Court Street-Chemeketa Street Historic District
The Court Street-Chemeketa Street Historic District was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1987. Portions of the content on this web page were adapted from a copy of the original nomination document. [‡]
Description
The Court Street-Chemeketa Street Historic District is comprised of approximately 38.75 acres (all or fractions of 12 blocks of varying sizes and configurations) located east of the downtown business district of Salem, Oregon, and directly east of the grounds of the state capitol. The Court Street-Chemeketa Street Historic District is bounded on the north and east by Mill Creek, on the south between Court and State Streets by the property lines of properties abutting Court Street from 13th Street to Mill Creek, and on the west by the Court Street Closure at 13th Street and the Chemeketa Street closure at 14th street. These boundaries are determined by topography, traffic routes, changes of land use to the south and west of the district, and the age and architectural consistency of structures within the district in contrast to the generally newer blocks of residences north and east of Mill Creek.
The Court Street-Chemeketa Street Historic District is residential with most of the houses having been built during the period 1860-1937. Construction occurred in two broad waves. The first began slowly as early as the 1860's, picked up briskly in the 1890's, culminated in the period 1908-1910, and ended with the conclusion of World War I in 1918. The second smaller wave occurred in the 1920's and ended in 1937 when virtually all remaining buildable land available had been developed. The relatively few structures built after the Leo and Elma Childs House of 1937 (320 14th Street NE) are apartments and single family residences in modern styles that represent a distinct break with the architecture of the original neighborhood. The Court Street-Chemeketa Street Historic District includes 99 contributing structures in primary and secondary classifications. There are in addition, 26 historic properties which, owing to their degree of alteration, are classified as noncontributing in present condition. Five properties in the Court Street-Chemeketa Street Historic District are compatible but non-historic and are therefore classified as non-contributing. Seventeen incompatible structures bring the total number of properties in the non-contributing category to 48. The grand total of evaluated properties includes 131 single-family and multi-family residences, eight garages, three churches, one small store-front building, three automobile bridges, and one foot bridge. Despite its proximity to downtown Salem, the Court Street-Chemeketa Street Historic District is relatively well-protected from the severe impact of traffic because of the nature of its geographic and man-made boundaries. Mill Creek provides Court Street with a dead end to the east and protects Chemeketa Street on the north between 14th and 17th streets. The uninterrupted stretch of Court Street from 14th to 17th streets helps to provide the district with a firm southern edge. The closures of Court and Chemeketa streets deflect through traffic to and from the downtown area and are planted buffer zones helping to define the district. The major intrusion is 17th Street, an arterial running north and south through the district for a distance of approximately two blocks. Apart from this intrusion; the area in general is a quiet residential zone.
Public commitment to the stabilization of the Court-Chemeketa Residential Historic District and the preservation of its residential nature has been considerable in recent years. The closures of Court and Chemeketa streets were approved by the Salem City Council as part of a $191,000 Federally funded street reversal project in downtown Salem. Federal funding was dependent, in part, on the money being used to reduce traffic impact on established residential neighborhoods, and traffic counts show that many fewer vehicles now pass along Court and Chemeketa than was the case before the closures were installed. Experiments are underway in 1987 to reduce the traffic impact along 17th Street as well. Because 17th Street will be connected to Mission Street in the course of the Mission widening project, the City Council has agreed to the experiment of re-striping 17th Street north of Court from four to three lanes in an effort to pull traffic flow away from the front lot lines along 17th Street. The re-striping occurred in July, 1986. Federal block grant rehabilitation funds have been invested in the neighborhood. Some 14 houses have been rehabilitated at an investment of $192,035 since 1979. Additionally, Court Street received a major resurfacing in 1978-79 at a cost of $23,000. Furthermore, the City has approved most of the District as a Residential Parking Permit area so that the streets are not overparked despite the location near the capitol and the State Street commercial area. Much of this federal and local support is the result of the efforts of the strong neighborhood association representing the area. This is the Northeast Neighbors Association (NEN), which since its founding in 1974 has actively supported the protection and preservation of the neighborhoods to the immediate northeast of downtown Salem.
The Court Street-Chemeketa Street Historic District is named for its two east-west streets, which complement but are different from each other. Court Street is a 99-foot wide boulevard with, in general, the District's larger and older houses. Chemeketa Street is narrower and, with notable exceptions, lined with bungalows and cottages. The properties on the north side of Chemeketa back toward Mill Creek, and some of these houses were designed to overhang or in other ways take advantage of the creek site. The Court Street-Chemeketa Street Historic District also contains portions of four north-south linking streets. One of these is a block-long section of 15th Street, entirely contained within the Court Street-Chemeketa Street Historic District. The others are through-streets: 14th, 17th, and 18th. Of these, 14th and 17th are the most heavily trafficked. It is anticipated that the planned restriping of 17th will reduce traffic impact on the 12 structures within the District that line 17th Street. The District contains internal alleys (accessible only from within the District) in four blocks and two north-south alleys indirectly linking Court Street with State Street at approximately 15th Street and between 18th Street and Mill Creek.
The overall character of the Court Street-Chemeketa Street Historic District is that of a late 19th and early 20th century neighborhood with occasional later intrusions in the form of apartment complexes, duplexes, and single family dwellings. Sign posts announcing the residential parking permit requirement west of 17th Street, pole-mounted street lights, and utility poles with overhead wiring are non-historical accents along the curbs. The streets and alleys are paved, and the concrete sidewalks are imprinted at various locations with the names of the cement contractors and the dates of construction: "J. KOENEKE/VEATCH;" "VEATCH & ROWE 1909 14TH ST.;" "VEATCH & ROWE 1910;" "VEATCH 1910;" "VEATCH" (undated, four locations); "15 ST. WARD 1910;" "ED KYLE 1910;" "D. DORB" (undated, four locations); "S. FAGG." The streets are lined with mature but in most cases not historical street trees, including walnut, sweet gum, maple, and conifer. Most of the white birch trees and many of the walnuts remembered as standing along Court Street by longtime residents have disappeared. The District includes several ornamental gardens established in the 1930s and 1940's; these or their remnants are especially notable at the William E. and Nora Anderson House (1577 Court Street NE), the E.M. and May Page House (1642 Court Street NE), the Waller-Chamberlin House (1658 Court Street NE), the Elizabeth Watt House (1568 Chemeketa Street NE), and the Dr. Harvey J. Clements House (360 14th Street NE). The most distinctive natural feature of the Court Street-Chemeketa Street Historic District is the creek, providing the immediate setting for some of the residences and a destination for neighbors away from the creek who take walks in the area. Trees lining the creek frame the east end of the District; the screen of trees at the east end of Court Street at the creek will be echoed five blocks to the west when the new plantings at the Court Street closure at 13th Street grow to maturity. Four bridges span Mill Creek within the District, including a footbridge at the east end of Court Street and automobile-pedestrian bridges at Chemeketa Street, 18th Street, and 17th Street.
