Salem in 1955

World Events 

• American Advisers are sent to aid South Vietnam government.
•  West Germany becomes a democratic Federal Republic, separate from German Democratic Republic in the east, which is a Communist dictatorship.
• Protests against racial segregation lead to federal law forbidding it on interstate trains and busses. Rosa Parks is arrested in Montgomery, Alabama for not giving up her seat in the "colored section" to a white woman. Montgomery Bus Boycott follows.
• American labor unions merge into AFL-CIO. General Motors is the first American corporation to make profits over a billion dollars in one year.
• Actor James Dean is killed in an auto crash near Cholame, California.
• Disneyland opens in Anaheim, California. "Gun Smoke" and "Mickey Mouse Club" debut on TV. Bill Haley introduces "rock 'n' roll" music blending country and blues.
• Ray Kroc opens his first McDonald's in partnership with the McDonald brothers in Des Plains, Illinois.
• Academy Awards: "Marty" (US), Samurai, "The Legend of Musashi" (Japan). Prize-winning book: A Fable, William Faulkner.

In Salem
Salem shoppers are excited about the opening of a local branch of Portland's Meier and Frank department store. The business enterprise is built on the traditional site of Salem schools: the 1906 Salem High School and the earlier Central School. Gerry Frank, owner and manager, became a well-known political and business leader in Salem and was a prominent member of Governor Hatfield's staff. This is a photograph of the familiar entrance on the southwest corner of Center and High Streets N.E. The view includes the southeast corner of the building's parking structure at Center and Church Streets N.E. It shows Salem's use of parking meters downtown at that time and the grid of one-way streets.

When you visit
This department store chain has been sold to Macy's, but the local branch continues to operate at this location. Information about Gerry Frank's Konditorei was published in 1999 by SalemHistory website. This specialty restaurant currently (2014) operates at the southeast corner of Kearny and Commercial Streets.
The iconic Meier and Frank lobby clock, famed as a local meeting spot, was given to the Salvation Army Kroc Center by Frank in 2008. The gilt-encrusted clock had been installed in 1955 and is the work of Welton Beckett Architects in Los Angeles. It was removed from Meier and Frank in summer 2006, when the May Co. remodeled the building.

Other Events

• A Christmas parade for children is inaugurated this year. It continues as the 'Festival of Lights." However, due to the city's inability to aid in the financing, the parade moved to Keizer in 2011.
• The former President of the United States, Herbert Hoover, visits Salem where he lived for three years in his youth. The Newberg home of his uncle, Henry Minthorn, is renovated beyond recognition this year.

• The foreground of this aerial view of the 1955 Salem downtown shows the availability of land on the hill south of Pringle Creek that will later house the new Civic Center (left foreground of the photograph). In the left center, the area of the three bridges that cross the Willamette River (back to front) the railroad bridge, Marion Street Bridge and Center Street Bridge. The dark tall evergreens at the end of the bridges are in Marion Square Park. North-south streets (left to right) are Front Street; Commercial Street with the Columbia River Paper Company at the left edge of picture. The present Civic Center is located in the left foreground.  Up one block is the Marion Motor Hotel and one block further Ladd and Bush Bank; Liberty Street with the tall Capitol Tower building at the State Street intersection; and High Street with Marion County Courthouse (trees and grass in front, far right) and on the other side of the street further along is Salem City Hall with its clock tower.
• Brush Creek School, established in 1895, still has only a single classroom when the students and their teacher pose for a portrait outside the front porch. Since then, the school buildings have expanded and been renovated several times. The unique quality of this school is that the original bell tower still remains, even with the bell itself. The school celebrated its long service to the community in 2010 with an exhibition of student work and a collection of historical photographs. 
• Graduates of the 1890 class of East School held a reunion at the home of Dan Fry in August of this year.  This school was one of Salem's architectural gems, but unfortunately the maintenance of the building was too high and the facilities out-of-date. To local historical preservationists, who have little influence in city planning, the three greatest architectural losses have been this school building, the old City Hall on High Street and the Victorian Marion County Courthouse. None of these could have continued in their original functions so these demolitions were logical financially. Whether any one of these could have been transformed into a local historical museum, devoted to the city's heritage, is debatable. We still (2012) have no institution in Salem dedicated to this purpose.

