Bush's Pasture Park: (A)sahel to Ga(Z)ebos

Bush's Pasture Park today is rolling open meadows dotted with tree copses, a creek, two Victorian-era homes-cum-museums (both with greenhouses), flowerbeds, a rose garden, flowering shrubs, an art center and gallery, walking paths, and many recreational features. It hosts a number of events throughout the year, including one of the largest arts festivals in the Northwest.

This very popular 90.5-acre park is one of the oldest in Salem’s park system, beginning as the home and farm of the Bush family. Asahel Bush II was a drafter of the State Constitution, founded the first bank in the state, as well as one of its most important and influential newspapers. In 1917, the eastern 57-acres were donated to the city to use as a park and playground. In the late 40s the surviving Bush family sold the remaining acreage to the city, rather than to a Seattle developer offering a much larger sum, so as to complete the park with the only stipulation being that the whole should be named to honor their father.

Community commitment to the park has rarely wavered but has been indirectly threatened as in this story of Wright is Wrong.
Contact: SalemParks@open.org

Other facilities and features:
--The Italianate style Bush House (my entry), built in 1877, and occupied by the family for over 75 years, contains much of the original furnishings, including wallpapers. The greenhouse, the oldest (1882) in the state, built for the Bush daughters to indulge an interest of theirs, providing them with a hobby.
503-363-4714
--Bush Barn Art Center & Gallery (my entry) to the rear of Bush House, occupies what was once the farm’s barn with a salesroom, gift shop, and four exhibition galleries.
581-2228
-- Deepwood Estate (my entry) is a lovely multi-gabled Queen Anne Victorian with grounds abutting a wild area surrounding Pringle Creek. A small but fine garden by Elizabeth Lord and Edith Schryver, who designed about 250 gardens throughout the Northwest, and a greenhouse are part of the grounds.
503-363-1825
--The Rose Garden sitting immediately west of Bush House contains some 2000 bushes, including the Tartar Old Rose Collection, named for the collection’s donator, and a gazebo. Old roses pre-date the introduction of the repeat-blooming China rose in the late 1700s. The garden may be reserved at 503-588-6261.

Quick Tips:

Open 5am-12 midnight

Recreation Facilities include:
-Walking/hiking/biking paths
-Multiple playground areas
-Lighted Tennis courts
-Softball/baseball field
-Horseshoe pitches
-Picnic areas
-Charles McCulloch Stadium/Ted Ogdahl Field hosts a number of events and some of nearby Willamette University athletic competitions.

Regular Events Include:
---Salem Art Fair, a juried art festival, held the third weekend in July, had an estimated attendance of 105,000 in 2003. The three-day event has food booths, wares from over 200 artists, actual events from the Bush family history re-enacted at Bush House, over 30 musical performances, a walk/run fundraiser for the arts, hand-on art (pottery and painting), and a special area with activities just for kids.
During this event the Salem bus system runs a free shuttle from the transit mall to the park.
503-581-2228, artfair@salemart.org
---The Soapbox Derby track, one of the few dedicated tracks. Located on the north side of the park between McCulloch Stadium and Bush House. (Schedule)
---The Awesome 3000, one of the world’s largest timed all youth foot-races, held in McCulloch Stadium the first Saturday in May since 1983. Participation and completion are the focus in this fundraiser benefiting the Salem-Keizer school system.

Best Way To Get Around:

In the park you can walk or ride a bike.

Coming by car:
See map below for boundaries, street access and parking locations.
Be aware:
--Mission is a busy street.
--Traffic on 12th runs south only, but 13th is north only.
--Leffelle is interrupted at two points requiring slight detours onto Cross.
--Parking is free.

Coming by bus -- Route Maps & Schedules:
Bush is just outside the fare-free area, unless you exit just before Mission. Pay getting off outbound from the transit mall or getting on when inbound.
Fares:
--.75 per leg (no transfers)
--.50 for a day pass.
--Routes 6 (pdf) & 15 (pdf) run south on 12th (returning north on 13th) and can be used to access Deepwood and the east end of the park. Route 15 also goes west on Cross Street 2 blocks south of the eastern portion of the park.
--Route 14 (pdf) runs south down High Street and can be used to access Bush House, Bush Barn, the Rose Garden, Art Festival and the western side of the park.
--A special free shuttle from the transit mall to the park runs during the Art Festival.

The part of Pringle Creek in Bush Park where it runs near the house has been landscaped only by nature. Children always like that sort of thing, their own secret wilderness which imagination can place anywhere they wish. And so there they played; in their deep wood.

The house, a Queen Anne style Victorian, appears as romantic as its setting.

