Salem in 1905

World Events

• The Trans-Siberian Railway opens with travel between Moscow and the furtherest far-eastern outposts of Russia.
• The "Bloody Sunday" massacre of peaceful protestors in front of Winter Palace in St. Petersburg inspired the unsuccessful revolt later that year  and is the forerunner of the 1917 Russian revolution.
• The French law of separation of church and state is passed assuring neutrality of the government, freedom of religious practices and public powers of the church.
• In Dublin, Sinn Fein is organized as a political party promoting independence for all Ireland from British control.
• During research at the Swiss Federal Polytechnic in Zurich, Einstein publishes his "Special Theory of Relativity".
• International Rotary is founded.
• In Nevada, 110 acres of the Mohave Desert, adjacent to the Union Pacific Railway tracks, are auctioned off. This will be downtown Las Vegas (in Spanish "The Meadows"), incorporated in 1911.
• Rayon yard, less-expensive than silk, is manufactured.
• New Books: The House of Mirth by Edith Wharton and White Fang by Jack London.

In Salem
The school board authorizes Salem's first high school, built on the block bounded by Marion & Center Streets and High & Church Streets. Central School, originally at that location, was moved for the new construction. The modern, rectangular stone building had a system that circulated air in the classrooms every 6 minutes. It had 16 large classrooms, a library, and laboratories. In the basement were restrooms, a furnace room and a bicycle room. This year the third floor held an unfinished gym, assembly hall and stage. These rooms were eventually finished, with the gym and assembly hall completed in Italian style décor. Salem High School was dedicated in ceremonies held on the evening of January 1, 1906.

When you visit
The school was razed in 1954 to make way for Meier and Frank Department Store (now Macy's) in our urban center.

Other events

• Mrs. John Albert (Mary) dies after injuries in one of Salem's first automobile accidents according to Pioneer Cemetery records of her death and funeral.  She was the daughter of pioneers, Joseph and Almira Phelps Holman, and mother of noted photographer, Myra Albert Wiggins. "The machine which was responsible for the accident was that of J. H. Albert, and, as Mr. Albert explains, the disaster was due to toe water, and, consequently, steam, having become exhausted while the car was climbing the steep incline leading to the old Rynearson rock quarry. When the car stopped and began to run back, Mr. Albert saw what was about to happen, and he applied the emergency brake, which refused to work, and he then steered the machine upon the uphill side of the road which it mounted and rolled over upon its side, precipitating the occupants... into the rocky road." Although the injuries did not seem life-threatening, she died four days later.
• The Calaba farm home is built on Mountain View Drive in the present South Salem neighborhood. Twenty years later, in 1926, this property was still outside the city and was listed as the home of Anna and Frank Calaba. Jerry Calaba, their son, grew up on this farm and later showed neighbors the location of the former old barn and well. He lived here until 1974. His brother Rudy was a prominent Salem realtor with Ohmart and Calaba. In 1977, City View Cemetery purchased the property and has since rented it. It is in the South Salem neighborhood.
• Grace Breckenridge, the original owner of a 1905 Elm Street bungalow in West Salem, worked for nearly 40 years as a bookkeeper for the State Board of Control, retiring in 1956. When she died in January 1965, her will revealed that all but $2,000 of her $23,000 estate was bequeathed to the State of Oregon. The balance was to be used to buy an organ for the House of Representatives. The new organ was ordered and received in August 1965. This organ is still in place today and is played at the governor's inaugural ceremonies. The property is a designated Local Landmark.
• John Reynolds and his wife Mary build a home on the southeast corner of North Liberty and Hickory Streets. Reynolds was Dean of the Willamette University Law School 1902-7. Later owners were Harriet Chenoweth and her husband, farmers; John Stapleton, co-owner of Stapleton and Cummings Grocery; L. R. Peebles, a carpenter, who owned it between 1911-19. He may have built the building in the rear that appears to have been used to develop photographic film. This Local Landmark is in the Highland neighborhood.

Collins-Byrd House

• A Queen Anne/Eastlake style house, built by George Collins in 1887, is moved this year. Its second owner, Dr. William H. Byrd, has it transported on rollers from its original location at corner of Court and Church Streets to its present location on the corner of Chemeketa and 14th Streets. Dr. Byrd gave the house to his son Clarence in 1921 as a wedding present. Clarence Byrd's daughter, Winifred Byrd, who lived there as a child, left Salem to become an internationally acclaimed musician. She received high praise as a concert pianist from Walter Damrosch, conductor of the New York Symphony, who called her "the feature of the concert and one that will not easily be forgotten. She seemed a fairy figure, clothed in a unique shade of blue, with an air and profile delightfully childlike, but an intensity and remarkable fire and passion in her playing." Winifred's niece, Martha Byrd Blau lived in the house for many years. The property contributes to the Court-Chemeketa Historic Residential District in NEN neighborhood and is featured on that slide show walking tour on this website.

From the Capitol Journal:

• Salem police again raided bawdyhouse row on peppermint Flat. (So-called because this section of downtown Ferry Street was along Pringle Creek where peppermint flourished.) E. E. N. was again arrested for frequenting a house of ill fame. Professor H. H. D. who beat out the melody on the piano in one of the houses, was taken into custody after argument and festive Fanny D. was arrested on a charge of disorderly conduct.
• Small boys and those old enough to know better are hanging around the S. P. depot to spend their time catching rides on freight trains.  Every day at noon and after school large numbers of boys between 10 and 18 years of age can be seen loitering around the tracks.