Among the historically compatible houses in the Court Street-Chemeketa Street Historic District, those built in the Primary period (1860-1918) generally fall in one of the following categories: Vernacular; Gothic Revival (including Rural Gothic); Queen Anne, vernacular Queen Anne, and Queen Anne/Eastlake; variations of Craftsman (including the "American Foursquare"), and Colonial Revival. Houses built in the Secondary period (1919-1937) are generally in the historic period styles, including English Cottage, Norman Farmhouse, and variations of the Colonial (including Colonial, Dutch Colonial, and Colonial Bungalow). The oldest house in the Court Street-Chemeketa Street Historic District is the Rural Gothic Waller-Chamberlin House (1658 Court Street NE), built about 1860, a survivor from East Salem's earliest building period. It and the Joseph/Gray House (1308 Court Street NE) and the Franklin Yocom House (243 14th Street NE), both of about 1870, precede the period of major growth. At least two surviving houses were built in the 1880's, but the major development began in 1892 and culminated in 1908-1910. In the period 1890-1910, approximately 70 of the surviving structures (69 houses and one church) were built. These were mostly the Queen Anne cottages and houses, followed by the earlier of the Craftsman variations. Approximately nine of the surviving houses were erected in each of the years 1908, 1909, and 1910, the most active building period in the history of the District. Ten more were built in the period 1911-1913, with new construction falling off drastically in the war years: just one house was built in each of the years 1914, 1917, and 1918 (and none in 1915-1916).
Some 25 houses were added in the period 1920-1937, these tending to be in the historic period styles. These houses often depart from the exclusive use of wood in preference for brick construction or stucco facing. More "modern" than the pre-war houses, they nevertheless complement the earlier houses in scale and craftsmanship and by virtue of the historicism of American residential architecture in the 1920's and early thirties. The latest historically compatible residence is the Leo and Elma Childs House of 1937 (320 14th Street NE), an English Cottage built on the site of the old Clark House. In replacing one of the oldest structures in the District, it became the newest and final one to be built within the period of historic development of the original neighborhood. Structures built after that are in modern styles, are generally apartment structures, and do not contribute to the historic character of the area. The District's three churches include the Chemeketa Street Evangelical Church of 1894 (270 17th Street NE), a deteriorating but distinctive central landmark. The Court Street Christian Church (1699 Court Street NE) and St. John Lutheran Church (1350 Court Street NE), meanwhile, both were built about 1950 in late 20th century period architecture styles that make them non-historically compatible with the District. These two churches are located at major traffic corners and serve as anchoring, buffering structures. Apart from the houses and the Chemeketa Street Evangelical Church, there are two additional historic structures in the District — the Little Gem Grocery Store, a small wood frame structure built in the 1920's, and the 17th Street Bridge (1928).
Collectively, the numerous automobile garages and general-purpose sheds which serve the houses of the district contribute to the district's character on a subordinate level. Typically, the garages are small, box-like frame constructions with gable roofs, and they are usually oriented with their gable ends and entrances fronting an alley. By their uniform scale and serial arrangement at the rear lot lines, they provide definition and design continuity along the district's east-west alleyways. Many of the older garages in the district are makeshift structures in run-down condition, but most are single-bay sheds having shiplap siding, overhanging eaves and minimal detail. Individually, the typical garage is unremarkable. Nevertheless, there are a number which, by their well-preserved condition, visible placement, quality of finish work and detail, and clear stylistic relationship to the residence they serve, are outstanding enough to be counted as contributing structures in their own right. In addition, there are several garages or garden houses which were constructed as parts of design ensembles but are connected in a more or less substantial manner to the main building. Therefore, the latter are not counted as separately-contributing features.
With a few exceptions, the Court Street-Chemeketa Street Historic District as it exists today grew up over a 50-year period that ended 50 years ago. The structures are stylistically diverse but compatible, illustrating several contiguous and complementary chapters in American residential building. This architectural compatibility, together with the clearly defined boundaries, help make the District a contained and cohesive ensemble with a distinct historic atmosphere.
Note: Six houses are known to have been moved into or within the Court Street-Chemeketa Street Historic District. Four of these were moved prior to 1937, during the periods of the neighborhood's historic development: the old Waller house (1658 Court Street NE) was moved twice on its original acreage as Alvin Waller's homestead was subdivided for modern development; the William H. Byrd House (296 14th Street NE) was moved in 1906 from downtown Salem, as original residential neighborhoods gave way to commercial development; the Weller-Schramm House (165 17th Street NE) was moved c.1910 to make way for the Supreme Court Building near the state capitol; and the Fannie Spayd cottage (1595 Court Street NE) was moved within the District in 1928 to clear the way for the construction of the Anderson house (1577 Court Street NE). All four movings occurred as part of Salem's expansion as a governmental and commercial center west of the District and as part of the consolidation of residential East Salem. Two additional houses, Barquist House (1363 Court Street NE) and the Presbyterian Manse (210 18th Street NE), were moved into the District after 1937. All structures moved into the District are excellent examples of styles popular in the Primary and Secondary periods of the District's development.
Significance
The Court-Chemeketa Residential Historic District is a contained, visually cohesive, and architecturally dense area having historical associations important to the history of Salem. The District meets National Register criteria and may be viewed as a case study of the development of the small western American city in general. Old East Salem represents a chapter of local history with broad implications about the nature of American culture in the important transitional period from the late 19th through the early 20th centuries.
