201-211 Commercial Street NE

(Historic Downtown Salem)

Classification: Historic Contributing

Historic Name: Anderson Building

Current Name(s): Nopp’s Jewelry & Art/Antique Village

Year of Construction: c.1900

Legal Description: 073W22DC08900 and 9000. Salem Addition, from Lot 4, Block 49

Owner(s): Mark Gehlar, Trustee

774 Cascade Drive, NW

PO Box 5245

Salem, Oregon 97304

Description: This is a two-story Commercial style building at the corner of Commercial and Court streets. Originally this site was a part of the Starkey McCulley Block (see 223-233 Commercial St NE), and it appears that the existing building was constructed c.1900. The east-facing facade presents a two-bay ground floor and a four-bay second story. Second-story tripartite windows retain the wood mullions between a center fixed panel flanked by single hung windows with aluminum sash. The ground-floor facade has large aluminum-framed plate glass windows and aluminum-framed double-hung, swinging glass doors. The entrance to the corner store has been remodeled with brick veneer and an angled storefront. The storefront windows along the south elevation consist of large windows with thin bands of tile at the bottom and tile covered columns between the glass, and appears to date from the 1960s. A standing seam metal awning is on the south elevation covering a series of shops that face Court Street.

The primary decorative features of the building include a wide cornice, an ornamental concrete band below the second floor windows, and a parapet. Although changes to the storefronts have altered the first floor appearance, the building retains a majority of its historic fabric and it contributes to the character of the downtown district.

History and Significance: The Anderson Building contributes to the sense of historic past in the Salem commercial district because the building’s second-story fenestration and exterior sheathing are little changed since the turn of the century and because of its association with prominent early Salem businessman, William R. Anderson. William R. Anderson bought this lot on the northwest corner of Commercial and Court streets in 1867. In the 1880s, a two-story building divided into two shops fronting on Commercial Street, and known as “McCully’s Block,” stood on this site. By the late 1880s, the Sanborn Company fire insurance map of Salem indicates the building had been renamed the “Starkey Block.” Except for a one-story rear addition on the northern portion of the building added in the early 1890s, and a one-story addition on the rear (west) wall of the Court Street section portion, it appears that the main two-story Commercial Street portion of this building may date from the 1870s or early 1880s and not 1898, as the Marion County Assessor’s Office has recorded. The building may have undergone substantial modernization of the exterior facade in the late 1890s, however.

In 1873 the Salem business directory listed Anderson as being in the business of renting “drays and hacks,” and horses for hire. William E. Anderson, born in Salem around 1885, owned and operated a sporting goods store for many years, Anderson’s, on the west side of Commercial Street next to the turreted Capital National Bank Building (Globe Travel in the late 1900s).

Max H. Gehlar and his wife, Martha Schnuelle Gehlar, bought this property in 1958. Their children, Mark and Mack G. Gehlar, eventually acquired the property in the 1960s.

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This article originally appeared on the original Salem Online History site and has not been updated since 2006.