Spring Valley Church, Brush College Road, (D)

This area north of West Salem was an important part of the early Salem settlements, close family ties and agricultural history unites these two communities. The old Spring Valley Presbyterian Church was erected by volunteer labor in 1859, the lumber transported by boat to the town of Lincoln on the Willamette River. The bell came from England around Cape Horn to Oregon. It has long been a beacon for worship and its cemetery is still a place for commemorating those who lived in the community in the past.
(West Salem)

Gerth, 296 Gerth Street., (LL)

The Gerth house was built for Walter and Grace Gerth in 1908. They operated their Edgewater Street store for 35 years, from 1911 to 1946 during which time he served several terms as mayor of West Salem. One of West Salem's most enthusiastic citizens; he built the first two-story commercial building in West Salem, started the first grocery delivery in the town, and loaned the city money to pay its bills.
(West Salem)

Phillips/Barker, 6565 Spring Valley Road NW, (NR)

Above: the Phillips/Barker House from a 1950s photograph. The damaged tree endangered the house after the 1963 wind storm and was cut down. The rings revealed its age as over 300 years.

The West Salem residence has been unoccupied since the property sale in 2002. This historic 1853 vernacular Greek Revival house was built for pioneer John Phillips, who came to Oregon via the Oregon Trail in 1845. He finished his journey to Oregon on the Meek Cutoff as part of Stephen Meek's "lost wagon train".
Born in 1814, Phillips was a native of Wiltshire England who came to the U.S. in 1834 and married Elizabeth Hibbard in 1839. He came to Oregon and bought the Turner donation land claim in Polk County for $100. The locale was once known as Spring Valley Ranch. John Phillips' daughter Hannah married Samuel Barker. The grandson, Samuel E. Barker and his wife Velma were the last occupants. Their niece remembers stories that the local Native Americans would come in the back door to warm themselves by the pot-bellied stove.
In 1976 the house was placed on the National Register of Historic Places. In 2009 it is the oldest residence in Polk County and was owned for 156 years by the same family.
(West Salem)

Spring Valley School, 8295 Spring Valley Road, (D)

The former 1907 Spring Valley School, now a Community Center, celebrated its 100 year history in July 2007 with a program recalling the past and a feast of home-grown berries over ice cream. Seniors had special parking privileges and many in attendance told stories of their youthful adventures at this elementary school.
See 1954 photograph.
(West Salem)

Josh Purvine, 7555 Spring Valley Road, (D)

As seen from the exterior the Joshua Purvine House is "picture-book" perfect in retaining its original appearance. Built in 1887 and occupied by three generations of this Purvine family, this Italianate styled, Victorian home one of several properties in the Spring Valley neighborhood that once belonged to this pioneer family. Changes that are not apparent include back rooms added at two levels and a ladder entrance from the tool room to an upstairs apartment. See 1965 photograph.
(West Salem)

A. J. Purvine, 6990 Spring Valley Road NW, (D)

Andrew Jackson Purvine lived in another house to the east and set back from the present road, possibly along the wagon trail from the river. After the death of his wife, he remarried and had a second family. In 1890, at 65, he built this large residence that contrasts with his brother Joshua's home by being in a Craftsman style of architecture, perhaps Victorian originally. The stained glass in the front stairway, was brought "around the Horn”. The floor plan retains the original character of this home.
(West Salem)

Francis Smith, 578 Cascade Drive NW, (D)

This is the only West Salem house designed by noted local architect Clarence L. Smith. The original owners of the home, Francis and Bernice Smith, had the cedar shingled, English cottage constructed in 1937 to provide a view of Salem and the Cascades. The house's placement on the lot was completed before the landscape designers, Elizabeth Lord and Edith Schryver, began their work. An interesting detail is the iron railing along the driveway. When it was removed from the Pioneer Cemetery, it was transferred to this property.
(West Salem)

Eola School, Highway 22 NW, (D)

Old Eola School, built in 1858, at the present 2nd & Mill Streets in West Salem, was a community center for over a hundred years. A photograph in the Salem Public Library Historical Collection shows a student and two teachers/advisors posing on the occasion of the May 28,1958 graduation of the 100th graduating class. The country school was enlarged as the years passed and enrollment increased, but closed when city schools began serving this area. The building, now adjacent to a busy highway, has been adapted to other occasional uses.
(West Salem)