Luke lived in the house. Architect W.C. Knighton’s (who later designed the Oregon State Supreme Court Building) first commission was the house, built in 1894, for pharmacist Luke A. Port. Poor Luke. His son, Omega, gone to study chemistry abroad, intending to work father’s pharmacy upon return, and lost at sea in a hurricane. A commemorative piece, the "omega" window, by the Povey Brothers, primary makers of stained-glass throughout the Northwest, is above the front parlor fireplace.

George and Willie lived in the house with its wealth of golden oak woodwork, louvered privacy-shutters built into window frames, curved glass dining room windows, and stained-glass details.

Alice lived in the house with a tower rising above the multi-gabled roofline. From there you could see, of course, the woods, and the matching carriage house, the parkland, and the English-style gardens with the gazebo from the 1905 Lewis & Clark Exposition.

The gardens, conceived of as a series of outdoor rooms, were designed for Alice, in 1929, by Lord & Schryver. The firm established in Salem that same year would design about 250 gardens throughout the Northwest including work in the orchard within Bush Park. Elizabeth and Edith were the first professional female landscapers in the Northwest. Both graduating the prestigious Lawthorpe School in Groton Mass., they actually met only later in Europe. Elizabeth’s mother founded the Salem Garden Club. Her father served as Governor (1895-99) and Chief Justice of the Oregon Supreme Court.

It was Alice Browns’s children, Chandler and Werner, who played in the woods, but it was Alice who named the property Deepwood Estate after "The Hollow Tree and Deep Woods Book" by Albert Bigelow Paine, which her children loved when young. With a bottle of champagne she christened the house on New Years Eve in 1935.

Deepwood sits on 5.5 acres in the northeast corner of Bush's Pasture Park (Overview) while Bush House (my entry) is at the park’s northwest corner. The story of the house and those who lived there is a wonderfully complex tapestry of personality (both human and architectural), merely hinted at here. The interpretive house tour guide will detail much more.

Other Deepwood Park Facilities:
--A steamy plant filled greenhouse.
--Free parking next to greenhouse. Entrance is off 12th Street and then off Lee Street, one block south of Mission.
--The Fry Stein Nature Trail skirts the creek.

Tours: Hourly noon-5pm. May-Sept.: Sunday-Friday. Oct.-Apr.: Tuesday-Saturday.
Grounds open dawn to dusk year round.
Admission $4, students/seniors $3, children $2, under 6 free. Grounds free.
Contact: 503-363-1825

(For D and G, married before Omega.)

From the outside the Italianate Victorian style Bush House (1878) seems to lack the obvious personality of Deepwood (my entry), also in Bush's Pasture Park (Overview). It’s essentially a large gray irregularly shaped box with windows and doors, plain and simple. Sure there’s that great vine curling up the post supporting the front porch roof, greenhouse with period plants, pergola, adjoining rose garden (dating only from the 1950s) with gazebo, and from that little hill the house sits atop there‘s a great view through the rolling landscape of the park. Not so plain after all.

Inside there’s what seems, at first glance, an ordinary floral drawing, actually made entirely of human hair braided and woven into intricate designs making up leaves, stems, and petals, like embroidery; a decorative handiwork to pass the time. This donated piece is entirely in keeping with the way this house presents itself. Things just aren’t that simple here, nor were the people who lived here.

For example--

Extravagances and Modern Conveniences at Construction:
--10 elaborately carved working marble fireplaces and a central heating system.
--Hot/cold running water in the basins of each bedroom. The box-like tower to the rear of the house is a water tank for the house.
--The first (1882) greenhouse west of the Mississippi.

A family of high profile lives heavily involved in the community and with politics; both local and State:
--Asahel Bush II (1824-1913) was a drafter of Oregon’s constitution (pdf), founded the influential Oregon Statesman newspaper, and later (1867) the Ladd & Bush Bank, the first bank in Oregon.
--Sally, a vegetarian, ran the house after graduating college, kept 27 cats, and was renowned for her kindness, consuming slightly burnt toast for years after telling a new servant she preferred this to spare her feelings.

Widower Asahel built the house on 90.5-acres as a working farm. A family home of more than 75 years before ownership passed to the city, as per their wishes, the land becoming a park (joining the 57 acres donated in 1917) and the house a museum. The family had very carefully furnished their home and most of the original furnishings, including many wallpapers, remained. All can be seen on the house tours where the history of house and family are revealed.

On the last two days of the annual Salem Arts Festival, the third weekend in July, there are living history re-enactments of events from Bush Family history.

Tours: Tues-Sun (Oct-Apr) 2pm-5pm, (May-Sept) 12pm-5pm.
--30-40 minutes on average no set schedule exists, they‘ll fit you into a tour as soon as possible. Avoid waiting by arriving at the earliest stated time.
--No tours begin later than 4.30pm
Admission: Adults $4, seniors/students $3, children (6-12) $2
Greenhouse: 9am–4pm
Contact: 503-363-4714, bushhouse@salemart.org
Free Parking: Turn left east off High Street a half block south of Mission Street.

