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| Hotel Marion, Smith's Brick, Marion Car Park (top) New Allstate Insurance block (center) WHC 2006.002.0984 |
About it they wrote:
[This] photo was taken September 1, 1955 and shows construction of the building on the northeast corner of Commercial and Ferry Streets. Visible in this image is the old Hotel Marion which burned and was eventually replaced with the Salem Convention Center and The Grand Hotel in Salem, and the auto park that recently was torn down for the new The Holman Hotel building.
The building under construction was a new modernist Allstate office block, which was opened in January of 1956. The photo shows construction had only got to the first floor and not the second.
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| January 18th, 1956 |
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| Allstate building today (Nov 2020) |
The building looks like it got a 1980s/90s refresh with brick, slightly different windows, and the awning.
The significance of this corner used to be commemorated with one or more plaques. The Mill keyed the post to the new hotel, but the building under construction is significant for more.
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| January 15th, 1956 |
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| Ed Ritter with one plaque, 1955 Salem Library Historic Photos |
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| The store building, 1897; razed in 1927 January 18th, 1956 |
The first plaque was installed in 1931 and was associated with Burt Brown Barker, a descendant of Thomas Cox - another instance of family history elevated as public history, also. When that one-story brick building was demolished for the Allstate building in 1955, Ed Ritter (father of John, who recently passed away) helped remove the plaque. The Library's caption does not make clear that the building shown must be the one-story block of c. 1927-1955.
The plaque was supposedly reinstalled in 1956 - but where is it now? The plaque seems to have disappeared from public view and public memory.
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| Sept. 27th, 1931 |
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| October 9th, 1931 |
Burt Brown Barker was not the first to claim Cox had the first store in Salem - the claim appears often enough before then, and is firmly part of the canon now - but he's a little defensive and protective about the claim.
As reported by the Bitsman a little earlier in February of 1931, Barker wrote to the Chamber of Commerce:
Thomas Cox was my great grandfather and we have always understood that be had the first store In Salem.
I believe you will have no trouble In establishing this as a historical fact. I have conferred with Bob Hendricks, who confirms the idea, and I believe that if you will refer to the Salem Directory of 1871 you will find an article written by J. Henry Brown which establishes the same fact.
There must be something more behind the tone.
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| The Salem Directory of 1870/71 |
Apart from the question of priority, it is also interesting to note Cox's role in supplying arms for the Cayuse Indian War, which followed the killings of Marcus and Narcissa Whitman.
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| November 5th, 1930 |
In addition to the store and general stock of dry goods, Cox also has a place in agricultural history here, as the originator of a peach cultivar that may have been regionally dominant for a generation or two. References to it peter out in the early 20th century, and other cultivars seem to have replaced it.
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| December 21st, 1858 |
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| August 21st, 1905 |
So in addition to opening the "first store," Cox has a complicated and various place in our history, and is worth remembering better.
Maybe with the New Holman Hotel, the significance and history of the whole intersection at Ferry and Commercial will enjoy a little bit of a revival. Between Smith's Brick, the old Holman Building, the Cox store, and the Chemeketa Hotel and later Hotel Marion, it was an important intersection in the history of Salem and of the State.
Previously:
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