4A
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APPEAL TRIBUNE
WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 21, 2016
Life in the
Valley y
sanews@salem.gannett.com
Quilt recalls heyday
of Silverton mill
KAYLYN F. MABEY
SPECIAL TO THE STATESMAN JOURNAL
The simple quilt is pieced
from the wool shirts and long
johns in a housewife’s scrap
bag. The backing made from
re-purposed flour bags with
brand names still visible:
Crown Flour, Red and White,
and L.H. Fischer, Silverton,
Oregon.
Donated from the estate of a
longtime Willamette Cherry
Grower employee, this quilt
and its humble origins, simple
materials and stitches, is a
touchstone to local history.
Each artifact considered for
acceptance into the collection
of the Willamette Heritage
Center is submitted to a re-
search and documentation
process. Our curator and vol-
unteers carefully research not
only the artifact but its prove-
nance, the story, if you will,
that connects it to our local
history. With a quilt, this en-
tails researching the materials
it is constructed from, the
method of construction as well
as the owners and, if possible,
the maker.
With Quiltopia, Salem’s
annual quilt show, coming up
at the end of the month and an
impending visit from the Ore-
gon Quilt Project ladies, we
dug right into the research for
this humble quilt, hoping to
add it to the ambitious list for
this year’s quilt documentation
workshop.
First came a brief sojourn
into the local city directories,
census records and online
newspapers from which we
gleaned a little information
about the owners, Phyllis and
Rolland Huffman, the longtime
cannery employees. Phyllis
was born in Washington and
moved to the Keizer area in
1942. Her husband, Rolland,
was born in Oklahoma and
came to Oregon with his family
in 1914. They met while work-
ing for the Willamette Cherry
Growers and were married in
1952. They are buried together
in Belcrest Memorial Park.
But truth be told, it was one
of the flour sacks used in the
quilt backing that really drew
our attention. The material
that still bore the label of L.H.
Fischer, Silverton, Oregon. We
know from textile history that
the idea of reusing the cotton
bags that flour, sugar, seed and
so forth were purchased in was
not an unusual one. At a time
when many rural families had
limited resources, these bags
were considered nearly as
valuable as the items they
contained. Because the Fischer
name seemed familiar, we
started research with our own
collections database where
indeed we found some items —
a series of trade cards used to
advertise the L.H. Fischer
Flouring Mill in Silverton and a
flour canister currently on
display in the Parsonage on the
grounds of the Willamette
Heritage Center.
Our next stop along the
detective hunt was Google-
.First click of the mouse led us
to the Silverton Commercial
Historic District’s nomination
form for the National Register
of Historic Places. From this
and a partner document, the
Silverton, Oregon Historic
Context Statement, we learn
that the Oregon Milling Com-
pany buildings at 400 S Water
St. were bought by Henry
Fischer in 1898. The mill origi-
nally consisted of two wood-
frame, gable-roofed buildings
that stood on the steep east
bank of Silver Creek and
ranged in height from two to
four stories. Under the owner-
ship of Henry Fischer, a suc-
cessful mill owner in Corvallis,
the mill was enlarged and re-
modeled to increase its produc-
tion capacity. By the
mid-1920s, the mill, then pow-
ered by its own turbine-gener-
ated electricity, consisted of a
large complex of milling, ele-
WHC 83.43.12.8.4
A Fischer’s Flouring Mill trade card circa 1920s was used to advertise the mill.
vator, warehouse and office
buildings.
Henry’s son Louis Henry or
L.H., an 1891 graduate of the
Portland Business College, had
been trained and groomed by
his father to take over manage-
ment of the mill in 1900. Under
his control, the business “grew
to extensive and profitable
proportions,” according to the
“Portrait and Biographical
Record of the Willamette Val-
ley” published in 1903. Produc-
tion was at its peak during
World War I with the demands
from Europe. And in the years
following, the company’s rep-
utation for quality flour prod-
ucts grew as it earned medals
at the Trans-Mississippi Fair at
Omaha, Nebraska, and the
Pan-American Exposition at
Buffalo, New York. The prod-
uct was also exhibited at the
Osaki, Japan, Exposition. Dur-
ing the height of production
and prosperity, Fischer Flour-
ing Mill shipped to the markets
of California and Alaska, South
America, Havana, the Philli-
pines, parts of Europe and the
Orient according to local news-
papers in the 1920s.
In 1932 however, the De-
pression hit Silverton and the
Fischer Flour Mill collapsed
financially, taking with it the
life savings of many residents
who had invested. After the
collapse of the mill, a group of
six or seven businessmen
pooled funds and bought the
property, eventually deeding it
to the city of Silverton. The
buildings were rented to anoth-
er cannery before falling into
decay and eventually suc-
cumbing to a windstorm. The
old Fischer Mill office at 408 S
Water St. is the lone survivor.
The old mill buildings have
been replaced by the Silverton
Public Library, the Silverton
See the quilt
Quiltopia: 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Sept.
30-Oct. 2, Willamette Heritage
Center.
Country Historical Society and
Southern Pacific depot.
Kaylyn Mabey is the curato-
rial assistant at the Willamette
Heritage Center, a museum
that preserves and interprets
the history of the Mid-Willam-
ette Valley. For more informa-
tion visit willametteheritage
.org.