Historic Downtown Salem #11: White & Sons Company Building

261 State Street

White & Sons Company Building on September 4, 2006.

The White and Sons Company Building was built in 1911. It was used as the store and office building for their seed company. They also owned a much older warehouse building around the corner on Front Street, which we will come to in a later post. Daniel Anthony White came to Oregon in 1890 and started a feed business on Court Street. White bought this property, on which stood four adjoining one-story buildings. White built this building in 1911, but did not move his business into it until several years later. In 1914, the building housed a lens grinding business. Daniel White’s sons Harlan O. White and Floyd M. White later joined him in the feed business. By the early 1920s, the company had immense warehouses on Front and Water Streets along the east bank of the Willamette River with a reported capacity of six hundred tons of bailed hay. Eventually, D. A. White & Sons eventually had seed processing operations throughout the United States and in Europe. D. A. White died in 1938 and was buried at Pioneer Cemetery. This building was owned by the White family until the mid-1980s.

Continue to 12: Catlin & Lynn Building…