. They reported that Naismith had taken two peach baskets and had hung them in the gym as targets for the ball. The first Salem games were played in the YMCA gym housed a handsome, three story building at the northwest corner of Chemeketa and Commercial Streets (The photograph above was taken in 1898.). Players from the YMCA and the University followed the "crudely simple" rules: including players lying in circle and scrambling for the ball at a beginning whistle. A Girls Basketball team was described in the 1905 Wallulah yearbook as "five of the pluckiest girls that ever bloomed forth in bloomers."

When you visit
The YMCA moved out of the building in the following year and the building itself (the State Insurance Building) was demolished before 1948. In 1895 Brown convinced University trustees to build a gymnasium and it was used for basketball until it burned in 1921. After his death in 1958, the University dedicated a recreation area to Frank Brown.

Other events

• P. H. D'Arcy is elected mayor and will serve for two years.

• Fire destroys the interior of Waller Building at Willamette University. The photograph of that date shows men and women, all dressed formally (everyone in hats), watching smoke bellow from the roof.
• Two business establishments are constructed. The Burke Building just north of Ferry on Commercial Street, is significant as the location where the Salem Chamber of Commerce was organized in 1922. The Gray Building at the corner of State and Liberty (above), stands in one of our most important downtown locations. In the early 1900s, the Russell Catlin and James Lynn, merchants doing business together, bought the building. The present owners are descendants of Russell Catlin. (See these in the SHINE Downtown Walking Tour.)
• Two substantial farmhouses that had recently been built beyond the city limits are now Local Landmarks in the NEN neighborhood. The Pettygrew house at 587 Statesman Street was owned by that farming family from 1910 to 1939. It has retained its integrity for over a hundred years. The Matthews house at 2010 Nebraska Street was not so fortunate. Owned by that family for about 40 years, it had a number of subsequent owners and suffered many unfortunate alterations during the years it was modified into apartments. The current owners have restored it to its former dignity.
• The Strang House, on the southwest corner of Capitol and Leffelle Streets in the SCAN neighborhood, is somewhat of a mystery. Believed to be of this construction date, it was moved here from its original location on Front Street, in 1891 a typical Salem middle class residential neighborhood. It is likely to be the oldest house in the Gaiety Hill/Bush Pasture Park Historic Residential District. (It can be seen in the SHINE Gaiety Hill/Bush's Pasture Park Walking Tour.)
• A "development" of three Simpson Cottages are built on Court Street on the block between 17th Street and Mill Creek. These are now part of the Court-Chemeketa Historic Residential District.
• Four miles southeast of Salem, a $50,000 institution, serving as a reformatory for boys was established as the Oregon State Training School. Inmates would be instructed in behavior and given military drill and discipline. By the 1920's Salem's city limits were closer to the Reform School and townspeople were alarmed by the city's proximity and the relative ease of escape by its youthful inmates. A 1927 fire gutted the main building and the decision was made to relocate the facility to Woodburn, now the MacLaren Youth Correctional Facility.
• The North School is constructed this year. The name of this imposing building at Market (Garden Road) and North Winter Street was changed in 1908 to Grant School. It was razed in 1954 for the modern school building in that location today.

• The original First Baptist Church at Marion and Liberty Street is built in an elaborate style that includes a tower and turret, windows of various shapes decorated with stained glass, and a center section rising to a peak in two elevations. It was demolished in 1943.
• On August 5, a surprise undertow at North Beach (near the former Tioga, WA) took the lives of two members of a bathing party: Willie Steel and Nellie Boise. The tragic incident is reported at length in a newspaper article entitled, "A Cruel Ocean." Miss Boise was the daughter of Salem Judge Reuben Boise.
• In December, F. S. Dearborn, a book seller on Commercial Street, offered Oregon wild flowers nicely presented and arranged in booklet form as a Christmas gift to be mailed.

Salem in 1871

World Events

• Henry Stanley, a correspondent for the New York Herald , locates the missing Scottish explore and missionary near Lake Tanganyika in Africa, greeting him with, "Dr. Livingstone, I presume?"
• The German Empire is established by a number of small, independent states. The king of Prussia is declared Emperor as Wilhelm I of Germany in a ceremony held in the Hall of Mirrors at Versailles.
• President Grant signs the 3rd Civil Rights Act to give authority to action against the KKK.
• An urban fire, attributed to "Mrs. O'Leary's cow" destroys a large section, 4 by 3/4 mile, though the urban heart of Chicago.
• Barnum brings his "Greatest Show on Earth" to Brooklyn.
• Charles Darwin publishes The Descent of Man and George Eliot, Middlemarch.