Historic Context
Note: The significance of the Court Street-Chemeketa Street Historic District emerges in a discussion of the settlement and development of Salem. Although the District is primarily a late 19th and early 20th century neighborhood, it contains structures that appear much earlier in the narrative of Salem's development:
Mission Land
The Court Street-Chemeketa Street Historic District occupies land associated with the early Methodist Mission origins of Salem. It is situated on land that made up portions of two mission-related parcels: the Methodist Mission Claim (the northerly section of which is now occupied by roughly the west third of the District) and the Donation Land Claim of Alvin F. Waller, the missionary who arrived in Oregon in 1840 as a member of "the great reinforcement" for Rev. Jason Lee's missionary work in the Oregon Country. These adjacent parcels lay east of what was known originally as the Indian Mission Manual Labor School (established 1841), later as the Oregon Institute (beginning in 1844), and then as Wallamet University (incorporated in 1853), the original Willamette University. The parcels were east of the town limits and made up its agricultural and, along Mill Creek, industrial eastern outskirts. The neighborhood as it exists today retains two structures from this early agricultural/industrial history of the area, but as early as 1865 the area began to be sold off and subdivided as residential East Salem. The subdividing was not complete until 1909, and in that nearly 45-year period the area of the District evolved from rural varied uses to an orderly residential extension of the original town's two major east-west streets. The significance of the District is that it contains at least remnants of its entire history since the settlement of Salem in the days of the Methodist missionaries, showing a variety of successive architectural styles that reflect the development of this area from open land with scattered farmhouses, to a late 19th century residential extension of Court and Chemeketa Streets as they were laid out in the original Oregon Institute/W.H. Willson plan of the 1840's, to the completely filled-in urban neighborhood it became after the last wave of building in the 1920's and 1930's. The Court Street-Chemeketa Street Historic District as it exists today is the easterly extension and remnant of the original plan for Salem as a city of wide streets beginning at the Willamette River and extending east through commercial and then residential zones.
Missionary Settlement of Early Salem
Methodist missionary work in the Willamette Valley began in 1834 with the arrival of Jason Lee (1803-1845), who established the original Oregon Mission at what is known now as Mission Bottom, some 10 miles northwest of modern Salem, a half-mile south of Wheatland Ferry. Although his nephew had described this area as a sort of paradise ("a broad, rich bottom, many miles in length, well watered, and supplied with timber, oak, fir, cottonwood, white maple, and white ash, scattered along the borders of its grassy plains, where hundreds of acres were ready for the plow") (Gatke, p.29), Jason Lee decided in 1841 to relocate the mission school to a site 10 miles up river that eventually became the general area of the campus of Willamette University in Salem. According to Lewis H. Judson, writing in 1871, the move was prompted by a concern for health in the swampy bottom area (Judson, p.11).
The mission sawmill already had been built in what is now North Salem in 1840, soon after Lee had returned from a trip east to recruit additional members for his project in Oregon. He and "the great reinforcement" landed at Fort Vancouver on June 1, 1840, after an 8-month voyage around Cape Horn. Included in the party were Rev. Alvin F. Waller (1808-1872) and his wife Elepha White Waller (1811-1881), who were to play a key role in the development of the land east of the new mission school in Salem, and such others who would be fundamental to the founding of Salem as Rev. and Mrs. G. Hines, Rev. and Mrs. L.H. Judson, Rev. and Mrs. J.L. Parrish, Almira Phelps, later Mrs. Joseph Holman, and Miss Chloe A. Clark, later Mrs. W.H. Willson (Judson, p.9). According to Alvin Waller's son, O.A. Waller, interviewed in 1924, "My father was at once [in 1840] put in charge of the building of the mission mill at Chemeketa, as the Indians then called North Salem. At that time the mission was located about ten miles north of Salem, but after father had built the mission mill they put up a building about where Tom Kay later built his woolen mill, and another building...on the present grounds of Willamette University. These were the first three buildings erected within the city limits of Salem" (Lockley, Jan. 22, 1924, p.6).
The new mission settlement, with its mills, a farm, and the Indian School, was already in the early 1840's "an embryo town" (Judson, p.13). Early in 1842, a group of trustees was organized to form the Oregon Institute, a school for white children and half-breed children of white men, to be located about two-and-a-half miles northeast of the mission's mills — on Wallace Prairie. In 1842-1843, a two-story building was built there for this purpose. During this period, yearly immigrations of settlers were entering the Willamette Valley and rapidly increasing its population. In the fall of 1843, Jason Lee returned to the United States to request Congress to donate land for the Indian mission school. "The immigration was increasing from year to year and Mr. Lee, as Superintendent of the Mission, deemed it best to make an effort thus early in this behalf, before the land about the Mission could be claimed and occupied by the settlers; and he also desired, in behalf of the Trustees of the Oregon Institute, whose agent he was, to obtain a donation of land where the Institute was located, for the benefit of the institution" (Judson, p.15).
Break Up of the Mission Holdings
As Lee travelled east, however, Rev. George Gary, agent of the Missionary Board in New York, sailed around the Horn to Oregon "with instructions to close up the secular business of the Oregon Methodist Mission, sell out the mills, farms, stock and improvements belonging to the Mission and to discharge the laymen in the service of the Mission" (Judson, p.15). Gary arrived in the summer of 1844 and carried out his instructions. The Indian Mission School building and property were sold to the Trustees of the Oregon Institute, which had never opened its building on Wallace Prairie, and the Institute opened for classes in the former Indian School in October 1844 with Chloe Clark Willson as the teacher. A small portion of the Mission holdings at Chemeketa, including the parsonage built by Rev. Hines in 1841, was donated by Gary, as agent of the Missionary Board, to the Methodist Episcopal Society as a parsonage (Judson, p.15). This Methodist Mission Claim or "parsonage reserve" was a parcel of 97.39 acres bounded, in modern terms, by 12th Street on the west, Mill Creek on the north, the boundary of what became Alvin Waller's Donation Land Claim on the east, and approximate Mill Street on the south. The northerly portion of this claim has become part of the Court-Chemeketa Residential Historic District in the form of portions of Roberts Addition and Edes Addition, all of Watts Addition, and the creek-side parcel just south of the modern Center Street bridge.
Early Settlers in East Salem: the Wallers
The land east of the Mission Claim was acquired by Alvin Waller and became his 641-acre Donation Land Claim. Although not finally and officially recorded by the U.S. Government until after Waller's death, the land was occupied and farmed by the Wallers probably beginning in the late forties, and Waller began to sell off some of it as early as the 1860's. The Waller House, originally a surveyor's landmark on the County Road leading east from Salem (on what is now State Street near 17th Street), still stands, facing Court Street just north of its original location, as the Waller-Chamberlin House (1658 Court Street NE) in the District.
