Salem in 1946

World Events

• President Truman officially ends hostilities of WW II. The UN holds its first General Assembly. The Nuremberg Trials begin. ("Judgement at Nuremberg" film, 1961)
• As Soviets enforce control of East Germany and eastern European countries, Churchill pronounces: "The iron curtain has descended in Europe."
• King David Hotel in Jerusalem, headquarters of British Administration in Palestine, is bombed by radical Zionists, killing 91 persons.
• U.S. Army's ENIAC, which used decimal arithmetic, is first general purpose electronic computer. A Tokyo engineering firm, later named Sony, is  founded with 20 employees.
• The navy tests an improved atomic bomb over the tiny Bikini Island. The U.S. Atomic Energy Commission is established.
• A shared Nobel Peace Prize: to Emily Greene Balch as Honorary President of the Women's International League for peace and Freedom; to John Raleigh Mott, President of the World Alliance of the YMCA.
• "Annie Get Your Gun" is a hit musical. This year's movie about lives of three returning servicemen, "The Best Years of Our Lives", wins an Academy Award.  Also popular is the now-classic, "It's A Wonderful Life".

In Salem

Shopping returns to importance for the ladies and in April a new supply of nylon hose for sale at Miller's Department Store causes a line to form out into Chemeketa Street. The Office of Price Administration set a goal of producers supplying six pairs of nylon hose for every woman in the country by June. 
Returning servicemen discover finding a place to live is among their biggest problems immediately after the war. Veterans housing was hastily put up in Salem and their families moved in. But soon new small "tract houses" began appearing in former farmlands as new subdivisions multiplied on the edges of town. The city grew to meet the demand for services and patches of land were annexed where the developments were growing. Young parents with children (who later became known as Baby Boomers) found a community of their own outside the core of the city. Their interests in common were based on the husband's job security, a social life based on church going, back-yard neighborhood barbecue parties and looking forward to prosperity their own parents had lost in the Depression.

When you visit
Miller's Department Store of that year is now restored to its original name as Reed Opera House. It contains many specialty shops, cafes and offices, serving as a true "mall" in a local heritage site. Many illustrated panels in the hallways describe the events of the building's history.

Other events

• A small country school south of Salem, founded by the Pringle family in 1856, has an opportunity in 1946 to add classes on Battle Creek and Boone Road corner. The Pleasant Point School was divided into two sections and dragged two miles up Boone Road to be attached to Pringle School. Growing school populations would make new building an urgent concern for the next generation. A 1956 photograph shows a bus dropping students off in the 100th year of this busy school. In 1987 the public school was built in a new location. This site has recently been utilized as a private institution and as offices. It is the most historic structure in the South Gateway neighborhood.
• The site is selected for Detroit Dam. The dam and its reservoir transformed the North Santiam Canyon. Nearly 200 residents of the unincorporated town of Detroit were moved, and Oregon State Highway 22 and the North Santiam River were realigned. Over 1,000 dam workers and engineers labored on the project, many of whom moved into nearby towns, including Mill City, Idanha, Gates, and a new town of Detroit.
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•  Two residences of prominent earlier residents are demolished: the home of former Governor Stephen Chadwick at Capitol and Center Streets (above); and the pioneer John Zieber's house in the area that would become Keizer (below right)
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• Another old-timer having a portrait this year is the Star Exchange on the northwest corner of Commercial and Chemeketa Streets. In the 1890s (or earlier) it had been the State Insurance Company with the YMCA upstairs - where the first Salem basketball game was held in its gym. It was also the first Salem Elks Lodge and housed many other civic ventures. This venerable building lasted until at least 1981. (below)
  
  
• The Capitol Journal newspaper gets a new home on Chemeketa Street.
• A rail strike closes train traffic out of the local station.
• David Duniway, who will become the leader in local historical preservation, becomes the Oregon State Archivist. To quote Elisabeth Walton Potter, “David was recruited from a National Archives field supervisory position in San Francisco to head the newly created Archives Division within the Oregon State Library. He was a great repository of facts concerning the capital city. The figures of early Salem and Oregon history were his familiars. He knew them from their papers, journals, published writings, and the documents they signed. Who better to write the entry about “Salem” for the 1964 edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica?"
• Miss Sally Bush dies at the age of 86 and is buried with her family in the I.O.O.F Cemetery, now the Pioneer Cemetery. Before her death this year, the sale of Bush family land to the city of Salem was completed by Henry Compton, trusted friend of Bush family and officer of Pioneer Trust Company. The purchase of the upland 47 acres was made subject to a life estate in the home site for Sally and A. N. Bush. The home site was the area from the south side of the barn to Mission Street and High Street to the top of the hill going down into the lowlands. Effective on the purchase date, the city gained possession and control of the uplands except the life estate area and the 53 acres of the lowlands less the area sold by the city to Willamette.