• The plaque that commemorated the location of Salem's first commercial venture, the Thomas Cox store on the northeast corner of Ferry and Commercial Streets in 1847, was removed this year from the building that stood there. The photograph that was taken is our only record of the plaque which has disappeared. Ed Ritter, wrecker, is pictured on the left.
• One of Salem's most outstanding local businesses, the Paulus Brothers Packing Company, is sold to Dole Pineapple Company, Ltd. This is a further signal that traditional canning operations have become limited because of the popularity of frozen foods. All the canning facilities south of Trade Street were replaced by parks and other urban uses. This gentrification of the downtown has given it a more attractive appearance and made room for enterprises such as SAIF and a downtown, Pringle Creek condominium, Salmon Run. This loss of industry has been a detriment to the economy of the city 
• Myra Albert Wiggins, a granddaughter of the pioneer Holman family who left Salem to pursue a successful career as a photographer, dies at her home in Toppenish, Washington at the age of 86. Myra's life as a wife and mother never limited her career. Her love of family, natural beauty, the theme of Native American women and her world travel were all reflected in the art she produced. Her life is profiled on Salem Lifelines.

Salem in 1907

World Events

• Elections to the new Parliament in Finland are the first in the world with women candidates as well as the first with universal suffrage.
• The Anglo-Russian Entente is signed in St. Petersburg, leading to the Triple Entente that includes France. This sets up a balance in European power against the Triple Alliance of Germany, Austro-Hugary and Italy. The players were set for the conflict of 1914.
• Rasputin gains power in the Russian court as "healer" for Prince Alexei who suffered from hemophilia. A Congress of the Russian Social Democratic Labor Party mets in secret in London. The Bolsheviks attack a cash-filled bank coach in Tiflis, gaining funds for their campaigns.
• In England, Robert Baden-Powell leads the first Scout camp.
• The Great White Fleet begins its 15-month circumnavigation of the globe,  demonstrating America's new naval power to the world.
• Hendrick Baekeland produces the first plastic (synthetic polymer) that is produced as Bakelite.
• Oklahoma becomes the 46th state.
• The term "blurb" is first used for the promotional text on a book jacket.
• Sholem Aleichem (pen-name of Solomon Rabinovich) publishes From Home to America a year after his move from Russia to New York. He was the first Jewish writer to gain fame in America: Whistler on the Roof is his most popularly known story.

Mary Bowerman graduation

In Salem
At Willamette University Medical School, Mary Bowerman was the lone female in a class of five and the butt of their “rather vulgar jokes." The dissecting shed, down near the millrace at the rear of the university grounds was on a “short cut” to town and featured many a knothole in its walls. There was often an audience to observe the gloveless, collidion-dosed, black muslin-gowned students, surgical instruments in hand, making tentative incisions on the cadavers. In 1907, as the wife of Ellis Purvine, she began a medical practice in Salem, specializing in obstetrics.

Dr. Mary Bowerman Purvine in 1954

When you visit
There is no memorial in Salem to Oregon's first female physician or to her medical service to our community. In 1954, to commemorate her half-century in the medical profession, the University of Oregon Medical School Alumni Association recognized Mary for her fifty years “of service and sacrifice to the alleviation of human suffering.”
Her family included two daughters and a son who became a doctor himself. Dr. Ralph Purvine lived on Fairmount Avenue in the historic Cross House, for many years the home of Mary Purvine's granddaughter. This is a National Register property in the SCAN neighborhood.

Other Events

• G. F. Rogers became mayor this year and was "King Bing" of the 1913 Salem Cherry Festival.
• On April 12, one of Salem's pioneers and most distinguished citizens and jurist, Reuben P. Boise dies. A Pioneer Cemetery record has printed his professional biography. In part, it recalls the young lawyer coming to Salem in 1857 and that "many years his home was there in the winter and on the farm in the summer. He was ever in the market to buy any land that joined his farm so at the time of his death he owned many acres in the Ellendale section.
  In 1851 Judge Boise was united in marriage to Miss Ellen F. Lyon, who died December 6, 1865, leaving three children, "Fisher A., Reuben P., Jr., and Whitney L. The last two named are still living. Mrs. Boise was a daughter of Lemuel Lyon, a Boston merchant, who went to California in the early '50s and came to Oregon about 1854, locating at Independence, where he built the second store building and the first grain warehouse in the town...
  "On December 27, 1866, Judge Boise was married to Emily A. Pratt, who died March 26, 1919. She was a native of Webster, Massachusetts, and a daughter of Ephraim Pratt, a manufacturer of that state. To this union were born two daughters: Sarah Ellen, who died August 5, 1891; and Mrs. Maria Boise Lauterman, now residing in Salem."
• The Paulus Building on Court Street replaces the Sung Lung Chinese laundry, demolished along with other Chinese businesses. The present building was constructed to provide space for a single retail establishment selling furniture. In 1931 Paulus separated the space: Doughton's Hardware occupied the west end of the building for almost sixty years (1934-1991). The Christopher Paulus family home, built in 1892, recently restored, is on Church Street in the Grant neighborhood.
• The Local Landmark known as the Christensen House is built on property owned by Curtis Chatfield, a fruit grower. It is best known as the home of Harold and Cora Christensen in the 1920s and 30s; Mr. Christensen was a driver for the Oregon Bakery Company. It is a Local Landmark in the present Highland neighborhood.