Born in Abington, Pennsylvania, in 1808, Alvin Waller began his career as a minister in 1832, riding as a junior preacher on the Lewiston Circuit of the Genesee Conference in New York. He and Elepha White (born 1811) were married in 1833, and Waller entered seminary at Lima, New York. In 1840, the Wallers and their children, Mary and Beverly, came to Oregon with Jason Lee when he returned aboard the Lausanne. After building the mission mill and the other early buildings at Chemeketa, Waller was assigned in the fall of 1842 to Willamette Falls where he built the first Protestant church on the Pacific Coast. In 1843, the Wallers, together with the missionary H.D. Brewer, moved to the Dalles. On learning of an impending attack by Indians from Washington Territory, the Wallers and Brewer fled down the Columbia River in a canoe. They reached Oregon City early in December, several weeks after the Whitman massacre at Walla Walla. Waller purchased an old wagon in Oregon City and returned with his family to Salem. Active in the early organization of the Oregon Institute, he became a staunch supporter of the subsequent Willamette University, serving as its agent and fundraiser. He raised money for and oversaw the construction of the university building now called Waller Hall (completed in 1864). Earlier, in 1853, he had helped found the Pacific Christian Advocate. His last major effort was to raise funds for and superintend the construction of the Methodist church still at the corner of State and Church Streets in Salem. He died in December 1872 as a result of catching a cold during a storm. He had been attempting to board up the new church, which still was under construction. The Wallers had five children, three of whom lived to adulthood: Mary Waller Hall, Julia Waller Stratton, and Orrin A. Waller. O.A. Waller, interviewed in 1924, recalled: "When Brewer went back East my father bought his square mile of land for $400. We children were reared on this farm. Most of the produce raised on it went to the support of the Methodist church. We raised vegetables, hay and fruit" (Lockley, Jan. 23, 1924, p.12). O.A. Waller's reference presumably is to what eventually became the family's land claim after the Oregon Donation Land Law was passed in 1850. (For sources on Waller, see Bibliography.)
Early Settlers in East Salem: the Holmans
Among the earliest settlers in the Methodist Mission Claim area of the District, meanwhile, were Joseph Holman and his wife, Almira Phelps Holman, who are believed to have built a cabin and planted an orchard and rose garden on Mill Creek near the present day Center Street bridge. This was approximately the site now occupied by the Dr. Harvey J. Clements House (360 14th Street NE). Joseph Holman, a member of the Peoria party of 1839, married Almira Phelps, a teacher who had come with the Lausanne reinforcement in 1840. Both were teachers and workers in the Indian Manual Labor School of the Lee mission. R.J. Hendricks, writing in 1933, stated his belief that the Holmans built the log cabin near where Center Street crosses Mill Creek that the James Clark family is known to have occupied later. The Holmans evidently planted orchards and a rose garden there, for Gabrielle Clark as an old woman in the 1930's remembered that her mother had an established orchard and garden there when the Clark family occupied the cabin some time before 1860 (Hendricks, Feb. 25, 1933).
Early Settlers in East Salem: the Clarks
James Christian Clark bought at least a portion of the Holman land, together with the cabin, and for a time Holman and Clark were in the tanning business together at the site, which became a creek-side industrial zone during the Civil War period and probably before and after, as well. James Clark had been born on the Isle of Man in 1822 and immigrated to New York at the age of 16. He came to Oregon by wagon train prior to 1852 and established a tanning business at Eola (then called Cincinnati), where he married Nancy Hayden Tucker on Jan. 25, 1853. She had driven her own ox team from Illinois the year before, in the great migration of 1852, accompanied by her 9-year-old daughter, Mary C. Tucker, who died on the trail. Mrs. Tucker had been born Nancy Haydon in 1824 in Kentucky and had married Samuel Tucker when she was 18. He died in 1843, within a year of their marriage. In Oregon, she bought a claim of 624 acres south of Salem and met and married James Clark. They did not live on her claim and in 1857 moved from Eola to Salem, where Clark and Holman became partners in the tanning business (Hendricks, Feb. 24, 1933, p.4). About 1860, the Clarks had Ben Colbath build a large house near the present corner of 14th and Chemeketa Streets (the house was later moved slightly to conform to the modern street corner), and like the Waller House to the southeast it was for years a landmark in surveyors' descriptions of properties in the area. At the direction of the last surviving daughter of the Clark family, Gabrielle Clark, the house was torn down in 1933. On its site was built the Childs House (320 14th Street NE), the newest compatible historic structure in the District, built about 1937.
The Holman-Clark tanning factory was only part of the industrial complex that developed in this general locale beside Mill Creek. A water wheel and a mill pond and race were located here, as well as Joseph Watt's sash, door, and furniture factory, probably adjacent to and east of the tanning operation. In addition, this place, then as now, was a bridge site. According to Hendricks, "long before Center street was opened, the road that passed through the Clark property crossed North Mill Creek some rods south of the present Center street bridge. That is the way all the pioneers got through the section going east to their homes on Salem and Howell prairies, the Waldo Hills, etc. The tannery was near the old road" (Hendricks, Feb. 25, 1933).
Early Settlers in East Salem: the Watts
In 1861, Joseph Watt purchased ten acres of the land in the Methodist Mission Claim, acres that included creek frontage adjacent to and east of what by then was the Clark property and encompassed, as well, land to the south of the creek-side industrial area. At the creek, Watt built his sash, door, and furniture factory and apparently also a dam, for early surveys refer to the "Joseph Watt mill dam" at this location (Hendricks, Feb. 25). On Watt's land to the south (in the block bounded by modern 14th Street, the lanes that became the extensions of Chemeketa and Court Streets, and the boundary of Waller's DLC), he built his large family home, the Watt homestead place, located south of the Clark House, built approximately at the same time. When Joseph Watt died at the age of 50 in 1867, he stipulated in his will that the homestead place be used by his widow, Sarah Craft Watt, for as long as she lived, but the house disappeared some time in the 1870's even though Sarah Watt Smith (who later married and survived Fabritus Smith) lived well into the 20th century. Joseph Watt bequeathed his property to his wife and five children, stipulating that the real estate not be sold until the youngest surviving child reached the age of 21 (Book of Wills, p.55. State #315). At the time of Joseph Watt's death, George W.U.S. Watt was approximately five years old, meaning that the family real estate could not be sold until about 1883, and in fact most of the Watt property remained intact until the nineties. In 1871, however, the Joseph Watt Addition to Salem was laid out and recorded as a subdivision of ten lots drawn to the north and south of a larger section, the equivalent of about four of the subdivided lots, that was retained as the grounds of the Watt House. (In 1891, the Joseph Watt Addition was reconfigured and expanded as Watts Addition; by this time the house was gone and the grounds were divided into additional lots. At least four houses along the south side of Chemeketa Street were built by or for various members of the Watt family, all or mostly after the 1891 expanding of the subdivision. These include the James and Flora Watt House (1490 Chemeketa Street NE) and barn of 1892; the Elizabeth Watt House of 1904 (1568 Chemeketa Street NE), and two Watt family cottages (1458 and 1470 Chemeketa Street NE). The Watts were the only original land owners in the District area to subdivide their own land and sell it off lot by lot over a many-year period. Watt ownership came finally to an end only in 1952, when Alma Watt Chessman, the last surviving daughter of Joseph and Sarah Watt, sold the James and Flora Watt barn, by then converted to a house, almost a century after the family first purchased the ten acres from the Methodist Mission Claim.)