The barn behind the house is now the Bush Barn Art Center

The 90.5-acre City of Salem Bush's Pasture Park (Overview) and 1878 Bush House (my entry) began as the home and farm of Asahel Bush II, a man important at the beginning of Oregon Statehood and the early days of the City of Salem.

The Bush Barn Art Center & Gallery sits to the rear of Bush House. It occupies what was once the farm’s barn, or rather, it occupies a rebuilt version of the barn on the exact location of the original, which burnt in 1963.

Bush Barn consists of three galleries upstairs, a gallery for featured artists, salesroom, and gift shop downstairs. The concept behind the whole is to provide a venue for Northwest and in particular local artists to display their creations. The Salem Art Association, which manages the galleries was founded in 1918.

Galleries:
--A.N. Bush (named for Asahel Bush III) Gallery: Exhibits are original to the gallery having been presented nowhere else.
--Focus Gallery: A space for solo-exhibitions of Oregon artists, often experimental or non-traditional. The focus is on originality.
--Corner Library Gallery: A non-juried venue for local artists, including amateur artists.
--Featured Artist Gallery: Artists that have been featured in previous exhibitions include Dale Chihuly’s glass pieces in what was the very first presentation of this Washington State artist’s artworks in Oregon.
Next show: Radius 25
Dates: February 24 - March 26, 2004
A juried exhibition featuring 27 artists (both established and emerging) artists living and working within a 25-mile radius of Salem. Could be your chance to see the next big influential artists‘ work.
--Sales Gallery: Features artworks for sale in a multiplicity of media.

If you are or will be in the area for an extended time they offer an art rental program that allows one to lease an art piece for a period of three months. This building is also the headquarters for the Arts in Education Program, which provides hands-on art experiences; demonstrations and artists in residence, for the Marion/Yamhill/Polk County area.

During the Salem Art Fair, held the third weekend in July, there are special events at the center: hands-on art ,via pottery and painting.

Open: Tuesday-Friday: 10am-5pm. Saturday/Sunday: 12pm-5pm
Admission: free Contact: 503-581-2228, (fax) 503-371-3342, info@salemart.org
Free Parking: Accessed via a drive running east off High Street a half block south of Mission Street. The lot is between Bush Barn and the Greenhouse of Bush House.

Wright is Wrong

Chapter One: The Greatest Building Never Constructed (in Salem)

Once a newspaper in a, relatively, small town, in need of new housing for its operations, approached a noted architect asking if he would design this for them. After a time he offered them a preliminary, but radically new, design. It would consist, in part, of columns arranged in a sort of forest, which would reverse-taper from a narrow bottom upwards to splay into largish circular dishes, supporting the upper floors while creating a large open space about their bases. The newspaper was impressed.

The noted architect came to the, relatively, small town to view the site, finish his visualization and finalize his design. Arriving to meet the newspaper's representatives, he announced he’d found a better location for his radically new design and that this was where they would build.

"Oh, no, we can't. We don't own the property," they told him.
"Never mind that," he replied, "just buy the land."
"We can't buy a public greenspace."
"But that’s the only place I’ll consent to construct my radically new design in your town," he informed them.
"It's one of the city's oldest parks! It’s the largest park. It gets used a good bit. We can't buy it!"
"Well, then," said the noted architect, "if I can't build my radically new design there I won't build it for you at all."

And he left.

You couldn't argue with the man. He once told a client complaining of a leaking roof: "Madam, that is how you know it is a roof." (The exchange above is a fictionalization of fact, save the last bit, which is an actual quote.)

Some time later he took his radically new design, slightly re-imagined, to a new client, who was impressed. Dubious local authorities forced him to pile sandbags onto a mockup column proving each could actually bear the load claimed. They were impressed. Where upon The SC Johnson Wax building, in Racine, Wisconsin, became one more item on the list of buildings designed by Frank Lloyd Wright with construction completed in the three-dimensional world. And everyone was impressed.

The Capital Journal had to go elsewhere for the design of their new facility.

All because Frank was such a martinet.

And yes, Bush's Pasture Park is still one of Salem's largest (now third in size to Minto-Brown Island Park’s 900-acres and Wallace Marine Park‘s 114.5), and it still gets used a good bit.

Chapter Two: Insults to Injury?

Once, like a lot of places, Salem had more than one daily newspaper, it had two. The Capital Journal and the Oregon Statesman.

The Oregon Statesman?! Yes, the same one founded by Asahel Bush II back in Oregon City in 1851, which he had moved to Salem in 1853. The same Asahel whose family had donated the then 57 acres of land making up the park, which was named in his honor, to the city for the express purpose of a park in 1917. Very insulting indeed to build a competing paper’s facility upon that land which also sat immediately adjacent to the property upon which he lived. Would Frank have cared about that? Probably not.

