This great little snapshot (WHC 2009.052.0003) of downtown Salem focuses on the rooftops lining State Street from High Street (at bottom of image) to about Commercial (top of image). The photo is taken from a rooftop east of High Street and the camera is focused in a northwestern direction towards the Willamette River. The image is notably lacking a finished Old First National Bank Building (a.k.a. Livesley Building) that now stands at the SW corner of State and Liberty Streets. Since this building was built between 1923 and 1927, we can date this photo to before 1927. The McGilchrist Building, (the short white building in the just to the right of center of the image) was built in 1916, giving us an early date of 1916.
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