Early Settlers in East Salem: Franklin Yocom
Yet another portion of the Court Street-Chemeketa Street Historic District occupies land historically within the Methodist Mission Claim. This is the two half-blocks of Roberts Addition that make up the westernmost section of the District. Roberts Addition, which in its entirety extends from State to Center Streets between 12th and 14th, was the earliest of the East Salem additions, recorded in 1865. The addition was named after Rev. William Roberts, of the Methodist Missionary Society, who apparently acquired the land from the Society and sold some of it as early as 1861. William Roberts, who came to the Oregon Country at the age of 34, became a prominent Methodist minister on the Pacific Coast. He made his home in Oregon City after a one-year stay in Salem. One of the very early builders in this tract was Franklin Yocom, a Polk County farmer who purchased land from Roberts on the northwest corner of Court and 14th Streets in 1864. He apparently moved from the farm to Salem in the early seventies and ran a slab lumber business, "made possible by the large number of mills in the neighborhood" (Portrait and Biographical Record, p.831). The Franklin Yocom House, built c.1870, still stands at 243 14th Street NE, across 14th from the approximate former site of the Watt House; the two houses faced each other for some ten or more years before the older Watt House disappeared, whether by fire or razing to make way for more efficient land use.
Summary of Early Development in East Salem
By 1875, then, the situation in the Court Street-Chemeketa Street Historic District area was something like this: two constituent land parcels, the Methodist Mission Claim and Alvin Waller's Donation Land Claim, were undergoing the very early stages of development that would result in the neighborhood of today. Two of the structures that still exist were already ten or more years old. The portion of Mission Claim falling within the area of the District had been almost entirely sold off as the Holman-Clark property at the creek, Joseph Watt's land, and Roberts Addition (including the Franklin Yocom property). The Clark, Watt, and Yocom houses stood in proximity to each other along 14th Street between Court and Chemeketa, and another new house had by then probably been built in Roberts Addition — the James Joseph House (1308 Court Street NE), built about 1870 at the corner of Court and 13th Streets. At the creek, north of the houses, clustered the industrial structures of tannery, factory, and dam — and it is likely that other small industrial sites dotted the creek banks upstream. In general, though, the land east of the Watt family's holdings was the Waller farm. By 1875, Alvin Waller had been dead for three years, but Elepha Waller and some of the children lived on in the family home on "east State Street." State Street, a county road, extended into the countryside, but Court and Chemeketa Streets stopped at 14th except for narrow lanes which extended them somewhat further. Where the lanes ended the Waller farm took up. The area east of 12th Street was by 1875 separated from the original town by the tracks of the Oregon and California Railroad, installed in 1870. In modern times something of a buffer against the easterly expansion of the state government complex into the neighborhood, the tracks may originally have retarded residential expansion in what was becoming known as East Salem, for until the 1890's no real building boom occurred, and the area was one of occasional houses, factories along the creek, and farmland.
Re-division of Land in East Salem
Dispersal of the Waller Donation Land Claim
Although the Wallers sold sections of their 641-acre claim in the 1860's and especially after Alvin Waller's death in 1872, they were slow to sell off the area contained within the curve of Mill Creek north of State Street — the immediate area, that is, of their house and farm. The creek formed a natural meandering contour for their farm, just as it formed a natural boundary for developed East Salem in later years and logically sets the boundary for the Historic District today. The first sale of Waller DLC land from within the boundaries of the modern District was made in 1869, when a half-acre east of the Waller House was sold to Olive Chamberlin, mother of the Waller's daughter-in-law Mary Chamberlin Waller. The first major sale "outside the family" of their land within the District did not come until 1879, seven years after Alvin Waller had died, when Elepha Waller sold for $1,200 the block bounded by the modern versions of State, 18th, and Court Streets, and by Mill Creek on the east, to David and Julia Ann Simpson.
The Simpsons
The David Simpsons, when newly married, had come overland to Oregon from Missouri in 1846 with his parents, William and Mary Simpson, and his parents' other children. David and Julia Ann Simpson took a claim in the Waldo Hills and later purchased other acreage, including the section that falls partly within the District. In about 1879, they built a house on the northeast corner of 18th and State Streets, approximately a block and a half east of the Waller House (Lockley, Apr. 9, 1938, p.4). David Simpson operated a grocery store on State Street at Mill Creek (Hendricks, Oct. 10, 1935). In 1890, as adjoining land in the area of the District was being subdivided and when Court Street was put through to the creek, the Simpsons built three Queen Anne cottages (1820, 1868 and 1880 Court Street NE). These were probably the earliest structures built on Court Street east of 17th Street and are little-changed residences of primary significance to the Court Street-Chemeketa Street Historic District today.
Queen Anne and Van Duyn's Additions
In the last months of her life, Elepha Waller sold to Edward Hirsch most of the remaining DLC land within the curve of Mill Creek and north of State Street. This sale occurred in August 1881, some four months before Mrs. Waller's death in December 1881. In 1884, Hirsch also purchased the half acre that had been owned by Olive Chamberlin. Edward Hirsch was born in Germany in 1836 and arrived in Oregon in 1858 via the Isthmus of Panama. After living in Dallas, Silverton, and Brownsville for several years, he settled in Salem in 1868 and was elected Oregon State Treasurer in 1878 and again in 1882. Hirsch conveyed all this property in a deed dated Dec. 31, 1888, to I. Van Duyn, who recorded it as the subdivision called Queen Anne Addition on Jan. 10, 1889. Queen Anne Addition encompasses all the land from 17th Street east to the creek (except for the Simpson property) plus 16 (originally 17) lots, of irregular depth, that line the north side of Chemeketa Street and back onto Mill Creek. Lot 9 of this row later became the right of way for 17th Street, when it was extended over the creek and north. In the course of 1889, Van Duyn purchased an additional adjoining parcel that had been held by C.C. Stratton, the Wallers' son-in-law, and on Feb. 25, 1890, recorded it as the subdivision Van Duyn's Addition. The addition was laid out as a block of 18 lots bounded by Chemeketa, 17th, and Court Streets and the west boundary of the Waller DLC. Of the 48 lots of Queen Anne Addition located within the District (six more lay beyond it), Van Duyn sold 29 of them in a single transaction, recorded November 1889, to O.E. Krausse, a Salem boot and shoe dealer and real estate investor who also had land holdings elsewhere in Salem. The history of many of the houses in the east half of the District begin with the sale of a lot by Van Duyn or Krausse.
