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Inventory Form
NR Nomination

LOCATION AND PROPERTY NAME
address:89 NE Thompson St historic name:Miller, Elmer and Linnie, House
Portland, Multnomah County current/other names:Miller, Elmer E., House; Elmer E. Miller House
assoc addresses:
block/lot/tax lot:
location descr: twnshp/rng/sect/qtr sect:1N 1E 27
PROPERTY CHARACTERISTICS
resource type:Building height (stories):2.5 total elig resources:1 total inelig resources:0
elig evaluation: eligible/significant NR Status: Individually Listed
prim constr date:1896 second date: date indiv listed:02/28/2020
primary orig use: Single Dwelling orig use comments:
second orig use:
primary style: Queen Anne prim style comments:
secondary style: sec style comments:
primary siding: Horizontal Board siding comments:
secondary siding: Wood:Other/Undefined
plan type: architect:Unknown
builder:Unknown
comments/notes:
HRR submitted 6/27/18. TZ
GROUPINGS / ASSOCIATIONS
Survey/Grouping Included In: Type of Grouping Date Listed Date Compiled
   Historic and Architectural Properties in the Eliot Neighborhood of Portland, Oregon MPD MPS 08/05/1999 1997
SHPO INFORMATION FOR THIS PROPERTY
NR date listed: 02/28/2020
ILS survey date:
RLS survey date:
106 Project(s): None
Special Assess Project(s): None
Federal Tax Project(s): None
ARCHITECTURAL / PROPERTY DESCRIPTION
(Includes expanded description of the building/property, setting, significant landscape features, outbuildings and alterations)
The Elmer and Linnie Miller house is a 2 and 1/2 story Queen Anne style residence, located at 89 NE Thompson Street in the Eliot neighborhood of Portland, Oregon. The 1896 house occupies a footprint of approximately 3,403 square feet (not including basement or attic) on its 7,000 square foot corner lot. The house has a brick foundation and is wood-framed. It features a steeply pitched hipped roof with multiple dormers and an exuberant corner turret, and occupies a slightly larger lot than most of its neighbors on the block. The house exhibits the character-defining features of the Queen Anne style including an asymmetrical plan with multiple bays and extensions; an octagonal turret with steeply pitched roof; tall, gabled dormers at front and sides over protruding polygonal bays; double-hung one-over-one wood windows; brick chimney with corbeled top; and an elaborately asymmetrical wrap-around porch featuring a circular end around the tower and an angled extension at the other front corner, with single and paired Doric columns on square bases. Also indicative of the Queen Anne style are a bracketed polygonal bay, paired main entrance doors with an art glass transom, and the use of drop siding and fishscale shingles at the exterior. At the interior, original features include dark-stained wood stair paneling and highly decorative spindlework stair railing, pocket and five-panel doors with ornate hardware, coved plaster ceilings, a tile-front fireplace with decorative wood surround, highly detailed door and window casings and other wood trim and built-in cabinetry. Overall, the house retains a high level of integrity. The rear of the house (north side) has been extended slightly and expanded from one story to two in several successive steps, the first of which occurred sometime before 1909. No other significant alterations have been made to the exterior of the house, and interior changes have been minimal, and so, despite these few changes, the Miller house retains its historic integrity.
HISTORY
(Chronological, descriptive history of the property from its construction through at least the historic period - preferably to the present)
The Elmer and Linnie Miller House is nominated under the “Historic and Architectural Properties in the Eliot Neighborhood of Portland, Oregon” Multiple Property Document (MPD). The Elmer and Linnie Miller House meets the general and specific registration requirements of the MPD and is historically significant at the local level under Criterion C, for its Architecture, as a notable example of a Queen Anne style house constructed before 1900 and exhibiting unique and artistic architectural features. The house’s builder and/or architect are unknown, but it is clear the house was completed in 1896. Residential buildings constructed before 1900 are becoming rarer in the Eliot neighborhood, and the Elmer and Linnie Miller House is one of only a handful of similarly large, stately, Queen Anne properties that have high integrity. The house strongly reflects the adaptability that was afforded through the Queen Anne style’s picturesque asymmetry and the increasing availability of numerous building components and decorative millwork via building suppliers. The builder’s workmanship and craft to pull together these components, whether or not some of them were obtained elsewhere, illustrates high artistic values in the house’s form and its assemblage of multiple decorative features.
