Salem in 1951

World Events

• People's Republic of China takes control in Lhasa, Tibet. The Dalai Lama is welcomed in India where he lives to the present.
• Relieved of duty by President Truman, General McArthur makes an emotional farewell address, "And like the old soldier in that ballad, I now close my military career and just fade away..."
• China enters into Korean military action. After inconclusive combat up and down the peninsula, a stalemate results in the first armistice talks.
• 22nd Amendment to the US Constitution limits presidents to two terms. 
• Julius and Ethel Rosenberg are convicted of espionage for the Soviet Union and given the death penalty.
• Severe weather: avalanches in the Alps, forests are destroyed by fires in Oregon and other western states, floods in Kansas and Northern Italy,
• This year's musical, "American in Paris", wins the Academy Award (1952). Classic US films of this year: "African Queen" and "Streetcar Named Desire". "Rashomon" (Japan) is judged best foreign film. National Book Award: Collected Stories of William Faulkner, William Faulkner. Pulitzer Prize: The Town, Conrad Richter.

Then: this site along our river was an industrial area

In Salem
Salem families are still getting their news from the radio in the living room: Salem would not have TV for another few years. The evening news broadcasts informed them about a country many had never heard of, Korea. A neighbor had been called back into service and been sent there to fight with United States Marine Corps. But not Dad, so Mom does not worry as she sends her family off to school or work into a city that is being transformed by construction projects. The largest is the new bridge across the Willamette River at Marion Street. This street, adjoining Marion Square Park, once a fine residential neighborhood surrounding Marion Square Park,  is now being sliced up for ramps that will be entrances to the bridge. One overpass was almost directly over the old Gilbert residence that had been transformed into modest apartments. The photograph above shows one of the familiar arched supports near Gilbert House at the Water Street walkway along east side of the river.

And now ~ Riverfront Park invites visitors

When you visit
Archways under the bridge, such as the one in this photograph, enhance the river scenery we enjoy while walking along Water Street north of Riverfront Park. The former A. C. Gilbert residence, almost under the bridge itself, is now the core of the Gilbert House Children's Museum for the education of children through play activities. Four other historic structures have been relocated in this complex along Water Street. These include historic structures from Capitol Street where state purchases for office buildings is transforming the neighborhood north of the capitol building.
The Marion Street Bridge is now one-way with approaches from the east side of the river: going south, cars turn right from Commercial Street; going west cars enter the bridge on Marion Street itself. The Center Street Bridge allows vehicles to travel from West Salem into the downtown area. Although the vehicle bridges do offer some pedestrian or bike lanes, it is advised to take the renovated Union Street Bridge if walking or riding a bike. Traffic across the river has always been a factor in city planning and continues to be a concern.

Other Events

• Alfred W. Loucks becomes mayor. The auditorium of the Salem Public Library is later named for him.
• The city is covered in three inches of snow after a surprise March snowstorm.
• Under the sponsorship of the Baptist Church, United Gospel Mission is established to aid the homeless of the downtown area.
• Local Rotary clubs become involved with the Willamette Scholarship Fund and the Rotary International Scholarship Fund. Since 1950, Rotary Club members adopt American Field Service students and pay travel costs.
• The Scottish Rite Temple of the Masonic Order holds services in a new facility in the 500 block of South Commercial Street. Purchased the year before, much volunteer as well as professional labor had gone into preparing this site.
• The third structure of the First Christian Church is erected on the 1902 church site at the southeast corner of Church and High Streets. The original sanctuary, built in 1867, was known as the "little brick church".

North Capitol Mall in 1951

• Three of the new state buildings are complete on North Capitol Mall. Since construction began in 1937, it was known that the fourth building would have to wait until the First Presbyterian Church was moved diagonally across Winter Street. The church structure on the northeast corner of Chemeketa and Winter Streets (at right center in the photograph above), facing Chemeketa, had been erected and dedicated in 1928 on what was thought to be a permanent site. In anticipation of a move (1958-9), the church began purchasing property on the west side of Winter Street in 1946. By 1951, the Rigdon house at the southwest corner of Chemeketa and Winter Streets, had been demolished. Four more on Winter and around the corner would follow by 1963 when the church property extended around the corner onto Court Street. This signaled the end of the historic residential neighborhood of "Piety Hill" associated with the most prominent pioneer families of Salem. Its proximity to Willson Park, the capitol and Willamette University had made it a fashionable place to live, but the posh residential neighborhood was already that of Fairmount Hill.
• A barnlike structure serves as a facility for car parking at Liberty and Ferry Streets. This is an earlier version of the current Liberty Parkade and the other covered parking facilities downtown that were created in the next twenty years to relieve the problem of parking for potential shoppers.

