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    Keizer
    Keizer
    Keizer
    Ebook214 pages2 hours

    Keizer

    By Tammy Wild and Keizer Heritage Museum

    ()

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    About this ebook

    The community of Keizer was shaped by the banks of the Willamette River. It was first inhabited by the Kalapuya tribe, and then came fur trappers and early missionaries farther north along the river. Homesteaders arrived in the 1840s. The rich river-bottom farmland remained quiet until the boom of automobiles after World War II. Keizer boasts neither fancy buildings nor brick edifices but proudly carries its spirit of volunteerism and perseverance. Pioneer Thomas Dove Keizur and Oregon senator Charles McNary are noted citizens. The iconic 1916 Keizer schoolhouse, now Keizer Heritage Center, is a cherished landmark. The story of Keizer comprises an account of the settlement of the state of Oregon--from wagon train to a thriving city. Keizer officially became an incorporated city in 1982.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherArcadia Publishing
    Release dateMar 23, 2015
    ISBN9781439650486
    Keizer
    Author

    Tammy Wild

    Author Tammy Wild, on behalf of the Keizer Heritage Museum, brings this visual historical perspective of Salem's northern neighbor. A longtime enthusiast of family genealogy and history, Tammy and her husband, Bob, moved to Keizer with their families in the 1970s. The Keizer Heritage Foundation has worked since 1988 to preserve and showcase the history of the community of Keizer. The images in this book have been selected from archival collections and personal family photographs.

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      Book preview

      Keizer - Tammy Wild

      INTRODUCTION

      Many local stories about the past two centuries can be found at the Keizer Heritage Museum. After looking around Keizer, a person could be forgiven for thinking it is a relatively new settlement. Unlike other Oregon cities, it does not have a downtown filled with 19th-century buildings. Keizer does have two structures in the downtown core that date to the early 1900s: the Frank Evans house, near the corner of River Road and Dearborn Avenue (currently the café Mommy and Maddi’s), and the old Keizer School, which found new life as the Keizer Heritage Center at the civic center campus on Chemawa Road.

      The mild climate of the Willamette Valley made it a favorite winter camp for the Native American Kalapuya people. The animal life, trees, river, and smaller waterways, along with the rich soil abundant with the native camas and other vegetation, provided a land on which they could live and thrive for thousands of years. Reports of plentiful wildlife brought fur trappers from the Astor Fur Company to this area in 1812. Their fur-trading post was on a bluff overlooking the Willamette River in what is now southeast Keizer. William Wallace was one of the leaders of the group. The lodging they built was known as the Wallace house or fort. This area became known as Wallace Prairie.

      In 1834, at the request of Native Americans of the Flathead tribe who desired to know about the book of heaven, the Board of Missions of the Methodist Episcopal Church selected Rev. Jason Lee to lead a group of 70 people on a journey to this new land. Their mission on the Willamette River was just a few miles north of what would later become Keizer. Flooding in Mission Bottom forced the missionaries to move south. Reverend Lee was a founding father of Salem, Oregon, and of the educational institution of the region.

      After the Wallace fort and trading post was abandoned, there was little activity in the region until 1843, when Thomas Dove T.D. Keizur and his party rode into the Willamette Valley and claimed the fertile land that would develop into the core of the city (present-day Shari’s Restaurant). The city’s name comes from these earliest settlers.

      John Force, of the 1842 immigration, worked with the Jason Lee mission in constructing the first mill in Salem. His land claim and large mission home on Wallace Prairie was said to have been a stop for travelers, just as the John and Reeda (Keizur) Ford house was also used for lodgers. A large, heartily built barn on the Force claim was known as the Jason Lee Barn.

      Early pioneer families risked their lives to trek out West, bringing with them seeds, plant cuttings, and livestock to aid settlement in the new frontier. The bountiful land had varying ecosystems of river bottom, grasslands, and stands of tall, old-growth evergreen fir and other native trees.

      Pioneers played instrumental roles in the founding of this new territory. T.D. Keizur was a representative of the Champoeg district in the 1844 provisional government. The Keizurs (the surname has been variously spelled), Pughs, and Horace Holden played vital roles in organizing the new territory, including involvement in the Cayuse Indian War and with the Oregon Rangers, a precursor to the Oregon National Guard.

      The Keizurs brought with them breeding horses, including their prized Morgans, along with oxen and cattle. The Claggetts imported the first Angora goats to Marion County and were known for their registered Clydesdale horses, which won accolades at county and state fairs. They also raised fine sheep and racehorses. Later, families brought mink to raise commercially. The Savage and Saucy families operated local dairies that supplied fresh milk.

      T.D. Keizur and Horace Holden are recorded to have planted the first apple trees. Imagine walking through the quiet farm country when the creeks were filled with fish and crawdads, and orchards lined the single-lane dirt road that led north to Champoeg. Springtime was filled with the smell and lovely sight of blossoms on apple, cherry, peach, pear, and prune trees. Groves of filberts (hazelnuts) and walnuts were plentiful. Huge trees grew from the plantings of early pioneers. Area nurseries sold quality stock across the country. Farm fields produced bountiful crops of asparagus, blackberries (Loganberries), celery, corn, dandelion, green beans, hay, hops, onions, peppermint, strawberries, and wheat, among others. Hop and prune dryers dotted the landscape to preserve and ready the harvest for market.

      The serene, wide-open spaces could be explored on horseback. Common sounds of the day included the whistle of the sternwheelers maneuvering on the river, the singing of the electric wires strung between the telephones, and train whistles on the nearby tracks as the railroads took passengers and cargo to their destinations.

      In the 1940s, subdivisions of new homes began to change the farmland. Soon, businesses other than agricultural industries were established, and the town started to take shape. The roads were given names, not just rural route numbers, and were widened and paved. New schools were built to accommodate growth. With resilience, the people endured the ebb and flow of floodwaters from the Willamette River. Installation of dams and dikes mitigated the risks from this natural disaster, and development increased.

      Readers can learn and reminisce within these pages, covering pioneer days through the 1960s. More information and photographs can be found at the Keizer Heritage Museum. By purchasing this book, you are helping efforts to display the early years of this neighboring community of Salem.

      Officially a young city, Keizer was incorporated in 1982. Join us in a travel back in time, revisiting how it was before the modern day and paying respect to those who have gone before.

      One

      FIRST SETTLERS

      The town’s founding families left everything behind and ventured west to a land with new promises. These were strong, resourceful people. The names of the original settlers were Keizur (three families), Pugh (four families), Claggett, Fisher, Ford, Force, Penter, Purdy, Smart, Smith, Spong, Stephens, and Zieber. In the Clear Lake area, holders of the donation land claims were George Lesley and Jeremiah Stevenson. Claims of Zieber and Smith included land in both communities.

      A map from 1851 labels the area south of Mission Bottom (the site of Rev. Jason Lee’s first Methodist mission complex) as Wallace Prairie, a reference to the early fur trappers who resided there. In 1852, a descriptive plat map of Marion County townships

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