Daue House as it appears today

• On Saginaw Street, a large two and one-half story Craftsman bungalow was designed and built in 1907-8 by Alexander Daue. The house retains much of its original organization and was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1985. It was purchased by the Assistance League of Salem in 1987 and now contains a shop and offices of other league charitable programs. See 1992 photograph of the house. Alexander, his brother Louis and son Elmer owned a successful merchandise store on Commercial Street.
• Salem Heights Elementary School is built south of Salem. It was established on land purchased from Phil Thomas. A photograph shows the location in 1914. In 1930 the original school was torn down and rebuilt. The many activities of the early years are described in the 1997 booklet published by the school on its 90th anniversary. When the new building was erected in 1930, the school bell was moved to the Community Hall. It was been returned to the school and reinstalled for the school’s 100th anniversary celebration in the spring of 2007. The school is in the South Salem neighborhood.
• The residence known as the Justice Rossman House is built on Capitol Street. This Colonial style residence still has many original features including the hardwood floors, two fireplaces and 9 1/2 foot ceilings. This handsome home was purchased by George Rossman in 1928, a year after he was appointed to the Oregon Supreme Court. He served as Chief Justice (1947-9) and retired in 1965. It has been refurbished for use as offices and is designated as a Local Landmark in the Grant neighborhood.

• Built this year at the northwest corner of High and Oak streets, is the Italianate residence of Emma Hughes, the widow of John Hughes, a prominent local merchant. Emma was the daughter of Virgil Pringle and his wife, Pherne Brown, and the granddaughter of Rev. Clark Brown and his wife Tabitha Moffatt. Virgil Pringle was an 1848 pioneer in Salem who took a land claim surrounding the Creek that was named for him. It is possible that Virgil Pringle's home was near the one built this year by his daughter and her husband. No evidence remains of that early residence and Emma's home was demolished after her death for the 1929 construction of the Spanish Colonial residence of Daniel B. Jarman. The original land grant of Virgil Pringle may only be surmised: it might have included the land between Trade and Mission streets where he is now remembered with Pringle Creek and Pringle Plaza. By this year when Emma's house was built, the 1859 Rural Gothic residence of Showalter Smith, across High Street, once the center of Salem social and political events, had been purchased by Daniel Fry. Neighborhood children knew this area as Rattlesnake Hill.
• Edmond S Meany wrote that in July of this year, when he was visiting the reservations of Siouan tribes with Edward S. Curtis, Mrs. Clark, wife of the Episcopalian missionary at Rosebud, announced that there was a very old lady in the village who would like to meet the historian from the Oregon country. They started for the home of Dr. E. J. De Bell, who for twenty- three years has been a physician and trader at Rosebud. In this time his aged aunt, Sarah DeBell Frost Beggs was spending the last years of her long and eventful life. She was perhaps the last survivor of the Willamette Mission community.
• Downtown Salem streets are beginning to be paved.

Salem in 1892

World Events

• Abu Dhabi becomes a British Protectorate, protecting the English trade route to India. The construction of the world's longest rail line begins: the Trans-Siberian Railway, connecting Moscow with China.
• Grover Cleveland wins a second term: his is the only non-consecutive presidential election.
• School children begin reciting the Pledge of Allegiance in observance of the 400th anniversary of Columbus Day.
• Ellis Island begins processing immigrants arriving in New York.
• Diesel patents an internal combustion engine. Edison receives a patent for a two-way telegraph. General Electric Company and Carnegie Steel Company are established.
• The Homestead Lockout and Strike in Pittsburg is the most serious industrial struggle in U.S. labor and a major setback for unions and efforts to organize steelworkers.
• John Muir organizes the Sierra Club in San Francisco.
• Tchaikovsky's "Nutcracker" ballet is premiered in St. Petersburg, Russia. "Charley's Aunt", a comic farce, begins a run in London that will shatter all theater records. Rudyard Kipling's Barrack-Room Ballads, published in Scotland, contains many of his most famous poems including "Gunga Din" and "Mandalay".

