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Tuesday, December 30, 2014

Historic Downtown Salem #65: J. Hughes New Salem Hotel

153-191 High Street SE

IMG_3170 J Hughes New Salem Hotel in Salem, Oregon on September 4, 2006
J. Hughes New Salem Hotel on September 4, 2006

John Hughes was born in 1831 and started west toward California in 1852. Instead he came to Portland, Oregon, that fall and settled in Marion County. In 1857 he married Emma Pringle and they farmed for seven years before John Hughes opened a store in Salem in 1863 selling groceries, paints, oils and other goods. He operated this business for forty years and also built a commercial block, part of a bank block, and had an interest in the Salem Flouring Mill. He died in the early 1900s as the oldest merchant in Salem. His daughter Lulu Bush presided over the John Hughes Company, which was founded in 1906, with J. Frank Hughes as secretary-treasurer. By the 1920s, J. Frank Hughes was managing the John Hughes Company.

IMG_5909 J Hughes New Salem Hotel in Salem, Oregon on April 7, 2007
J. Hughes New Salem Hotel on April 7, 2007

This site was originally the site of several woodframe Chinese shops, a restaurant, and a Chinese cabin. The John Hughes Company built the current building on the site in 1924. Originally, retail shops occupied the ground floor with the New Salem Hotel on the second floor with a first floor lobby on High Street facing the Elsinore Theater. The John Hughes Company owned this building until the mid-1940s. The J. Hughes New Salem Hotel is now inside the Downtown Historic District. Businesses housed here include the Jaquith Music Company.

Historical Photos:
Hughes Building, 1945 (Salem Public Library)

Continue to 66: Elsinore Theater

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