RESEARCH INFORMATION
Title Records Census Records Property Tax Records Local Histories
Sanborn Maps Biographical Sources SHPO Files Interviews
Obituaries Newspapers State Archives Historic Photographs
City Directories Building Permits State Library
Local Library: University Library:
Historical Society: Other Respository:
Bibliography:
Askin, Timothy and Ernestina Fuenmayor. North Buckman Historic District. National Register of Historic Places Registration Form. National Register of Historic Places Determination of Eligibility, 2013. (Not listed but eligible). City of Portland Bureau of Planning and Sustainability and Portland Parks and Recreation. City of Portland Civic Planning, Development, & Public Works, 1851-1965: A Historic Context. Portland, Oregon, 2009. Accessed online at https://www.portlandoregon.gov/parks/article/299256. City of Portland Bureau of Planning and Sustainability. East Portland Historical Overview & Historic Preservation Study. Portland, Oregon, 2009. Accessed online at https://www.portlandoregon.gov/bps/article/214638. Clark, Rosalind. Architecture Oregon Style. Portland: Professional Book Center, Inc., 1983. Cole, Walter & Sharon Knorr. Just Call Me Darcelle. Createspace Independent Publishing Platform, 2010. Donham, Thayer, Michelle Lutino, and Liza Mickle. Historic and Architectural Properties in the Eliot Neighborhood of Portland, Oregon. National Register of Historic Places Multiple Property Documentation Form, United States Department of the Interior, 1998, NRIS# 64500504. Donovan, Sally, and Kim Lakin. Shipley-Cook Farmstead. National Register of Historic Places Registration Form, United States Department of the Interior, December 2007. Galbraith, Cathy, Darrell Millnew, and Carl Abbott, "Cornerstones of Community: Buildings of Portland's African American History." Bosco-Milligan Foundation, 1995. Galbraith, Cathy and Valerie Campbell, Lewis and Elizabeth Van Vleet House. National Register of Historic Places Registration Form, United States Department of the Interior, 2001. Gass-Poore, Jordan. “On the 50th Anniversary of the Stonewall Riots, Here Are 10 Other Places Gay Americans Broke the Mold,” Mother Jones, June 2019. Hawkins, William J. and William F. Willingham. Classic Houses of Portland, Oregon 1850-1950. Portland, Oregon: Timber Press, 1999. Historic Preservation League of Oregon, with research by Barbara Grimala. “Victorian Home Tour: 1991 Lecture Series,” brochure by HPLO Education Committee, Portland, Oregon, 1991. History of the Bench and Bar of Oregon. Historical Publishing Company, 1910 MacColl, E. Kimbark. The Growth of a City: Power and Politics in Portland, Oregon, 1915 to 1950. Portland, Oregon: The Georgian Press, 1979. MacColl, E. Kimbark. The Shaping of a City: Business and Politics in Portland, Oregon 1885 to 1915. Portland, Oregon: The Georgian Press Company, 1976. McAlester, Virginia Savage, A Field Guide to American Houses, Alfred A. Knopf, New York, 2013 Portland Block Book (Portland Oregon), 1907 R. L. Polk & Co’s Portland, Oregon City Directory, various dates. Republican State Central Committee of 1894-1896. Republican League Register, A Record of the Republican Party in the State of Oregon. Oregon: Register Publishing Company, 1896 River View Cemetery records Roos, Roy E., H. C. Keck House/ Mt. Olivet Parsonage, National Register of Historic Places Registration Form, United States Department of the Interior, 2002. Roos, Roy E. The History of Albina, Including Eliot, Boise, King, Humboldt, and Piedmont Neighborhoods. Self-published, June 2009. United States Census. 1880-1930. University of Oregon. General Register of the Officers and Alumni 1873-1907. University of Oregon, March 1908 (republished 2008) Zisman, Karen, Julie Koler, Jane Morrison, Barbara Grimala, and Alan Yost, Portland Oregon’s Eastside Historic and Architectural Resources, 1850-1938. United States Department of the Interior, National Register of Historic Places Multiple Property Documentation Form, 1989, as amended 2012, edited by Timothy Askin and Ernestina Fuenmayor. Newspaper Articles (The Oregonian unless otherwise noted) ”Two Small Fires” March 15, 1900, 7. “Wanted-Girl” September 28, 1901, 9. “Died” June 16, 1902, 8. “Births” June 17, 1902, 13. “Funeral Notice” June 17, 1902, 8. “Choice Furnished Rooms” June 29, 1902, 14. “In Her Husband’s Hands” February 7, 1903 “Four More Days in Which to Register” The Oregon Daily Journal, May 14, 1913, 7. “Mrs. E.E. Miller” July 29. 1913, 8. “Death of D.C. Miller” 5-11-1904 (no page number) “Chi Omega” November 12, 1915, 12. “Charles W. Miller, Organizer of Mount Hood Railway, Dead,” The Oregon Journal, November 15, 1915, 1. “Elizabeth Blount” August 6, 1918, 16. “Miller” Funeral Notice June 3, 1931, 9. “Elmer E. Miller Heart Attack Fatal” August 2, 1931, 16. “$15-Well Furnished” October 18, 1931, 35. “Rock Smashes Window” October 24, 1932, 12. "Portland 4 Named in Puzzle Arrests," March 24, 1959, 1. "Slots Case Arrest Made," May 8, 1959, 18. Jordan, Barbara. “Exhibit Preserves Fast-receding Era” September 8, 1980, C 1. "Up from Under: From Slum to Chic," Willamette Week, January 12-January 1981, 1. "Darcelle XV entertains at home," September 3, 1989, L2 Johnston, Sonja. “Design for Living – Re-creating a Period”, January 12, 1986, 133.