Salem in 1884

World Events

• Charles Gordon is sent to Khartom during a revolt by a Muslim leader to evacuate the British civilians. He remained to defend the city, but the city fell and he was killed.("Khartom", 1966)
• Grover Cleveland, a "Bourbon Democrat", is elected President on a campaign of political reform  so popular that the "Mugwumps", like-minded Republicans, jumped party and voted for him.
• May 1: the 8-hour work day proclaimed by Federation of Organized trades and other labor unions. This date, "May Day" is recognized in almost every industrialized country.
• In New York harbor, work on the pedestal for the Statue of Liberty is begun, the arm of the statue having been displayed for many years. In Washington, D.C., the Washington Monument is completed ~ the tallest structure in the world at that time.
• The International Meridian Conference in Washington, D. C. fixes the Greenwich meridian as the world's prime meridian from which the world takes the exact time.
• American Books: Huckleberry Finn, Mark Twain and Ramona, Helen Hunt Jackson.

In Salem
This 1884 Italianate house on High Street also has a Washington connection: it was built for lawyer, state legislator, and U.S. Senator Benjamin F. Harding who was elected to the Oregon Territorial Legislature in 1850 to represent Marion County and thereafter served as Speaker of the House of Representatives. From 1854 to 1859 he served as the Secretary of the Oregon Territory. In 1861 Harding was elected as Speaker of the Oregon House of Representatives, but in the next year was elected to the United States Senate to fill the seat of another Salem resident, Edward Baker, after the latter had died in the Civil War. Harding served from 1862 to 1865 when he retired and returned to this home. Harding was married twice, first in 1851 to Elizabeth Cox, with whom he had several children. After she died in 1868, he married F.W. Bush, a relative of Asahel Bush, his neighbor. A few years later Harding moved to Cottage Grove where he died on June 16, 1899.
The house is perhaps better remembered for the second owners, Jacob and Louise Amsler. He was a trusted employee of the Bush family, sometimes known as manager of the estate when it was the home of "Miss Sally". Stories of “Jacob” are woven into the history of the Bush House. One recalls his taking over as chauffeur for the lady of the house after Sally's first attempt to drive her new electric car resulted in her crashing into the front window of a downtown pharmacy. An Amsler family tradition concerns a beech tree that Jacob planted in 1902 at 1678 Liberty Street. His son, William, operated the Nob Hill Dairy in that area. Dr. Rogers, the dentist at the address, named his clinic Liberty Beech Dental after the large tree.

When you visit
A National Register property since 1982, this remains a private home. It is located at 1043 High Street SE in the Gaiety Hill/Bush's Pasture Park Historical Residential District and is included in the Gaiety Hill/Bush's Pasture Park walking tour on this SHINE website. The house is in the South Central Area Neighbors association (SCAN) that meets monthly on the 2nd Wednesday, 6:30 pm, at South Salem High School, 1910 Church Street SE. The association is active in preserving the residential integrity of the historic district, especially as new commercial developments are being anticipated along its borders. The public is welcome.

Other Events

• The Capital Journal newspaper, in collecting news stories, is one of the few Salem telephone users. An exchange system was set up in Lee Steiner's drug store about 1890.
• Joseph and Charley Meyers pay off an election wager as they chop firewood in front of a Commercial Street business establishment. An all male audience joins them in posing for the camera.
• Sanborn Fire Insurance maps first record Salem properties. These maps, now available online from the Salem Public Library, are invaluable tools for seeing what structures were in place at various years of our local history.
• In this year Edwin Cross succeeds his father, Thomas Cross, one of Salem's earliest meat processors, manager of the family business. In 1867, their market and slaughterhouse on Center Street was photographed as an attractive white two-story wooden building with a wide porch and picket fence and tall trees around it. The pre-1894 home of Edwin Cross was located at the northeast corner of Liberty and Chemeketa Streets.
• Estelle Bush and Claudius Thayer, after an a front porch courtship at her home, elope and marry against her father's wishes. Claudius was described as "physically crippled" in his obituary and that is given as the reason her father opposed Estelle's marriage. Claudius was the son of Oregon's sixth governor, William Wallace Thayer and later a Supreme Court Justice. A reception was held in the groom's family's residence in Portland.  The couple first made a home in Tillamook where they operated a bank, then moved to California for Mr. Thayer's health. Their only child, Eugenia, died of influenzain 1918. Estelle returned to Salem after Claudius' death in 1923.

• Dr. Luke A. Port and wife Lizzie move to Salem and build their first home (now the National Register designated Port-Manning House on Halls Ferry Road) where they live with their daughter and son, Alpha and Omega. On the corner of Winter and Ferry streets, it was in an early residential neighborhood near the new First Methodist Church and State House structures. In 1887, their son, destined to be a partner in the father's pharmacy in the Patton Building, was lost at sea while on the way to Germany for further study. The Ports left Salem for extensive travel (including futile investigations into the fate of the ship their son has taken) and new real estate enterprises. They sold the house to Major William Manning. They will not return to Salem until 1894 when they build their second home here, later to be named Deepwood.