West Salem City Hall, 1320 Edgewater Street NW, (NR)

West Salem was incorporated in 1914, but this community building was not constructed until 1936. It served the municipality until 1949 when the city was incorporated into Salem itself. Chemeketa College held its first classes here.
(West Salem)

Wallace, 2900 Oakcrest Drive NW, (D)

In 1885 Robert Wallace took the advice of his doctor to give up his stressful life as a commodity broker in Chicago and moved to Salem. In 1889, he built this home for his family at the orchard in Polk Country which is still an integral part of the Salemtowne buildings. Today it is known as the "Farmhouse". He died in 1891 at the age of 41.
(West Salem)

Schindler, 1936 Orchard Heights Road NW, (D)

This attractive and spacious 1926 home, has had several former owners including the Olds, Speckerman and Schindler families. The present owners have made some landscape changes, but the house retains its original appearance and its site is relatively undisturbed although housing developments have grown up to the left (east) side of the property.
(West Salem)

Quarry, 1340 Wallace Road NW, (LL)

At the present time, there is no known information about the original owners of this property, built circa 1910, or this vernacular residence.
(West Salem)

Fennell, NW 576 McNary Street NW, (LL)

Thomas and Mary Fennell were West Salem farmers who owned the property in 1905 and probably built the south addition with a kitchen and bathroom in 1910. They sold the house and some land to Ellsworth Pickel in 1913, but bought the property back six months later. When Mary Fennell died in 1922, Thomas sold the house to Ellen Kessell, a teacher at the West Salem Grade School, for $1.00. In 1926 Thomas Fennell again held the title to the property and in 1935 sold it to Glen and Vivian Tupper.
(West Salem)

Tandy, 528 Gerth Street NW, (LL)

This lot was sold in 1920 for $300.00 and again in 1922 to G. E. and Lura Tandy who lived there for the next 25 years. More information about this c.1915 house or owners and residents has not been researched.
(West Salem)

Breckenridge, 1515 Elm St. NW, (LL)

The original owner of this 1905 bungalow, Grace Breckenridge, worked for nearly 40 years as a bookkeeper for the State Board of Control retiring in 1956. When she died in January 1965, her will revealed that all but $2,000 of her $23,000 estate was bequeathed to the State of Oregon. The balance was to be used to buy an organ for the House of Representatives. The new organ was ordered and received in August 1965. This organ is still in place today, and is played at the governor's inaugural ceremonies.
(West Salem)

Piasecki, 591 Cascade Drive NW, (LL)

Edward and Kathryn Piasecki were the original owners of this period style English Cottage, one of the first houses built in the Kingwood Heights area of West Salem. The Piaseckis moved to West Salem in 1920 when the house was built. A boating tragedy on the Oregon coast near Newport claimed the life of Edward and another Salem attorney in August of 1952 when he was 72 years old. Kathryn Piasecki continued to live in the house until 1965 when it was sold to the present owners.
(West Salem)

West Salem Methodist Church, 1219 3rd. Street NW, (LL)

The congregation was organized in 1910, conducting services in a one room schoolhouse and community center. In 1921 Mrs. Joseph T. Hunt donated two lots that were later sold for the lots where the church is now located. Rev. Alexander Hawthorne was pastor of the church between 1921 and 1923 and headed the drive for building funds. Construction started in the winter of 1921 with a volunteer crew with teams of horses to dig the basement. The first 1925 meeting was held in the basement. The building completed in 1926.
(West Salem)

Stoller, 1162 2nd.Street NW, (LL)

This house, circa 1880, appears to be one of the oldest in the neighborhood with very simple construction including a one-story el on rear of house. An early owner of the property was Gottlieb Stoller was purchased it in 1908 and sold it in 1919 to N. S. and Ella Wood.
(West Salem)

Duff, 1143 2nd. Street NW, (LL)

Early records show the property (and probably the circa. 1890 residence) was owned by Mrs. Agnes Duff, a nurse, around the turn of the century. A later owner was George J. Barnard, listed in Salem City Directories as a laborer. In the early 1930s the property was owned by A. N. and Emma Becker. They sold the property to H. L. Anderson in 1932 and in 1946 it was purchased by the Mennonite Brethren Church.
(West Salem)