Reconfiguration of Watt Family Land
In the wake of the creation of Queen Anne and Van Duyn's Additions, the Watt family reconfigured and expanded its original Joseph Watt Addition of 1871 as Watts Addition (recorded May 25, 1891). The original Joseph Watt Addition, somewhat changed to incorporate additional lots on the former grounds of the Watt House, became Block 1 of Watts Addition, Block 2 being made up of nine additional lots on Watt property across 15th Street, and Block 3 consisting of four lots directly across Court Street south of Block 2. In 1888, Fabritus R. Smith, Sarah Watt Smith, and the Watt children had sold land on the south side of Court Street between 14th and the path 15th Street would follow if extended through to State Street (an alley marks this spot). This sale was made to Rhoda Chapman Edes (Mrs. George Edes, "identified with the social and business life of the Capital City of Oregon for near on to a half century," according to her obituary of June 30, 1901, Oregon Statesman, p.5). She subdivided her purchase as Edes Addition in 1891 (recorded Sept. 23).
Extension of Court and Chemeketa Streets
The reworking of the Watt land and the establishment of Edes Addition, Van Duyn's Addition, and Queen Anne Addition took place in conjunction with the extension of Court Street from 14th Street to Mill Creek in the years 1889-1891. This made Court Street east of the tracks a wide-avenue continuation of one of the original east-west thoroughfares as laid out in the Oregon Institute/William H. Willson plan for Salem in the 1840's. By the 1890's, Court Street west of the tracks was becoming an area of stately homes facing and adjoining the grounds of the Marion County Courthouse and the Capitol. With the extension of Court Street through Waller land to its natural terminus at Mill Creek and the subdivision of the land along it into lots, the stage was set for the development of residential East Salem as a continuation of the original plan and fabric of the town. Chemeketa Street also took on its modern width, and length — to Mill Creek, with the land sales and subdividing of the late eighties and early nineties. It was widened only to 60 feet east of 14th Street, perhaps partly because of the shallowness of some of the lots backing onto Mill Creek. The passage into Chemeketa Street from 14th remained a narrow track for some time after the subdivisions were created. The original location of the Clark House near 14th and Chemeketa and perhaps remnants of the industrial structures in this area may have delayed the full opening of Chemeketa Street.
Development of the Modern Neighborhood
New Construction: the 1890's
With the stage thus set, the modern neighborhood began to form up. In 1892, five large Queen Anne houses were built, four of them along the north side of Court Street in Roberts and Watts Additions and one on another Watt property at the southwest corner of Chemeketa and 15th Streets. This one was built for James Watt, the son of Joseph and Sarah Watt, and in design is probably very similar to the original form of two of the other Queen Anne houses built the same year on Court Street. These are the now much-changed houses (John and Edith Rand House, 1391 Court Street NE and Witzel-Watters House, 1411 Court Street NE) on the northwest and northeast corner, respectively, of Court and 14th Streets — both apparently built by Willard Greene. East of these, Charles H. Burggraf, Salem's leading architect of the period, designed the house (Howard Ashby/Frank Durbin House, 1517 Court Street NE) and coach house (Clara Patterson Durbin House, 248 15th Street NE) at the corner of Court and 15th for Howard Ashby, solicitor for the State Land & Trust Co. Ashby's brother Joshua Ashby, owner of a meat market, had his house (Joshua and Mary Ashby House, 1531-33 Court Street NE) built next door, facing Court Street. These five houses of 1892, despite the alterations to some of them, continue to do much to establish the character of the west end of the Court Street-Chemeketa Street Historic District. They immediately set a scale and level of grandeur in newly opened East Salem that augured well for the future of the area.
In 1893, the prominent Martin L. Chamberlin anchored down a lot further east on the south side of Court (1658 Court Street NE), at 17th, and in the process helped assure the preservation of one of the earliest structures built in the area. State Senator Chamberlin, whose sister, Mary, was the wife of O. A. Waller (Alvin and Elepha's son), had purchased what in effect was the Waller homestead place from O. A. Waller on Dec. 31, 1888. This included the Waller house and the section of land now bounded on three of its sides by Court, 17th, and State Streets. In 1893, Chamberlin "moved the old Waller House and fitted it up," according to the Oregon Statesman; he relocated it at the newly-formed southwest corner of Court and 17th, facing 17th. Further east on the south side of Court, the Simpson family in 1890 had built their three Queen Anne cottages. By the end of 1893, then, within two years of the subdividing and street extensions, Court Street had houses located intermittently along its entire length, and the James Watt House was in place on Chemeketa, along with the Walter Denton cottage (1577 Chemeketa Street NE) of 1892 and, at the east end of Chemeketa, by the creek, the Daniel S. Yoder House (1811 Chemeketa Street) of 1891. In 1894, the Chemeketa Street Evangelical Church (270 17th Street NE) was erected, it being a distinctive East Salem landmark to this day. Directly behind it, the parsonage (268 17th Street) was built in 1895. Also probably in 1895 the Queen Anne style Wiggins-Crawford House (1759 Court Street NE) went up around the corner on Court Street, and c.1895 the John C. and Kate D. Griffith House (1467 Court Street NE) was added to the row of 1892 houses in Watts Addition. East Salem, in short, was fully under development by 1896, and a Salem map published that year shows the platted city extending to Mill Creek, with only Asylum Avenue (now east Center Street) and State Street extending beyond to two institutions in the countryside, The Oregon Asylum for the Insane (opened in 1883) and the penitentiary, respectively. The map makes the city look complete to the creek, but if one had taken a walk in East Salem in 1896 one would have seen much remaining open land with the houses, individually or in clusters, set in wide separation along unpaved streets.
Street Car System
By 1896, Salem had a developing street car system that facilitated the System expansion of Salem beyond its original plat. The first, horse-drawn cars appeared in 1889 but proceeded no further east than the train depot on 12th Street. In the 1890's, the Capital City Railway Co. brought electric cars to Salem and electricity to buildings and houses along its tracks (Duniway, p.23). East Salem was particularly well-served by the street cars (and electric power) with the tracks running out State Street to the penitentiary and on Chemeketa Street and Asylum Avenue to the asylum. The 1896 Salem map mentioned above shows the track on Chemeketa Street to 14th, where it veers north to Asylum Avenue (Center Street) and then east to the asylum. Street excavations in 1984, undertaken with the construction of the Chemeketa Street closure at 14th, unearthed the northward-turning tracks, which remain in place underground. Before 1896, and before Chemeketa was fully widened at 14th, the street car is said to have followed a straight route along Chemeketa Street through the District. The width of Chemeketa near the Clark House is said to have been just enough for the passing of the train. For most of its history, though, the street car system followed routes adjacent to but just outside the District, as modern automobile traffic patterns have continued to do. For a time, a north-south spur of the street car line ran on 17th Street, anticipating the automobile traffic flow that does represent an intrusion on 17th Street in the Court Street-Chemeketa Street Historic District today.