Salem in 1919

World Events

• The Civil War spreads in Russia: The Red Army, a Communist force led by Lenin is opposed by the White Army, Conservatives who want a return to a monarchist government. ("Doctor Zhivago" 1965 film based on 1957 Boris Pasternak novel.)
• The Paris Peace Conference opens in Versailles with 32 nations debating Allied terms of peace and reparations to be paid by the Central Powers.
• The League of Nations, which will meet in Geneva, is founded with a first meeting to be in January 1920. The U.S. does not join, however President Wilson is awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for "his crucial role in establishing the League of Nations".
• Prohibition of alcohol passed in Congress as the 18th Amendment to the US Constitution.
• Babe Ruth, a sports hero, breaks the record for most MLB home runs.
• Edsel Ford succeeds his father as head of the Ford Motor Company.
• The Dutch airline, KLM is formed (now oldest airline flying under original name).
• President Wilson suffers a severe stroke, his condition hidden from the public: his wife makes decisions for him until the end of his term of office.
• New books: Winesburg, Ohio, Sherwood Anderson and The Moon and Sixpence, W. Somerset Maugham. Carl Sandburg publishes Corn Huskers and Ring Lardner humorously captures the perils of buying a house in Own Your Own Home.

In Salem
Robert Paulus of Salem led an effort this year to form a statewide marketing organization of fruit packers and growers, serving as sales manager of the Oregon Growers Cooperative Association. He and his wife Juanita built this home at 1155 Summer Street at about the same time. A 1927 company with brother George was the first time vegetables in any quantity had been canned in Salem. In 1942, the Paulus brothers fruit packing company in Salem was authorized to provide dried fruits and vegetables for the armed forces. Their contributions to the war effort brought them awards for outstanding accomplishment as a food processor. In 1954 they were the largest independently owned canning firm in the Northwest. The sale of the company in 1955 to Dole Hawaiian Pineapple Company marked the end of an era.

When you visit
This private residence on Summer Street is a designated Local Landmark. The exterior of the house has recently been renovated after Design Review by the Historic Landmarks Commission of the Salem Community Development Department. The property includes a lot to the north that once contained a formal garden (now being renovated) possibly designed by the outstanding local landscape architects of the 1930s, Elizabeth Lord and Edith Schrvyer. The low iron fence on the street side of the property came from the Pioneer Cemetery and was purchased when it was replaced at the cemetery. This home is located on one of the last remaining residential blocks of what was once a socially prominent residential area of Salem before the expansion of the North Capitol Mall. In this Grant neighborhood, volunteers are working with the State Historic Preservation Office to prepare a nomination to establish a National Register Historic District.

Other Events

• C. E. Albin becomes mayor.
• The record low temperature reaches six degrees below zero and the city is blanketed with 22 inches of snow.

Valley Packing Company soon after it was established in 1919

The former meat packing facility as it looked in 2012.

• Curtis Cross, the Steusloff brothers and A.N. Bush establish the Valley Packing Company. The large plant occupied 55 acres just west of the Southern Pacific Railway crossing on Portland Road in an almost deserted neighborhood. It was the only U.S. Inspected full-line meat processing plant in the state outside of Portland. Cascade Meats Inc. took over the plant in 1956. In 1959, the year before it closed, there were 130 employees. This Highland neighborhood building is now used for tire storage and has an abandoned appearance from the exterior.
• Waller Hall burns for the second time. The fire was believed to have originated in the chemical laboratory in this classroom building. The work of dragging heavy hose 500 feet through deep snow handicapped firemen. Losses on the second, third and fourth floors amounted to more than $35,000.
• Lausanne Hall is demolished on the Willamette University Campus.
• The American Legion establishes Capital Post No. 9 that creates a relief fund for military veterans and their families.
• Myrtle Gilbert is selected as president of the Salem Art League, later to become the Salem Art Association. That first year the Salem Arts League held art displays, conducted classes in art, literature, and design. The Weaver's Guild and the Writer's Club, organizations still serving Salem artists, grew out of those early years. She died in 1970 at the age of 88, but her many local contributions to the appreciation of the arts are a living Salem legacy.
• The Rotary Club is founded by a few business and professional men who met above Giles Wholesale Fruit Store at South High and Trade Streets. From the beginning, Wednesday luncheons were held in the Hotel Marion. The Club went to work on community projects in cooperation with the Police and Juvenile Court authorities, the Children's Playground Project and aid in furnishing supplies and funds for the Salem hospitals.
• President Woodrow Wilson visits Salem during a speaking tour to gain support for America's participation in the League of Nations. It is possibly one of his last engagements: he collapsed on September 25 in Pueblo, Colorado and suffered a disabling stroke the next month. The extent of his disability was kept from the public until after his death in 1924.

 Capitol Journal news:

• Salem's new city administration pledged itself to make every effort to stamp out the flu. The spitting ordinance would be enforced and restaurants must provide straws with drinks served.
• All doctors were against lifting the ban against public meetings. More than 200 homes were under modified quarantine. An emergency hospital capable of caring for 23 patients was in operation. Nevertheless, except for dances, the city's ban on public meetings was revoked on January 27.
• The 91st Division made up of men from Washington, Oregon and California and known as the "Wild West" division, broke all records for wartime acquisition of decorations> 150 distinguished service crosses, 101 French Croix de Guerre, 150 Belgium Croix de Guerre and 5 Congressional medals.
• The Salem Cigar factory resumed making "La Corona" and "Little Salem" cigars exactly as they were made before the war. "Smoking them reminds one of old times."