With New High School, Big Central School was Moved in 1906 - Updated

(See addendum below for several corrections!)

The School Board has been in the news, and some of the reasons stretch way back to the start of our public school system.

Central School from the Barrick Funeral Home postcards
Salem Library Historic Photos (note the updated website!)

You might remember that Lucy Rose Mallory was a teacher and the Bush House and Museum was going to do more research on the first schools, especially Little Central School. From the Oregon Encyclopedia:

School-age children in Salem in the 1850s had only one public school to attend: the Old Log Schoolhouse on the corner of Marion and Commercial Streets. The school required tuition of from four to five dollars per child each term (from late September to March) to pay for maintenance. Black students were not allowed to attend....

African American artist William P. Johnson had offered in 1861 a scholarship of $500 to one of the schools to allow his daughter-in-law to enroll, but his offer had been rejected. By March 1867, he had collected enough funds from friends and other black families in Salem to open a school with about eight students and possibly some young adults. With $430.75 in hand, he rented a room for $10 a month and engaged a teacher to conduct classes....

The Colored School had completed one six-month term when in 1868 the Salem School District opened Little Central School, a $1,500, one-story, two-room structure at the southeast corner of High and Marion Streets. The school was designated for the education of African American students and was adjacent to the larger Central School, where white students attended. The first recorded teachers at Little Central were Lucy Mallory and Marie E. Smith. The Colored School remained at this location until the end of the 1871 school year, when the school was discontinued.

Little Central School probably
(OSL - but their photo site is broken - via Salem Reporter)

It's good Bush House will be doing more research, because the existing materials are not very detailed or always very certain.
The earliest Sanborn maps are from a generation later, and Salem would have been built up a good deal by then. Still, it's hard to line up an angle and point-of-view for these images and small details seem a little funny. In particular, on the map footprints the one story building looks wider than the two story building is deep, but both of them in the photos have five window openings, suggesting a more equivalent dimension. There might not be a strong reason to doubt the photo identifications, but they are also hard to embrace with great confidence.

One building, likely Little Central,
was an SDA Church in 1888 (Library of Congress)

But in 1895 it's labeled a school (Library of Congress)

In 1906 the School District had replaced the two Central Schools with a modern, brick High School.

January 1st, 1906

The school, at the site of Macy's today,
demolished for Meier & Frank
(Salem Library Historic Photos,
and see this just before demolition in 1953)

There is very little on Little Central, but Big Central appears to have been moved rather than demolished. In February of 1905 they were moved to the side on the lot to make room for construction, and starting December 19th the School District advertised they would open sealed bids for both buildings on January 6th, 1906.

Apparently there was a winner, at least for Big Central. The Grand Army of the Republic made it their local Post headquarters, though they described as "the new Commercial Hall." In 1912 the window openings also don't line up quite right. Again, the evidence does not align seamlessly. There's no great reason to doubt it - but it meets a "preponderance of the evidence," not "beyond reasonable doubt" standard, as it were.

Commercial Hall, formerly Central School,
Now on the corner of Commercial & Center
September 2nd, 1912

In 1915, an old-timer in one of those "Did you know?" columns says Big Central was a junk shop, and the GAR seems to have moved out. In 1931 Steinbock's was using it, but in 1915 they were at a different site.

A junk shop, April 3rd, 1915

There are many loose ends, many lines for further research here. It would be especially interesting to find out more about the disposition of Little Central, whether it was demolished, or moved and reused like Big Central.

Addendum and Correction, November 1st, 2023

Salem Reporter has been running a series on correcting the identifications and captions for the Salem Library Historic Photo Collection. 

Here's one image for correction in the collection, as well as a couple of other corrections in the post above. (This addendum repeats images from above for clarity.)

Correcting an image mislabeled as Big Central

This is old East School, not Big Central
Salem Library Historic Photos

The caption on the Library's Historic Photo collection identifies the image on this Barrick postcard as Big Central School:

The two-story rectangular building in this picture was built in 1857-58 , also with volunteer labor, and was called "Central School"....A small building was built next to it in 1867 for Negro children and was called " Little Central".

