Historic Houses on the Salem Waterfront

4113

Waterfront Salem is a vastly different place from what it was when I was growing up. In the mid-1970s Front Street served an what amounted to an industrial area and was laced with disused railroad tracks. 

I wasn't even aware there was a Water Street, which is the closest street Salem has to the river, until the 80s. And even then it wasn't clear how one would get down there.

What a difference forty years makes. Not only is it a simple thing to get down to what is now a lush and inviting public space, but there's lovely interesting things to see there. Following Union Street NE one block west of Front, you bear left at the old steel bridge that used to carry a rail line across the river and is now a very nice pedestrian bridge connecting the east bank riverfront to Wallace Marine Park in west Salem. 

Between the Marion and Center Street bridges, along Water Street, is a big Victorian house which today is devoted to housing the Gilbert House Childrens' Museum. Along side of it is two other historic houses which is part of the Childrens' Museum complex.

The addresses are 450 Water St NE (on the left) and 440 Water St NE (on the right). I did bump the color up on this photo, because being adjacent to the main Gilbert House itself, I had storybook illustrations playing about in my head.

This angle, looking back the way we came, shows the Gilbert House itself, green amongst the tree.

Cheerful, charming, historic Salem. 

Oh, and it bears mentioning that the Gilbert who the Gilbert House represents is A.C. Gilbert, the man who, through his efforts, gave the world one of the landmark toys of the 20th Century ... the Erector Set. Yeah. Like the guy who gave the world the View Master, A.C. Gilbert, too, was an Oregonian.