New Construction: 1902-1910
The spate of early building in the District that ended in the middle nineties was followed by a period of six or seven years of virtually no new construction. Building began again in 1902 and steadily continued and increased through 1910, the period 1902-1910, in fact, being the major period of growth, with some 50 new houses built. About nine of these were erected in each of the years 1908, 1909, and 1910, the most active period of building in the history of the District. The houses built in the period 1902-1910 included late and simplified examples of Queen Anne houses and cottages (five virtually identical such cottages were built at various sites in 1905: Amelia Hornschuch Cottage, 1779 Chemeketa Street NE; Ruth Hornschuch Cottage, 1757 Chemeketa Street NE; Queen Anne Cottage, 1540 Chemeketa Street NE; Frank W Durbin Cottages, 249 and 259 15th Street). The H.S. Gile House (1547 Court Street) of c.1903 is a two-story simplified Queen Anne style house that has remained essentially unchanged since it was illustrated, as one of Salem's new homes, in the Oregon Statesman for Jan. 1, 1905. In 1905, Dr. William Byrd bought land in Watts Addition and in 1906 moved his Queen Anne/Eastlake style house, built in 1887 at 197 Court Street, to the southeast corner of Chemeketa and 14th Streets. It is one of the most completely preserved Queen Annes in the Court Street-Chemeketa Street Historic District today. In 1908-1910, the five big two-story American Foursquare (Craftsman) houses (Emma Holmes House, 1496 Court Street; May-Cavanaugh House, 1563 Court Street; Giddings-Cherrington House, 1599 Court Street; H.L. and Katie Marsters House, 1756 Court Street NE; Goodin-Emmons House, 1780 Court Street NE) were built along Court Street. These box-shaped houses with pyramid or hipped roofs, with dormers, joined the Queen Anne houses as important character-defining structures. Their scale easily commands the wide street, and their distribution along much of its length helps weight both sides of the street with large forms. Renee Kahn, in her essay "Post-Victorian Domestic Architecture, the American Foursquare" in The Old-House Journal for February 1982, refers to the American Foursquare house as the "least understood...of all the houses built after the turn of the century" in this country and the epitome of "the turn-of-the-century striving for 'the comfortable house'" in America.
Paving East Salem
In 1909-1910, the streets of East Salem were paved and the cement was poured for most of the sidewalks in the District. Much of the original sidewalk pavement remains, imprinted with the contractors' names and occasionally the dates "1909" and "1910." The cement contractors at work in the District in that period were James P. Veatch, John Koenecke, Edward J. Ward, Ed Kyle, David Korb, and "ROWE."
Chamberlins Addition
As the sidewalks were about to be laid, Rose Chamberlin created the last subdivision in the District, on the property she and her late husband, Martin, had purchased from the Wallers in 1888 at Court, 17th, and State Streets. This was Chamberlins Addition, recorded Aug. 30, 1909. Soon after (c.1910-1912), she moved the old Waller House a second time, to conform with Lot 3 in the new addition, where it remains today (1658 Court Street NE).
Moved Houses
The moving of the Waller House, the Byrd House, and later the Weller House (165 17th Street NE) in 1910, the Fannie Spayd cottage (1595 Court Street NE) c.1928, and the Presbyterian manse (210 18th Street NE) c.1960 within or into the District represents an important aspect of its history. While moving a house is generally understood to detract from its historic significance, it is the case in Salem that moving houses has been part of its historical development. The expansion of the downtown business district and the State Capitol, together with the changing land use of the Waller land, for instance, from rural farm to urban subdivision, has made the moving and/or realigning of houses inevitable and crucial to the survival of some of the early structures. The moving and continued use of a house in itself reflects on the nature of American householding, thrift, and even nostalgia — although it was in the name of nostalgia, too, that Miss Clark ordered her family home torn down, wishing, it seems, to end its history with the dying out of the family that had lived in it for generations.
New Construction 1910-1918: Bungalows — Jefferson Pooler
Important to the building up of the neighborhood beginning in the 1910 period was Jefferson A. Pooler, the son of a pioneer Oregon family, owner of Salem Sewer and Pipe, and manager of Capital Improvement Co. (seller of building materials). Also a builder, he constructed at least seven houses in the District, including his own home (1547 Chemeketa Street NE) of 1910. This and other houses (Ila and Lewis D. Griffith House, 1456 Court Street NE; Roy and Beulah Mills House, 1474 Court Street NE; Flora and Nellie Clark House, 1561 Chemeketa Street NE), all built in the period 1909-1911 by Pooler, were among the first of numerous Craftsman Bungalows built in the District between then and 1918. Related to the slightly earlier large Craftsman (American Foursquare) houses, the Craftsman Bungalows were built generally on a smaller scale (usually one-and-one-half stories) with exposed rafter ends, ribbon windows, and large porches supported by squared columns. Ubiquitous on the West Coast thanks to Greene and Greene first popularizing the form in California, the Craftsman Bungalows represent a transition within the District between the big Queen Anne and Foursquare houses prior to 1910 and the "modern" houses of the twenties. Pooler's early Craftsman Bungalows were especially reminiscent of the Foursquares, for his designs typically had hipped roofs with hipped dormers and elaborate working of the wood elements in the eaves also seen on the Foursquares.
Bungalows: Spaulding's and Byrd's
The Oregon lumber baron, Charles K. Spaulding, purchased three new Craftsman Bungalows on Court Street, two of them built by Pooler, as wedding gifts for his children Ila (Ila and Lewis D. Griffith House, 1456 Court Street NE), Beulah (Roy and Beulah Mills House, 1474 Court Street NE), and Walter (Walter and Nettie Spaulding House, 1726 Court Street NE). In about 1910, Dr. Byrd built three exemplary Craftsman Bungalows along 14th Street, south of the Queen Anne he had moved in 1906. These are the houses at 250, 260 and 276 14th Street NE. In 1914, the hops grower and mill owner, Walter Buchner, built the classic Bungalow (1410 Court Street NE) at the southeast corner of Court and 14th, and three years later Stephen East, president of the Salem Bank of Commerce, built one of the last big Craftsman Bungalows (East/Millett House, 1420 Court Street NE) in the District, a particularly beautiful and commodious example of the style, excellently preserved inside and out. So popular was the Craftsman style that one of the original 1892 Queen Annes, the Witzel-Watters House (1411 Court Street NE), across the street from the Buchner and East houses, was completely remodelled as the huge Craftsmen residence it appears to be today.
