Walter Denton House (1577 Chemeketa St NE) Salem, Oregon
National Register of Historic Places Data
The Walter Denton House (1577 Chemeketa St NE) has been listed on the National Register of Historic Places as part of the Court Street--Chemeketa Street Historic District. The following information has been imported from the National Register database and/or the Nomination Form . Please note that not all available data may be shown here, minor errors and/or formatting may have occurred during transcription, and some information may have become outdated since listing.
- National Register ID
- 87001373
- Date Listed
- August 26, 1987
- Name
- Court Street--Chemeketa Street Historic District
- Address
- An irregularly shaped area of appr. 38.57 acres bounded by the closures of Court Street & Chemeketa St. on the west, Mill Creek on the north & east, and on the south by the rear lot lines of properties on the south side of Court St.
- City/Town
- Salem
- County
- Marion
- State
- Oregon
- Category
- district
- Level of Sig.
- local
- Areas of Sig.
- EXPLORATION/SETTLEMENT; POLITICS/GOVERNMENT; ARCHITECTURE
Description
Text 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 PDF for official text. Some information may have become outdated since the property was nominated for the Register.
Assessor's Map 26AB 7-3W
Tax Lot 84400-410
Owners: Roy and Freida Lee, 1577 Chemeketa Street, NE, Salem, OR 97301
Compatible/Historic Non-Contributing in Present Condition
This much-remodelled Queen Anne cottage was built as a workingman's house but over the years was occupied by various prominent citizens before and while they built larger houses in or near the District. It is a one-story house with an added half-story, resulting in an irregular roof profile. Basically, it is hipped-roofed with a prominent front-facing (south) gable. It is sided now with modern shingles in a coursed pattern, presumably covering clapboard. The recessed front porch to the left of the front-facing gable is supported by a heavy squared pier.
History
Text 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 PDF for official text. Some information may have become outdated since the property was nominated for the Register.
Lee Steiner, clerk in his father's firm, the Gideon Steiner Fish Market, and Frank Cross, butcher with the grocery firm owned by his father, E. C. Cross, purchased the lot in 1889 and sold it to W. A. Denton in 1892.
According to the Oregon Statesman Illustrated Annual of 1893 (p. 7), Walter Denton built a residence for $800 in 1892. A clerk at the Steiner Fish Market, he is listed in the City Directory for 1893 as living in the house at this address (then 541 Chemeketa). He sold it in 1897 to Frederick Kundret, shoemaker, who is listed as living there in the period 1902-1905. In 1906 it was purchased by Isaac Homer Van Winkle and his wife. They enlarged and remodelled it at a cost of $800 (Oregon Statesman, Jan. 1, 1907). Van Winkle was assistant attorney general (later, from 1920 to 1943, attorney general) and, beginning in 1905, instructor, dean, and finally dean emeritus at the Willamette University College of Law. His parents, Oregon pioneers I. N. and Elizabeth Van Winkle, meanwhile in 1908-1909 were building their house two lots to the east (#102).
In 1909, Asst. Attorney General Van Winkle bought a lot in the new Chamberlins Addition and by 1911 was living in the house he built at 145 N. 17th Street—
the house he lived in until he died in 1943. His house on Chemeketa Street was sold to Alice Page. She and her husband, Rollin K. Page, lived there while they built their new house on the adjoining lot to the east (#104). The Pages moved into their new house and sold their little one in 1913 to H. J. and E. C.
Clements. Clements, a physician, lived there with his wife while they built their new house at 360 14th Street (#129), completed in 1923.