In Salem
This year a Salem bank took on a historical appearance: the 1880 Capitol National Bank was renovated in a Richardsonian Romanesque style to copy Philadelphia's First National Bank of the Republic. But our bank has local character: on the arch over one of the second story windows, there is the facsimile of the beaver dollar, a $10 gold piece minted in 1849 when Oregon was a territory. Another western element is the Utah red and Tenino gray sandstone used through much of the facade. Two columns of polished granite supported a half-arch doorway with a stair tower bay. The design was by C. S. McNally in association with W.C. Knighton and the builders were Erixson and Luker. The bank occupied the building until the 1920s.

When you visit
The building you see today is authentic to its 1892 remodel on the upper floors. However, James Payne, a local architect, renovated the ground floor of the former bank building in 1950. Remodeling the new street front required holding up the stone top stories, a weight of over 100 tons, with steel beams in order to introduce a large glass window and double doors for more light. In 1967 Nancy Gormsen, the granddaughter of Robert S. Wallace, the bank founder, opened a business here. In recent years the building has housed a variety of enterprises.
This unique Salem building is often pictured in publicity for our downtown and is the structure most commented on by those who take the SHINE historic downtown walking tour.

Other events

• The Fourth of July is celebrated with a downtown parade.
• Construction of the copper dome for the State House is begun.

• While serving as a pallbearer at the funeral of Obed Dickinson, the former Congregational minister, Thomas McFadden Patton suffers a heart attack and dies hours later. For many years the Superintendent of that church's Sunday school, his sudden death is a great shock to all the members as well as to his family. A stained glass window in the present church sanctuary is dedicated to Mr. Patton's memory. His elaborate Victorian home was a Court Street landmark until 1937. The state library stands on that site today.

Home of James and Flora Watts

• A few blocks east was the Watts Addition, subdivided in 1871 and then enlarged in 1891. James Watt, after a dozen years of marriage, acquired from his family a property where he built a Queen Anne/Eastlake style home for his wife Flora and their family. This is now 1490 Chemeketa Street. Three other Watt residences are neighbors. After her husband's death, Flora lived in smaller, family-owned houses nearby, selling the larger house in 1925. All four of the Watts houses are contributing historic properties in the NEN neighborhood's Court-Chemeketa National Register Historic District. (See these in the SHINE walking tour.)
• Beyond the city limits that followed Mill Creek until 1903, an unknown builder constructed a charming small farmhouse on what is now 21st. Street. The house has had many owners and tenants since 1892, but the best known is Margaret Edwards, widow of William H. Edwards bought the property in 1917 and lived there for ten years. A Local Landmark in today's NEN neighborhood, it is designated as the Edwards House.

Home of Christopher and Elizabeth Paulus

• In North Salem, also outside the city limits until 1903, Christopher Paulus builds a home in quite a different style at 1556 Church Street. Paulus owned the J. K. Gill building on State Street and ran a saloon until he established a building contracting business. This was the home in which he and his wife Elizabeth raised six sons, Robert, Fred, George, Otto, William, and Theodore. This house suffered neglect for many years, but has been restored by the current owners. It is a Local Landmark is in Grant Neighborhood.

Ben Maxwell recalled these local transportation news items of 1892:

• Tom Burroughs' delivery horse shied at an electric [street] car as it came around the corner of State Street then tried to climb a roof. Dell Dinsmoor executed a leap for the rear car steps. The driver received some bruises, the horse got hurt on its side, the shafts of the wagon were torn out and spectators were afforded a little excitement.
• A petition to the council signed by Salem residents on 14th Street between Chemeketa and State asked action to prevent cattle from trespassing upon their lawns. The petition was referred to the committees on health and police.
• Constant complaint has reached the newspaper about the condition of the county road leading up the hill to the Odd Fellows cemetery [later Pioneer Cemetery]. Teams bogged down at every funeral and farmers could not haul any sizeable load over it to Salem markets.

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

Featuring our Summer Street Heritage

Today the Statesman Journal featured Grant neighborhood's efforts to establish a National Register Historic District in an area including this historic Summer Street house. Originally built in the 1930s for Juanita and Robert Paulus, it is now owned by Lola and Christopher Hackett who are active in preservation activities and are quoted in the current newspaper article. On October 8, the Marion County Historic Society will welcome Norma Paulus as speaker at their annual dinner, held at Mission Mill Museum. We are fortunate in Salem that both newcomers to our community and representatives of past generations work together to preserve our valuable cultural heritage.