• Dr. W. L. Mercer bought the Knerr property on Summer Street a few months ago and is now putting up a modern residence. The doctor is living on the property in a tent but is wide-awake and has a telephone number on the canvas.

(See Ben Maxwell's Salem, Oregon, edited by Scott McArthur, 2006)

Salem in 1870

World Events

• The 15th Amendment to the US Constitution gives the right to vote to all citizens.
• Heinrich Schliemann, a German pioneer in archeology, excavates the ruins of the Troy of the ancient world of Homer. 
• John D. Rockefeller, the wealthiest man of his day, founds Standard Oil, the largest oil refinery in the world. 
• The Brooklyn Bridge construction over the East River in NYC begins. While underground, the Tower Subway in London is the first passenger "tube" railway.
• "Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea" introduces science fiction.
• Louisa Ann Swain of Laramie, Wyoming, becomes the first woman in the U.S. to vote legally since 1807.

In SalemTransportation is a main fascination (both in big city daily life and in a popular novel) this year.  Salem residents also look forward to extended opportunities in travel with hoped-for arrival of Oregon and California Railroad service convenient to the business and residences around Commercial Street. However, the citizens of 1870 would not agree to pay the railroad an additional $30,000 for laying track to the center of town. So the first railroad station was built over a mile east of downtown on 12th Street. Citizens then complained about the distance they had to travel to deliver and pick up passengers and baggage. Fortunately, by 1888 Salem had its first horse-drawn street railway, The Salem Street Railway Company. It operated from the corner of State and Commercial, extending to 12th Street and eventually along 12th to the Southern Pacific depot. Electric trolleys quickly followed.

When you visit: Salem Railroad Station
The 1889 station, shown above, was the second. Just prior to World War I, this one also burned and was replaced by the present station at 500 13th St. SE. Once the focus of lively, bustling out-of-town travel before World War II, the station was also the scene of sad family departures when the Japanese-Americans were evacuated to relocation camps during 1942. After passenger travel declined, the station fell into disrepair. The station of now serves Amtrak passenger trains on a daily basis and the classic, 1930s lobby has been restored. It is a pleasure to visit, and you might even be there when the passenger train whistles in and the conductor escorts them onto the correct coach. All aboard!

Other events

• Three new commercial buildings are constructed downtown. The Wade and Smith building on State Street retains its 1910 appearance. The Anderson and Durbin/Dearborn buildings on Commercial Street have also undergone extensive renovations. Both are featured on the SHINE Hisotric Downtown Walking Tour.
• Salem residents found entertainment in Sandy Burns' North Star Saloon, witnessing the first set of "hurdy-gurdy" girls ever brought to town and were delighted with the lively performance. In those times, North Star Saloon faced Court Street, oppose Reed's Opera House. Before Sandy Burns took over the building, the structure had served as publication office for Rev. Thomas Hall Pearne’s Pacific Christian Advocate. A new theater was the Oro Fino Theater, opening on October 16, with seating capacity for 700. "Fernande" was the initial presentation, followed by "Aladdin," the wonderful "Scamp"- a burlesque that filled the house. Oro Fino did not long survive as a theater, and the structure itself collapsed in a gale, probably during the big blow that struck Salem on January 8, 1880.

• In this year, an unusual farming photograph records Lewis Judson's threshing machine on his South Salem farm.  Judson and his wife, Almira Roberts, arrived in Oregon in 1840 on the Lausanne.  Besides his work at the mission, Judson assisted in the creation of the Oregon Institute, served as a magistrate, and was appointed Marion County surveyor. He used his self-taught medical skills to assist Salem's early residents. Judson was known as a versatile, if blunt and stubborn man.  In 1846, two years after Almira's death, he married Nancy Hawkins, the sister of Martha Boon. She divorced him in 1859. At that time he was living in Clatsop County where he spent the last years of his life.

• The Smith-Ohmart family builds a new home (above) at what is now 2655 East Nob Hill. For 70 years it was the home of the Fabritus Smith families, his daughter Velleda (Mrs. Adam Ohmart) and her son Roy Ohmart. Still in its original Italianate style appearance above the present SCAN neighborhood, it was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1979.
• A true pioneer wife and loving mother to her adopted daughter, Lucy Anna Lee, Lydia Bryant Hines's life of adventure ended with her death in Salem this year. The wife of a circuit riding Methodist minister, Gustavus Hines, she had left her parents' comfortable home to endure privation as a young wife even before making the voyage to Oregon in 1840 on the Lausanne. Her years in the earliest settlement of Salem, her travels in the new northwest settlements and world-wide and her reflections on her experiences, have all been recorded in journals and make fascinating reading. She lived the last 14 years of her life here in Salem.
• The James Joseph/G.W. Gray Cottage was one of the first built in the earliest East Salem Subdivision, the Roberts Addition of 1865. It was owned by one of the brothers who built the Grey Building downtown. The cottage is in the NEN neighborhood and part of the Court-Chemeketa Historic Residential District, featured on this website.
• Polk County tax records show Lindbeck House on Orchard Heights Road in West Salem, built this year, to be one of the oldest residences of that neighborhood. Very little past ownership information is available. The previous owners were the Bouffleur family, prominent growers at this location as long ago as the 1930s. In 1967, John Lindbeck retired from the US Navy and returned to his hometown to purchase this property. With his wife Carolyn, they sold fruit from this 36-acre orchard. The property recently sold for construction of a retirement community and the house has unoccupied for several year. Its fate is uncertain.