Landmark gets a new face
■ Students in the Historic
Preservation department
help re-hab an old favorite
By Sue Ryan
Oregon Daily Emerald
Peeling paint and rotting wood.
These signs of age mar the front of the
Shelton-McMurphey-Johnson house
at 303 Willamette St. Part of the mint
green paint has been scraped away
from the siding, revealing blonde-col
ored wood underneath.
This local landmark and its prob
lems are typical of houses being rec
ognized this week as part of National
Historic Preservation Week.
Built in 1888, the three-story house
sits on the south slope of Skinner
Butte, overlooking the Eugene train
station. University students are work
ing with its owners to restore it. The
class is taught through the Historic
Preservation department.
George Bleekman, an adjunct assis
tant professor in historic preservation,
instructs the course.
“We got involved this past summer
as part of a field school,” he said. “The
work has continued this spring with
students doing some re-creation.”
The re-creation work involves
making parts to match existing deco
rative trim. Bleekman said the exces
sive ornamentation is distinctive of
the Queen Anne Victorian style.
Tourist literature from the City of Eu
gene provides a history of the Shelton
}ohnson-McMurphey house, which
was built for Dr.
T.W. Shelton, who
at one time owned
all of Skinner Butte.
He was a doctor and
druggist, and in
volved in establish
ing the first water
utility in Eugene.
Ownership of the
house passed from
Shelton to his
daughter’s family,
the McMurpheys,
and was then pur
chased by Dr. Eva
Johnson. She donat
ed the house to
Tom Patterson Emerald
The Shelton-McMurphey-Johnson house is nestled in a forest
park of Skinner Butte and overlooks the Eugene train station.
nane county in
1986. Ownership later transferred to
the City of Eugene, and the house is
now managed by the nonprofit SMJ
Associates organization, which has
formed a partnership with the Univer
sity.
SMJ Director Betty Murrell said the
five-year agreement between the Uni
versity and the organization helps to
make the house a living laboratory for
history. The arrangement benefits
both the organization and students,
and it will also help fulfill future Uni
versity requirements, Bleekman said.
“Starting this fall, incoming stu
dents into the Historic Preservation
program will be required to have two
weeks worth of field school for their
degree.” she said.
SMJ Associates raise funds to re
store the house in addition to recruit
ing and coordinating volunteers, who
work on displays for the house and
give tours, including field trips for lo
cal schoolchildren.
“We tie displays to different lessons
— women’s rights, architecture,”
Murrell said. “By having interesting
artifacts, it helps us to inteipret what
was happening at the time. ”
Hankies, flowers and calling cards
are all examples of social communica
tion tools of the era, Murrell explained.
“Girls asking boys out is nothing
new,” she said. “When kids come
through the house, I show them how
girls used to flip their hankies one
way or another and* it meant some
thing like ‘Meet me behind the hy
drangea bush at 3 o’clock.’ The kids
love it.” Educational outreach is the
most important part of the organiza
tion’s mission, Murrell said.
Safety First
Ben Garvey for the Emerald
Brothers Matt and Andrew Powelson make signs for the Million Mom March held
Sunday, which was organized locally and nationwide to protest gun violence.
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