In SalemSalem residents can identify with urban fires, such a the one in Chicago this year. In 1855 a fire had destroyed the first Salem capitol building.  The Holman Building at the northwest corner of Commercial and Ferry Streets was built by Joseph Holman that same year as hotel, but became the state's Legislative Hall. Local residents appreciated the new gaslights and power for downtown businesses and residences provided by the Coal Gas Company. According to tradition, the first street gas lamp was lit by Joseph's son, George Holman, in front of this building. (Replicates of these gas lamps decorate our parks today.) It served the new state legislature for almost 20 years until the second Capitol was completed in 1876. It is also believed that George Holman brought the first maple trees to Salem to beautify city streets.

When you visit: Holman Building site
The Holman Building is seen here in the early 1900s. (it is also featured in an earlier year's entry.) the building was demolished in the late 1940s, despite efforts by Oregon State Archivist David Duniway to preserve it. The Marion Car Rental and Park replaced it in 1950, becoming one of the first elevated rooftop automobile parking structures in Salem. Inside the Salem Conference Center, 200 Commercial St. SE, on the landing of the stairway at this Ferry and Commercial Street corner, an interpretive panel has been installed that highlights the historic importance of this building and others at that location.

Other Events

• Penitentiary Gates on State Street are erected. One of the few remaining original structures, they were placed on the National Register of Historic places in 1971.
• The Salem Water Company pump station makes a considerable improvement in travel convenience: it takes water to third floor of the new Chemeketa House. A hotel existed at this location until the construction of the present Conference Center.
• Susan B. Anthony, then 41, spent several weeks in Oregon this year, and several days in the Salem area drumming up support for women’s suffrage, which was still almost 50 years away. She camped out at the Oregon State Fair with local women’s rights leader Abigail S. Duniway. The two women traveled throughout the Willamette Valley by stagecoach and even horseback to campaign for a woman’s right to vote. According to a Sept. 17, 1871, The Oregon Statesman report on Anthony’s speech at the Reed Opera House: "People may have expected that a champion of the new movement would be something of a scold, but the tones in which she did her scolding - - for she scold all of mankind at a terrible rate - - were decorous and womanly, so much so that the effect of her lectures was greatly enhanced by the admirable manner and apparent good taste of their delivery." "...We believe that when the first effect of her appearance wears away, the women of Oregon will realize that while she told many truths and told them well, she treated their own husbands and fathers unfairly."
  
• SC Adams publishes a 23-foot scroll entitled "Chronological Chart of Ancient, Modern and Biblical History." Revised editions of this complete history of the world (from Adam and Eve to President Ulysses Grant) went through several successful printings and this production was a forerunner of illustrated educational materials for American middle class families. Mr. Adams traveled the country for 6 years, promoting its sale, very much in the style of modern authors with their book tours, and was very successful. The later entries for him in the City Directory described his occupation as "Capitalist". The State Library exhibited a copy in 2007-08.
• The home of Sebastian Adams at 547 Court Street was still standing in 1954. Other fashionable Victorian homes along Court Street included those of Eugene Breyman at Church Street, Mrs. J.J. Murphy (later home of George Rose and C. P. Bishop families) next door and Joseph Holman residence at the Cottage Street intersection. They were demolished between 1950 and 1970.

This photograph of the Baptist Church was taken in 1891

• Membership of the First Baptist Church in 1871 was reported to be around 100, with 123 Sunday school attendees. During this year an imposing belfry (seen above), which amplified the bell calling people to services, weddings, and funerals, was added to the structure. A fence protected the property from cows that roamed Salem’s streets.
• A house is built by and for Gustave Norgren, a carpenter. The 1872 Salem City Directory lists his residence at the corner of Sangamon (now Saginaw) and Owen, and an etched nail imprint on the brick fireplace is dated 1871. In 1869 Norgren purchased this lot from Anna B. and J.W. Gamble. Mr. Norgren died shortly after 1875 and his widow moved from the area. Mr. Cannon, a farmer from Turner, sold the property in 1905; following this the property changed hands many times until the present. It is a designated Local Landmark in the SCAN neighborhood.