216-236 Commercial Street NE
England-Wade Building & England Block on September 4, 2006.
William England, one of Salem’s early wagon makers, purchased this site in the 1860s and built the England Block (pictured above on the right) in 1877. The England Block originally included an additional adjoining building to the north, which is now part of the England-Wade Building. The current England Block consists of two-thirds of the original building. This section originally featured two storefronts, each with three sash windows with semi-elliptical heads above, and the section to the north had another storefront with three more matching windows above. The England Block originally featured Italianate architecture, including a projecting roof cornice with an ornate plaque and finial raised above the parapet. By the 1880s, this building was used as a carriage repository. England sold the building to Robert M. Wade in the mid-1880s.
Robert M. Wade came overland to Oregon in 1850 and founded R. M. Wade & Company in Salem in 1865, selling agricultural and household equipment. In 1869, Wade built a building at the corner of Commercial and Court, next to the future site of the England Block. Wade & Company, commonly called “Wade’s,” later specialized in farm equipment, including iron tools and eventually tractors, and pioneered the use of sprinkler irrigation equipment called “Wade Rain.” George J. Pearce began working in Wade’s store as a clerk in 1871. The company was incorporated in 1885, and Pearce became president and treasurer of the firm.
In 1889, Robert M. Wade built what is now the northern portion of the England-Wade Building to the north of the England Block, replacing a one-story building on the site. This was an Italianate style building similar to the England Block, and was originally used to house seeds and carriages into the early 1890s. By the early 1890s, Wade & Company distributed its goods throughout the Pacific Northwest, and Wade established the company headquarters in Portland. In the 1890s, a sewing machine shop and a bicycle shop occupied the southern two-thirds of the England Block. In 1902, the Salem branch of R. M. Wade & Company became Wade, Pearce & Company. George Pearce retired as president of Wade, Pearce & Company in 1912, and the company was divided between its vice president, Ray L. Farmer, who began working for Wade around 1883, and its secretary, Lot L. Pearce, George’s younger brother who was also the company’s bookkeeper for many years. Farmer remained in the corner location, operating the hardware portion of the business as the Ray L. Farmer Hardware Company, Lot Pearce operated the implement and machinery business here, three doors north on Commercial Street, as Lot L. Pearce & Sons.
In 1918, George Pearce’s daughters Helen and Dorothy acquired the northern third of the England Block and the building constructed by Wade in 1889 (along with the 1869 Wade & Pearce building on the corner) from the Wade-Pearce Company. Dorothy Pearce graduated from Willamette University in the early 1900s. She became a musician, attending the New England Conservatory of Music in Boston and also studying music in New York. She later maintained a music studio in Salem and taught music. She belonged to several local and national music clubs and organizations, and prior to her death in 1966, she served as an officer in the Salem district of the Oregon Music Teachers Association. Helen Pearce graduated from Willamette University in 1915. A student of English, she received her master’s degree from Radcliffe College in 1926 and her Ph.D. from the University of California at Berkeley in 1930. Helen was the first female graduate of Willamette University to receive a Ph.D., and she taught English at Willamette University from 1920 to 1955. Later in her career, she chaired Willamette’s English Department. She co-edited the first ten volumes of “Marion County History,” became the first Oregon woman to preside over Zonta International from 1938 to 1940, and was a charter member of the Salem branch of the American Association of University Women.
The southern two-thirds of the England Block were acquired by William S. Fitts in the mid-1920s. Born in Alabama in 1868, Fitts came west in 1891, first to Walla Walla, Washington, and then to Salem where he established a farm. In 1901, Fitts opened a fish market in the 400 block of Court Street, which grew to become the leading fish and poultry market in Salem. He also invested in the Hotel Marion and the Newport Ice & Fish Company. William S. Fitts and his wife Lulu Elliot Fitts had three children: Clifford W. Fitts, Inez G. Fitts, and Ira J. Fitts. Ira and his wife Ruth Staples Fitts operated the fish and poultry market until they retired in 1952 and moved to Rancho Mirage, California.
England-Wade Building on September 8, 2007.
In 1950, the portion of the England Block owned by Ira & Ruth Fitts was remodeled to its current appearance, and in 1951 the Pearce sisters remodeled their buildings into a single unit called the England-Wade Building. The England-Wade Building remained in the Wade and Pearce families until the early 1960s. Ira and Ruth Fitts owned the England Block until the late 1970s when it was acquired by Ruth Fitts’s heirs, Franklin & D.K. Fredericks.
Additional Links:
England Block at Salem Online History
Historical Photos:
England-Wade Building as Allen Hardware (Salem Public Library)
Continue to 30: Pearce Building…
No comments:
Post a Comment