Salem in 1882

World Events

• In the Anglo-Egyptian War: British troops bomb and occupy Cairo, securing the Suez Canal. Egypt becomes a British protectorate.
• Roderick McLean fails in an attempt to assassinate Queen Victoria while she is leaving Windsor Station in her carriage. In St. Joseph, Missouri, the outlaw Jesse James is murdered in his home.
• The Triple Alliance is formed by Germany, Austria-Hungary and Italy, mainly to unite against any French threat. The union expired in 1915 during WW I when Italy withdrew.
• Chinese immigration to the U.S. is prohibited; the first U.S. exclusion law to restricts immigration.
• Rockefeller's Standard Oil Company creates a Trust that controls secretly controls multiple corporations.
• Inventions: Thomas Edison flips the stitch to engage the first commercial electrical power plant in the U.S., lighting a square mile of Manhattan. Schuyler Wheeler produces the first electric fan.
• Oscar Wilde, Irish-born author at entry to U.S. for a lecture tour, is asked by customs if he has anything to declare. "Only my genius", he responds.
• New publications for American readers include "The Lady or the Tiger", a still-fascinating short story by Frank Stockton and Mark Twain's The Prince and the Pauper.

 In Salem
In this year, Adam Stephens is creating a school several miles north of the Salem town limits. The original school has now been rebuilt, but the name, Adam Stephens Middle School, is a memorial to the founder of this community.
Thirty-four year before (1848), Adam Stephens and his wife Lucinda had traveled a “blazed trail marked with wagon wheel tracks” to settle on 585 acres of land in the present area of Hayesville. In that wilderness he built a sawmill on Claggett Creek and a home in the area of the present Claxter Road. In 1858 lumber from his sawmill built a church and the first burial in a small nearby cemetery was that of his infant, namesake son. North Salem Baptist Church was built on this property. A number of family members are now buried here and their graves are carefully tended by the present generation.

When you visit
The graveyard is accessed entering the driveway of the church at 4290 Portland Road. A short walk in the graveyard takes you to the northeast corner, through the beautiful trees to the graves pictured above. The cemetery is bordered on the east by Claggett Creek.
The most public memory of this pioneer is the school founded by him. No trace of the original structure remains since it was rebuild in 1982, a hundred years after its founding.
The family homestead included the land surrounding the present-day intersection of I-5 and Portland Road. This property was annexed to the city of Salem in 1947, a hundred years after this settlement. It is in the northern half of Northgate Neighborhood that was organized in 1972. Monthly neighborhood meetings are held the 2nd Tuesday, 7 pm, at the clubhouse of Hee Hee Illahe RV Park 4751 Astoria Street NE. The public is welcome.

Other Events

• This is the year Sally Bush graduated from Smith College and returned to Salem where she will live for the rest of her life. Perhaps it was to celebrate her return home, and her love of nature, that the Conservatory at the rear of the Bush residence is built. It is now the oldest greenhouse in Oregon and is part of the Gaiety Hill/Bush's Pasture Historic District, listed on the National Register of Historic Places. A recent successful campaign to restore the Conservatory was organized by volunteers of the Lord and Schryver Conservancy and Salem Art Association that administers the property. The Conservatory is open to the public.
• Willamette Valley Flouring Mill (Scotch Mills) joins Capitol Mills on the east shoreline of the Willamette River in Salem. Wheat and flour were the basic products transported on the river in this year. The Scotch Mills burned in 1904.
• Thomas Cronise came to Salem this year on the invitation of his brother Harry. He worked for Mrs. A.L. Stinson, owner of a printing business on Commercial Street and, later, for R.J. Hendricks of the Oregon Statesman newspaper as a foreman of the paper's technical department. Cronise married Nellie Riggs two year later. By 1886, he had his own print shop, however, an allergy to printer's ink eventually forced Cronise to quit the printing business. In 1892, Anna Louise, Cronise's sister, moved to Salem and introduced him to photography. By 1893, Anna had bought a photo studio at the corner of State and High Streets. Anna and Thomas Cronise hired a young photographer named Howard Trover, who married Anna. In May 1902, Cronise bought a studio and entered the photography profession on his own. He died in April 1927, and his wife Nellie operated the business until her passing in 1930. Then his son Harry operated the business until 1972. His work is commemorated in the book, The Art Perfected.

Cover of Oregon's first novel

• Oregon's first novelist, a pioneer teacher in the Methodist mission, dies in Seattle this year. Margaret Smith Bailey (1812-1882) resisted the attempts to "marry her off" (her suitor, according to her narration, was William Willson) while at the mission. Their "confessions" did not harm his reputation, but put an end to her ambitions as a teacher. After she left the mission and married the man of her choice, her resentment of her treatment by the Methodist missionaries (especially Rev. Leslie) and her life in the settlement, continued as she became known as a writer. in Oregon periodicals.  Finally, she published a book (The Grains, or Passages in the Life of Ruth Rover, with Occasional Pictures of Oregon, Natural and Moral) that caused a scandal and coincided with her 1854 divorce. Half novel and half record of actual events and true names, the book continues to cause speculation about its truth. 
• Pheasants in the Salem area, brought by Chinese immigrants, are the first in the United States.