But Asahel had sold the Oregon Statesman in 1863. And by 1932, the year in which these events took place, Asahel had been dead for something like 19 years, give or take a few months and a few days. He was obviously well beyond caring. So the irony of the situation is only apparent and not actual, although Asahel’s daughters Sally and Eugenia did still live in Bush House on what remained of the family farm, which would later become part of "the" park as well.

Chapter Three: Sleeping With the Enemy

Once, both papers were very partisan as established.
--The Oregon Statesman (1851) was very much the Democratic mouthpiece.
--The Capital Journal (1888) was founded to further the Republican cause.
But both papers passed into the hands of others and their original affiliations became blurred.

Sidebar: The Portland based Oregonian was more interested in the Whig agenda.

Eventually the Statesman came into the possession of Charles Sprague (he continued publishing during his term as Oregon’s Governor 1939-1943 ... hmm) and the Journal had passed to Bernard Mainwaring. Since the former was a morning paper, while the later was afternoon, the two men decided to use the same facility for publication while maintaining independent staff and content. So the two papers began a joint domicile arrangement. Like sailors aboard a submarine they hot bunked, each having use of the press while the other wasn’t using it.

In 1973 the two companies began a merger to become part of Gannett Company Incorporated.

Ultimately the two papers merged completely as well, and in 1980 the Capital Journal and the Oregon Statesman became the Statesman Journal, which is still published today.

So perhaps it would not have been as inappropriate for the Journal to have been published on former Bush land as it first may have seemed, in the long run, but who could have known that at the time? Anyway, it’s much nicer as a park. Makes a much better story too.

Chapter Four: What Goes Around -- Comes Back to Where it Started

The only Frank Lloyd Wright design that was ever actually constructed in Oregon is the Gordon House, which is now on the grounds of the Oregon Garden in Silverton southeast of Salem.

Frank had designed the house for a site in Wilsonville, a suburb of Portland, in 1957, but it wasn’t built until 1964. By that time Wright had been dead for 4 years. Time passed and as is its tendency was rather unkind to the Gordon House. Unlived in and unloved, or so it seemed until the threat of imminent demolition was raised. This resulted in the house being, after various other contending suggestions were eliminated, sold, partially dismantled and transported to a new location. There, in a terrain that it was not specifically designed for even though the general consensus was that it was appropriate, it was reconstructed, rehabilitated and opened to the public. Wonder what Frank would have made of that?

Resources -- Tours and Other Weblinks:
My Journal: Bush's Pasture Park: (A)sahel to Ga(Z)ebos
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Bush's Pasture Park
Open 5am to midnight.
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Bush House Tours
600 Mission Street SE, Salem, Oregon, 97301
503-363-4714, bushhouse@salemart.org
Adults $4, seniors/students $3, children (6-12) $2
--Tues-Sun (Oct-Apr) 2pm-5pm, (May-Sept) 12pm-5pm. Last tour begins: 4.30pm

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Statesman Journal Tours
Includes among other things: the publisher's office, circulation, advertising, the newsroom, and the printing press.
280 Church Street NE, Salem, Oregon, 97301
503-399-6673
--Duration: 1 hour.
--Thursdays: 3.30pm, Friday: 1.30pm
Use the online form to request a booking.

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Gordon House, (at the Oregon Garden) Tours
879 West Main Street, PO Box 155, Silverton, Oregon, 97381
503-874-6006
toll free: 877-674-2733 ext. 6006
gordonhouse@oregongarden.org
Group Tour information (Pat Deede): 503-874-8249.

--Tours at top of each hour 10am-5pm March-October, 10am-3pm November-February
--Self-guided brochure tour, first floor only: $2
--Guided tour of both floors: $5
--In-Depth Guided tours, the first Saturday of each month at 11am, reservation needed: $15
Tour fees are in addition to Garden admission fees:
--Adults: $5.00
--Seniors (60+) $4.00
--Students (8 -17) $4.00
--Children (under 8) Free

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Links:
--Society of Architectural Historians "Frank Lloyd Wright's Design for the Capital Journal, Salem, Oregon (1932)" by Donald Leslie Johnson, "Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians 55.1" (March 1996) The article itself isn’t online.
--SCJW Administration Building and Research Tower Writing Portfolio site. A history of the design, without noting why it wasn’t built.
--SC Johnson Wax Building Wright in Wisconsin site.
--Johnson Wax BuildingGreat Buildings Online site. Downloadable 3-D model.
--Frank Lloyd Wright, A Film by Ken Burns More background information on Wright.
--Statesman Journal History
--Charles A. Sprague Oregon State Archives site.