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Site with a Past POSTED: February 25, 1991  The Beaver Steam Laundry on Northwest Second Street expanded its fleet of Chevrolet panel trucks to four in the late 1925. Second Street Blocks Bear a Rich Part of City's History David Livingston has spoken out in behalf of the business concerns in the blocks between Monroe and Van Buren avenues from Second Street to the river. This has been one of the proposed sites for a downtown hotel-conference center. David and Gary Feuerstein, his colleague in Endex, a firm of consulting engIneers at 223 S. W Second St. want to call attention to what has existed on the two key downtown blocks. They share a deep interest in the process through which modern Benton County has evolved. Gary says that engineers need to understand the heritage of an area in preparing a base on which to build. In the last decade Gary has helped in the preservation of the old Southern Pacific depot on Sixth Street and its removal to the riverfront, remodeled now into Michael's Landing restaurant. In remodeling the old Phllomath College Into the Benton County Historical Museum, Gary planned the heating, electrical, plumbIng, ventilating and other mechanical systems. David is a spark-plug of the task force that is working toward turning Madison Avenue into a landscaped pedestrian mall from First Street to the Oregon State University campus. He also had a hand in installing information panels in the Riverfront Park, at the sites of the old City Hall, the Opera House, the schools in Central Park and at the Fred J. Porter house. Recently David has designed a garbage-sack holder mounted in a concrete frame that has the City of Corvallis logo on two sides. The building at 223 N .W .Second St. occupied by Endex and the lot on which it stands have interesting histories. Before Endex moved in about two years ago it had housed a salesroom for hi-fidelity equipment and before that a storage and repair area for the telephone company. The large light fixtures on either side of the front door are remnants of the Ross Electric era. Between 1903 and 1949 the Corvallis Steam Laundry, Iater renamed Beaver Laundry, developed at this location. Its managers, Blakeslee & Son, believed it to be "one of the most modernly equipped laundry plants in the state south of Portland." In the New Year's Day edition in 1923 the Gazette-Times went so far as to describe it as "one of the best-equipped laundries in the world employing 35 people." On the lot to the south of the Beaver Laundry the owners built the tastefully designed two-story Beaver Apartments. Garages on the lower floor opened into the alley. Lois Parr, one of the present owners of what are now called the Parr Apartments at 217 N.W. Second St., says that one of the former tenants told her that the rooms were cosily heated by steam from the laundry through the week but the occupants had to depend on fireplaces on weekends. The apartments had a landscaped patio in front. Some say it had a fountain surrounded by shrubs, that area later gave way to parking spaces for four cars and a narrow office building that now houses the Primary Palette, an art school for youngsters at 221 S. W. Second St. In the next block, in 1858, in one of Dixon's Additions to Marysvllle was the Oregon Statesman Company formerly of Salem. In the short period when Corvallls was the capital of the Oregon Territory, the Legislature met in a frame building at Second and Adams streets. Asahel Bush, printer for the Territory and publisher of the Oregon Statesman newspaper, moved his printing plant by steamboat from Salem to Corvallis. He announced that at the "office near steamboat landing" he could do all sorts of job printing. He printed the laws passed by the legislature and from April to December 1855 published the weekly Oregon Statesman, the first newspaper printed in Benton County. Corvallis historian Kenneth Munford writes, speaks and arranges tours on topics of historical interest. |