Joseph Schindler House (1623 Chemeketa St NE) Salem, Oregon
National Register of Historic Places Data
The Joseph Schindler House (1623 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shown here, minor errors and/or formatting may have occurred during transcription, and some information may have become outdated since listing.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 Some information may have become outdated since the property was nominated for the Register.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 84400-440
Owners: Thomas A. Kuffner and Irvin A. Czimskey, 1623 Chemeketa Street, NE, Salem, OR 97301
Primary Contributing
The Schindler House is a one-and-one-half story vernacular Queen Anne residence set forward on a deep, south-facing lot that backs onto Mill Creek. The house is of a simplified neo-classic design, with a prominent southfacing gable accentuated by cornice returns and a porch extending across the front and supported by piers with Doric-inspired capitals. Exterior surfacing is wood shingles in the gables with horizontal board siding below. Double-hung windows are capped by cornice moldings. A side-facing gable on the east was joined by another beside it to the rear in 1985.
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 Some information may have become outdated since the property was nominated for the Register.
The house was built in the period 1906-1909 by Joseph Schindler, a German immigrant who arrived in Salem in 1878, and Mary Craft Litchfield Schindler, who he had married in 1892. In 1906 they purchased the lot and by 1909 are listed in the City Directory as living at this address (then numbered 1503 Chemeketa). The Schindlers lived in the house until 1926 and owned it until 1930. Joseph Schindler spoke no English when he arrived at the Salem train depot in 1878 at the age of 17. He had travelled from Germany to New York City, from there to Omaha on an "emigrant train," then to San Francisco, from where he took the boat to Portland. In Salem, he was met by his uncle, Leonard Schindler, who owned extensive farmland in the Salem area. Joseph farmed for five years and then went to work as a blacksmith, first for W. F. R.
("Alphabetical Bill") Smith at the Parker shop located at the site of what is now the Bligh Hotel, then for Dr. Paine as blacksmith at the State Hospital.
Schindler eventually went into partnership as a blacksmith with John Knight, later buying Knight's interest in the firm and moving the shop to the Larson Building on South Liberty Street. He married Alma Litchfield in 1892, and they had two children, Ralph P., who became a municipal judge in Corvallis, and a daughter, Mrs. Everett Craven, of Portland (see: profile of Joseph Schindler at age 75, Capital Journal , Mar. 5, 1936, p. 4).