However, in a piece from 1936, the building is identified otherwise, as "the old East Salem school...at 12th and Center." That would be the site where "new" East School, also known as Washington School, and then later Safeway, were located.

April 18th, 1936

That is very likely why the window openings don't line up on the Commercial Hall, which was Big Central! The gable and two-story height is basically the same, but the windows are not.

Commercial Hall, formerly Central School,
September 2nd, 1912

Locating Little Central and Big Central

Additionally, we can place Little Central on lot 8, the corner of High and Marion, and correctly label the map (it's not quite right up above).

March 3rd, 1893

Little Central School
(OSL - via Salem Reporter)

Here's another image. In the historical survey on education at the Mill they identify this as "Central School," but don't say whether Big or Little. (That's the new High School of 1905 in the background.)

Little Central c.1905
WHC 0083.006.0017.002

But it's clearly Little. It matches the image from the State Library. Now if we just knew where it went later, or if it was just demolished.

Here they are properly labeled on the 1895 Sanborn.

The two school locations (notes added, LOC)

Moving old East School to Liberty & Court

Additionally from that 1936 piece on the old East School, on the site of the current Safeway:

This building was erected in 1869. It faced the west on 12th street, with Center to the south, 13th to the east, and Marion on the north.

When the new East school (Washington) was built, about the time of 1883, the old east building was moved back across the street on Center, and used for school purposes while the new building was being erected. Leo Willis and son, Percy Willis, moved the old East building to the block where Stiff's furniture store is located, and it was used as a new and second hand furniture store.

That would be the current site of the Book Bin, the Willis-Stiff Building. 

The time it was moved is not clear. The Stiff company started advertising a "new second hand store" at 404 Court Street in 1910, and up until then there are scattered notes about the Central School building as used for education. Leo Willis was dead by this time, and Percy could have been the one to move it. At the moment, a move in 1910 is a candidate. A history note in 1915 echoes that "the building in which E. L. Stiff & son are located, corner of Court and Liberty streets, was the original East Salem school."

April 3rd, 1915

It could have been moved earlier, though. The Christian Science Hall on the 1895 Sanborn is about the right size and height and in the right place on the corner. An earlier move, then, is possible also.

Might be old East School (notes added, LOC)

A list of assessments on Court Street published in 1892 shows Leo and Percy Willis owning the corner of lot 8, and Percy alone the alley portion of lot 8.

October 1st, 1892

In 1923, a little less than a decade after that 1915 note, the corner portion of lot 8 was sold. At this time the Willis' did not own the corner (though Percy had kept the alley portion). John McNary appears to have owned it.

March 31st, 1923

The building that still stands there now was erected in 1923-24.

July 20th, 1923

About the corner's history, the Downtown Historic District Nomination says:

A small one-story Chinese washhouse that stood on this corner was replaced in the mid-1880s with two, two-story shops and a society meeting hall above. The two-story building on the corner may have become somewhat neglected when Joseph and Lillie Adolph (along with George E. and Margaret Waters) bought one-half interest in the property in April 1923. In January 1924, the Adolphs acquired a mortgage on the property from Salem's Ladd and Bush Bank; construction took place that year.

The "somewhat neglected" two-story building was likely old East School, and it could have been moved in the "mid-1880s."

There is more to confirm here.

See also:

• On new East School and the Safeway, "Early 1950s Supermarkets show Appetite for Parking"
• For more on Leo and Percy Willis, see "The Rebel who Owned the Opera House, Chaired the School Board, and was Willamette Trustee
  

Second Addendum, November 30th

Here's the old East School as Stiff's Furniture!

March 28th, 1951

In the morning paper's centenary issue, Stiff Furniture took out a half page ad of congratulations with a couple of history blurbs. The company started in 1907 it says, and reproduces an image of the old East School "on the southeast corner of Liberty and Court streets." Though it's hard to see in the microfilm, the center window on the second story looks like a match. (The library has a clearer scan of the same image here.)

And here it is a little earlier, so if the date of 1889 is right, the Willis' moved the building no later than that year.

Old East School as
Capital Journal offices, 1889
(Salem Library Historic Photos)