St. John Lutheran Church Salem, Marion County, Oregon, USA

National Register Description

The following text is courtesy of the National Register of Historic Places, a program of the National Parks Service. Minor transcription errors or changes in formatting may have occurred; please see the Nomination Form for official text. Some information may have become outdated since the property was nominated for the Register.

Assessor's Map 26BD 7-3W Tax Lots 84610-000, 010, 070, 080, 090, 100 Owner: St. John Lutheran Church, 1350 Court Street, NE, Salem, OR 97301

The original structure, an example of late 20th century period architecture, is a "modern Gothic" adaptation of the traditional longitudinal church plan, measuring 130 by 86 feet and built of reinforced concrete (Non-Contributing) faced with off-white mission-granite brick (applied in 1961). Architects were James L. Payne and Howard Grimms.

The building as it faces Court Street is side-gabled, with the main Court Street entry porch attached to a blocky entrance tower (flat-topped, without a spire). The openings in the entry porch, the front door, and most of the windows are Tudor-arched. The windows are glazed with blue and rose rectangular panes set vertically in mullions. The east end wall contains three tall, slender windows (the middle one being the tallest, flanked by two shorter ones); inset brickwork the width of each window extends from the sills to the foundation. The exterior walls are accented by attached buttresses capped by bricks set in a slanted course. Wood-trussed, medieval-style roofs cover secondary doorways on the Court and 14th Street sides.

The modern addition, faced with wood and concrete, was designed by Donald Gribskov and built in 1982. It extends the structure from mid-block to 13th Street.

The period character of the original building assures it a traditional appearance compatible with the District. The addition is not compatible stylistically but serves as a firm southwest corner to the District, buffering the neighborhood from the heavy traffic by-passing the District on the Court-State couplet (13th Street).

National Register History

The following text is courtesy of the National Register of Historic Places, a program of the National Parks Service. Minor transcription errors or changes in formatting may have occurred; please see the Nomination Form for official text. Some information may have become outdated since the property was nominated for the Register.

The church as a whole, and its parking lot to the south, occupy land that the pre-1914 Sanborn Insurance Map shows as containing six residences: a large two-and-one-half story structure at the corner of 14th and Court, three more to the west on Court, and one each on 13th and 14th Streets. In 1945, the church acquired the corner land, by then vacant, for $9000. According to a brochure provided by the church, "Ground was broken on Jan. 9, 1949, with the concrete walls of the basement being poured in November. The roof was finished nearly two years later on Aug. 5, 1951. The interior finishing work took another two years. On Oct. 18, 1953, the... building was dedicated, although the exterior... brick wasn't added until 1961."