Frank B. Southwick, brother to Milton Southwick and uncle to Amasa R. Southwick, had a home near 12th and Marion, and it was natural to wonder if there were any photos of it and if it had survived nearby development.
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| Capitol Shopping Center remnants today |
More than one house show up, in fact.
A birthday notice for Frank's widow, Helen, gave the address for the "old family home at 1179 Marion," her current residence in 1936 of 1163 Marion street, and the claim that Frank had built several houses "in that block."
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| March 29th, 1936 |
With a reasonable degree of certainty, we know what happened to the two Southwick houses.
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| August 8th, 1947 |
In a piece about the displacements caused by clearance for, and then construction of, the Capitol Shopping Center, they noted "Ralph W. Southwick has lived 55 years at 1179 Marion St." Most other people had lived there a much shorter period of time, generally "from three to seven years." 27 houses and 32 homes (a few houses were divided into two or more apartments). While making the ritual obeisance to "progress," the piece also drew attention to a current "scarcity of housing."
The Southwick house evidently was purchased for demolition.
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| October 1st & 22nd, 1947 |
Shortly after the City issued permits for the demolition, the wrecker started a series of classified ads in October and November at the house address for what look like salvaged parts.
The house in which Helen Southwick was living appears to be a rental, and several other names are associated with it after she died in 1940. It is possible that it is the very house her son built as a rental in 1903, "to satisfy the great demand for houses to rent."
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| Maybe? Oct. 13th, 1903 |
It too was affected by the Capitol Shopping Center, and perhaps being a somewhat newer house it had a different fate.
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| October 17th, 1947 |
It's the bottom photo in this pair, and it is captioned that it is "now blocked up and ready for the movers."
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| October 12th and 31st, 1947 |
And it looks like it is still around today on Breyman Street!
Frank Southwick seems to have built a lot of houses here. In a note from 1948 about the forthcoming demolition of the A. N. Bush house just north of the Capitol, a reader suggested Frank had built it.
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| April 16th, 1948 |
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| April 20th, 1948 |
Pictures from the top of the old Capitol building (stitched together here) show the house on the corner of Chemeketa and Capitol streets. Street level views, including the one in that April 16th paper, are here and here.
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| View looking north from old Capitol (Salem Library Historic Photos, one and two) |
The leveling of the greater Piety Hill neighborhood for the shopping center and for the State office buildings drained the customer base for downtown, created voids empty of life after hours, and we are still working on recovering from all that. Note also that pieces in both 1903 and 1947 talk about a high demand for housing. Business and Economic Development also depend on restoring balance and supply in our housing markets.
See also:
- The first note on the Southwick family, "New Apartments Proposed for Site of A. R. Southwick House of 1908 in West Salem"
- On the shopping center, "Evolution or Erosion? Capitol Shopping Center Rose on Edge of Downtown in late 1940s" (2022)
- And on displacement. First, elsewhere, in "The Children of Piety Hill" Virginia Green looks at the Capitol Mall area (2004).
- On one of the houses and draining downtown of vitality in autoist development patterns, "Demolished Cooke-Patton House and the Civic Center Debate" (2013)
- On another family cluster, "On the Edge of Piety Hill: Redevelopment of Holman Row on Court Street" (2021)
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