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NR Nomination

LOCATION AND PROPERTY NAME
address: historic name:Mill Place House Site
Salem, Marion County current/other names:Mill Place site; Jason Lee House Site
assoc addresses:ADDRESS RESTRICTED
block/lot/tax lot:
location descr:ADDRESS RESTRICTED twnshp/rng/sect/qtr sect:
PROPERTY CHARACTERISTICS
resource type:site height (stories): total elig resources:1 total inelig resources:0
elig evaluation: eligible/contributing NR Status: Individually Listed
prim constr date:1841 second date: date indiv listed:06/23/2025
primary orig use: Single Dwelling orig use comments:
second orig use:
primary style: Other / Undefined prim style comments:
secondary style: sec style comments:
primary siding: Standard Brick siding comments:
secondary siding: Wood:Other/Undefined
plan type: architect:
builder:
comments/notes:
GROUPINGS / ASSOCIATIONS
Survey/Grouping Included In: Type of Grouping Date Listed Date Compiled
   Oregon Country Methodist Mission Sites: 1834-1847 MPS
SHPO INFORMATION FOR THIS PROPERTY
NR date listed: 06/23/2025
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 Mill Place House Site (Oregon State Historic Preservation Office [SHPO] site number 35MA 00444), also called the Jason Lee House Site, is located in Salem, Oregon. It comprises one contributing resource—an archaeological site associated with the Mill Place House—and no noncontributing resources. The property is currently utilized as a shared parking lot for a commercial office building to the south and an apartment building to the north. Archaeological testing completed in 2020 confirmed that the foundation for the original Mill Place House, constructed in 1841, is extant underneath this parking lot. The foundation material that was uncovered is composed of handmade, irregularly shaped brick. Additional construction materials related to the house, including wood, glass, and nails, and diagnostic domestic artifacts associated with Oregon’s early settlement period were also recovered.
HISTORY
(Chronological, descriptive history of the property from its construction through at least the historic period - preferably to the present)
The Mill Place House Site is associated with the establishment and operation of the Methodist Mission to the Oregon Country between 1841 and 1844, and it is eligible for inclusion in the National Register under the Oregon Country Methodist Mission Sites: 1834-1847 MPD. This site is of statewide significance in the history of present-day Oregon and Washington under Criterion A in the areas of Exploration/Settlement and Religion for its association with the operations of the Methodist Mission to Oregon Country, whose efforts to Christianize and assimilate Indigenous peoples in the Pacific Northwest reflect the broader national ideologies of Westward expansion and Manifest Destiny that were emerging during this period. As a primary component of the Methodist Mission’s Central Station, which provided support to several satellite mission stations across the Oregon Country, the Mill Place House Site is significantly associated with the mission’s broader efforts. The site is also locally significant under Criterion D in the area of Archaeology: Historic/Non-Aboriginal, as structural remains from the Mill Place House and temporally diagnostic artifacts associated with the Methodists have yielded and are likely to yield important information about the lives of Methodist missionaries and about contact between the missionaries and the Native American peoples living in present-day Salem, the homeland of the Santiam Kalapuya, just before thousands of non-Indigenous settlers began arriving via the Oregon Trail. The period of significance begins in 1841, when Methodist missionaries constructed the Mill Place House in this location, and ends in 1844, when the Methodist Church ended the Mission to the Oregon Country and divested itself of the property.
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:Salem Public Library University Library:Willamette University Library
Historical Society:Oregon Historical Society Other Respository:
Bibliography:
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Beyond Conversion and Syncretism: Indigenous Encounters with Missionary Christianity, 1800-2000. Berghahn Books, 2011. Lowenberg, Robert J. Equality on the Oregon Frontier: Jason Lee and the Methodist Mission, 1834-43. Seattle and London: University of Washington Press, 1976. Lozar, Patrick Stephen. “‘An Anxious Desire of Self Preservation’: Colonialism, Transition, and Identity on the Umatilla Indian Reservation, 1860-1910.” University of Oregon Thesis. June 2013. Mott, Maddie. “Remembering Oregon: A Brief History of Oregon’s Attempt to Replace John McLoughlin and Jason Lee in the National Statuary Hall.” Medium.com https://medium.com/@maddie.mott/remembering-oregon-a-brief-history-of-oregons-attempt-to-replace-john-mcloughlin-and-jason-lee-in-daead1e813b0. Accessed October 2, 2023 Natural Resource Conservation Service (NRCS). “Oregon State Soil.” US Department of Agriculture. 8-2022. https://nrcs.app.box.com/s/b7j0swuayb9ifqckz1020tjzpt9tusti/file/1000282094593. 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Walton, Elisabeth Brigham. “Mill Place on the Willamette: A New Mission House for the Methodists in Oregon: 1841-1844.” MA Thesis. University of Delaware. 1965 Whaley, Gray H. Oregon and Collapse of Illahee: U.S. Empire and the Transformation of an Indigenous World, 1792-1859. Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 2010. Wilkes, Charles. Narrative of the United States Exploring Expedition during the years 1838, 1839, 1840, 1841, 1842, Volume IV. Philadelphia: Lea & Blanchard, 1845. Yarnes, Thomas D. History of Oregon Methodism. The Parthenon Press for the Oregon Methodist Conference Historical Society, 1957.