New Construction: the 1920's
Building came almost to a standstill in the War years but beginning in 1920 resumed for a 10-year growth period, during which some 22 new houses were built. Residential architecture in the twenties reflects a prosperous and nostalgic period, modern yet with an almost literary sense for the past. The historic period styles popular in the twenties are well-represented within the Court Street-Chemeketa Street Historic District. Included, for example, are excellent examples of Dutch Colonial houses, with gambrel roofs and classical porticos, built by Dr. B.L. Steeves (1694 Court Street NE) and his partner, Dr. Lucian Clement (345 17th Street NE), and their partner, Dr. Marcus Findley, who to the bemusement of Court Street residents headed the committee to build the Dutch Colonial house for his daughters' sorority (Delta Phi Sorority House (later Delta Gamma Sorority House), 1610 Court Street NE). In 1923, Dr. Harvey Clements built his Colonial mansion (360 14th Street NE) in Georgian style on the old Holman/Clark property, site of the tannery and the Watt factory, on Mill Creek near Center Street. The philanthropist Nora Anderson built her big Colonial house (1577 Court Street NE) on Court Street in 1928. English Cottages and Norman Farmhouses were also among those added in the twenties — an especially attractive example of a Norman Farmhouse being the Collins-Busick House (1534 Court Street NE). The most recent historically compatible house in the Court Street-Chemeketa Street Historic District is the Childs House (320 14th Street NE), built about 1937 in English Cottage style on the site of the old Clark House, torn down in 1933. It brings full cycle the building history of the District. Relatively little new construction has occurred since 1937. Seventeen structures are deemed incompatible because built after that in non-contributing styles, and two churches (St. John Lutheran Church, 1350 Court Street NE and the Court Street Christian Church, 1699 Court Street NE), both built about 1950, have been designated non-historical but compatible because of their period styles.
References
Basic Research Tools —
Marion County Deeds.
Marion County Plat Books.
Title company records of property exchange.
Union Title Co. property abstracts on: Property at 1531-33 Court Street NE (Lot 7, Block 2, Watts Addition); Property at 248 15th Street NE (N. 40 feet of Lot 6, Block 2, Watts Addition); Property at 1610 Court Street NE.
Salem City Directories (1867-1937).
Sanborn-Parris Insurance Maps.
Oregon Statesman, supplement, Jan. 1, 1905 (contains photographic inventory of many Salem homes).
Salem Inventory of Historic Places, draft and published version (1984).
Building Records (as published in the Oregon Statesman) —
1892 "Last Year's Building Record," Oregon Statesman Illustrated Annual, 1893, pp.6-8.
1893 "The New Houses," Oregon Statesman, Jan. 7, 1894.
1906 "Building Record for 1906 Shows Astonishing Growth," Oregon Statesman Jan. 1, 1907.
1909 "Unparalleled Building Activity in Salem During the Year 1909," Oregon Statesman, Jan. 1, 1910, Section 4.
History of Salem —
David Duniway, Glimpses of Historic South Salem (Salem, 1982).
Lewis H. Judson, "Sketches of Salem, Its History from the Date of its First Settlement," Salem Directory for 1871, pp.9-31.
General Biographical and Historical Sources —
Clarke, S.J. History of the Willamette Valley, Oregon, 3 vols. (Chicago, 1927).
Gaston, Joseph The Centennial History of Oregon, 4 vols. (Portland, 1912).
Gatke, Robert M. Chronicles of Willamette (Portland, 1943).
Hendricks, R. J. "Bits for Breakfast" (column), Oregon Statesman; for example: Feb. 14 (p.4) and Feb. 25 (p.4), 1933 (Clark family); Oct. 10, 1935, p.4 (David Simpson family); May 26, 1936, p.4 (Frederick Legge and family).
Hines, H. K. An Illustrated History of the State of Oregon (Chicago, 1893).
Hodgkin, Frank E. and J. J. Galvin, Pen Pictures of Representative Men of Oregon (Portland, 1882).
History of Oregon, vols. 2 and 3 (Chicago-Portland, 1922).
History of Pacific Northwest, Oregon and Washington, 2 vols. (Portland, 1889).
History of the Bench and Bar of Oregon (Portland, 1910).
Lockley, Fred "Impressions and Observations of the Journal Man" (column), Oregon Daily Journal; for example: Jan. 22 (p.6) and Jan. 23 (p.12), 1924 (2-part interview with O.A. Waller); Apr. 9, 1938, p.4 (on David and Julia Ann Simpson); May 9, 1934, p.10, and June 2, 1934, p.4 (reminiscences of Flora Watt).
Portrait and Biographical Record of the Willamette Valley, Oregon (Chicago, 1903).
Steeves, Sarah Hunt Book of Remembrance of Marion County, Oregon, Pioneers, 1840-1960 (Portland, 1927).
Selected Early Sources on Alvin F. Waller —
History of the Pacific Northwest, Oregon and Washington (1889), vol.2, p.620.
Lang, H. O. (ed.) History of the Willamette Valley (Portland, 1885), p.897.
Oregon Native Son, vol. 2 (June 1900), p.103.
Sources on Architectural History and Style —
Clark, Rosalind Oregon Style, Architecture from 1840 to the 1950s.
McAlester, Virginia and Lee A Field Guide to American Houses (New York, 1984).
The Old-House Journal (monthly):
Cotton, J. Randall, "Ornamental Concrete Block Houses," October 1984, pp.165, 180-183.
Kahn, Renee, "Post-Victorian Architecture, The American Foursquare," February 1982, pp.29-32.
On the "West Coast Hipped Roof Cottage," February 1986, back cover.
‡ Bonnie Hill, Mary Grace West, Cameron Clemens and Roger Hull, Northeast Neighbors Neighborhood Association, Salem, Court-Street-Chemeketa Street Historic District, Marion County, Salem, OR, nomination document, 1986, National Park Service, National Register of Historic Places, Washington, D.C.
Nearby Neighborhoods
Street Names
14th Street NE • 15th Street NE • 17th Street NE • 18th Street NE • Chemeketa Street NE • Court Street NE
