By Wendy Geist
Gazette-Times reporter | Posted: Monday, April 30, 2007 12:00 am
Roads get busier as Corvallis transforms farmland into medical center, new housing
This is the fourth installment in the Gazette-Times' yearlong series, 'Where We Live,' focusing on Corvallis neighborhoods
In 1942, while waiting alongside the road for the bus that would take him downtown to Corvallis High School, Thomas Owens found traffic to be scarce.
"If you went down there and stood on (Highway) 99, you might stand there for five minutes and then a car would go by … and then you might stand there for another five minutes and another car would go by, and that's just about all the traffic there was, and now, great Scott," Owens exclaimed.
Owens, now 80, lives on the old Knotts-Owens farmstead, just north of Good Samaritan Regional Medical Center off of Highway 99W. From his front porch Owens has an expansive view of the tops of the mountains along the Oregon Cascade Range. He can also point out the location of the farmstead's original cabin, which was located about 100 yards to the northeast of the aging white farm house.
Owens' great-grandfather, William Knotts, crossed the plains from Iowa in the summer of 1845, arriving in Benton County in 1848, where he staked his claim of 640 acres. The first term of court held in Benton County is said to have taken place in the old cabin.
His father, also named Thomas Owens, came to Corvallis from western Washington to study logging engineering, and while in Corvallis, met, courted and married Elizabeth Knotts, the granddaughter of William Knotts.
In 1985 Owens moved back to the farm after the death of his mother, Elizabeth, who had been living on the old homestead.
Meanwhile Owens has watched Corvallis grow.
"It sure has changed a lot, but I think Corvallis is doing well, maintaining its desirable characteristics as well as possible," said Owens.
In 2002 Owens and his sister sold the 312-acre farm to Greenbelt Land Trust, Samaritan Health Services, and the city. Just under half of that parcel, about 131 acres, is now open-space land. The other half of the original 640-acre donation land claim was divided among early descendants.
Owens holds a special sentimentality for the old farmhouse and barn and still gets quite a bit of satisfaction and pleasure knowing he helped farm every one of the surrounding fields.
The date the house was built is unknown, but estimates are around 1880 and the barn, which is not in the best of shape, even older. In 1986, the house was used in a scene in a made-for-TV movie, "Promise," starring James Garner. The hand-hewn square timbers of the barn reveal visible remnants of the old construction.
The original 640-acre claim was divided early on among Owens' grandfather and his siblings, born to a second marriage, who took a similar-sized plot to the east of Highway 99.
"They may have felt at that time they were getting the better deal," said Owens, explaining how the land to the east was probably better farming ground.
"But now 120 years later, I'm glad he took this part when you look out and see the view."
Traffic in north Corvallis may have increased, but for one local establishment time has practically stood still.
Darrell's Restaurant and Lounge, located on Northwest Ninth Street, hasn't changed much since it opened in May 1967. The carpet and the upholstery on the booths in the restaurant may have changed more than a couple times but the 1960s décor remains the same.
The mom-and-pop neighborhood diner is celebrating its 40th anniversary this coming month.
Darrell Hubler died in 1978 and then his wife, Betty, ran the place in to her 70s. She passed away a year ago. The couple's sons, Patrick and Michael, now co-own the business, and Patrick's son works as a cook.
"Dad was a cook and mother worked the front end and tended bar. They knew everyone. It was small enough. That's really what made the place - it still is," said Patrick, 54, who started out as a dishwasher in his parents' diner.
Though the inside design hasn't changed much, one thing that has changed is the surroundings, he said. In 1967 the restaurant sat just almost outside the city limits, and Circle Boulevard was a two-lane road.
Darrell and Betty got their start in the hospitality business in the late 1950s, said Patrick. They had a tavern in the downtown area, until urban renewal forced the business up north. At one time there were Darrell's restaurants in Albany, Lebanon and Corvallis, until it became too much to handle.
Omelets were added to the menu in the 70s. Darrell's continues to use its own recipes for items such as pancakes and dressings. The dinner service has also changed over the years, adding some variety including chicken and salads for the health-conscious customers.
"But we still sell plenty of fried food," Patrick added.
The Amber Room bar and lounge, in the rear of the restaurant, has stayed much the same as it was in the late 60s. Old-fashioned red leather stools line the bar and amber-hewed globes cover lights that hang along the west wall. There have been some changes n video-poker machines and pool tables have replaced the old dance floor n but bar remains "a working man's bar," said manager James Butterfield. Customers come to eat dinner, play some pool and relax. It's not the kind of bar for going out to be seen.
"That's just not who we are," Butterfield said.
As development moved north, the advent of the 1960s and 70s brought two new community magnets, drawing even more people to the area. Wilson Elementary opened in the fall of 1962, and Crescent Valley High School construction was completed in 1972.
But at one time a small school also operated in the area.
Sunnyside School, also called Bryant, was located near the corner of Elks and Ninth. Records show the school was open pre-1897 to 1929, when it was shut down and the building remodeled in to a residence, which still stands today.
The few students who attended the school often had to walk ½ to 2 miles from their homes to the school each day. A publication, "When School Bells Rang," written by Marlene McDonald in 1983, recounts how teacher Willamina Harper Winniford walked two miles from her father's farm, located where Albertsons is now, on Circle Boulevard. The school was also locally known as the Mudflat School, because the area was so swampy and the roads deep in mud during wet weather.
The construction in the early 1970s of the new Good Samaritan Hospital in North Corvallis opened the door to some of the area's biggest changes in the last few decades. But it wasn't always a smooth road.
Steve Jasperson, chief executive of Good Samaritan Regional Medical Center, joined the hospital in the mid-1980s, and remembers stories told him by James Mol, the administrator of the hospital from 1967 to 1987.
Mol told Jasperson about the nights in the winter of 1973, when construction had just started on the new hospital for Good Samaritan Hospital, when Mol would drive up to the site to check out the progress. Most of the foundation had been poured, but a number of springs had popped up during the early construction work. In addition, it was a wet winter. As a result, Mol told Jasperson, "I had the biggest swimming pool in Corvallis."
Mol had other worries as well: Even though construction had begun, the funding for the entire $13 million facility hadn't yet been secured. And a number of people - including physicians who were upset because their offices would no longer be close to the hospital n couldn't imagine why the hospital would move so far from the center of the town to a site where, even today, herds of elk still are seen on occasion in the field to the north.
But the old facility, built around 1922, was crowded and outdated. Parking was a problem on Harrison Boulevard as the university expanded.
According to "50 Years of Healing," a promotional publication put out by the hospital in 1998, the board looked at seven or eight sites throughout Benton County on which to build a new facility, finally settling on a grass seed farm north of town owned by Oliver Shraples. Part of the property was sold to the Corvallis Elks, leaving 85 acres, which he sold to the hospital for $284,000.
Jasperson said that nowadays, he continually hears from board members and physicians who say it was fortunate of the board in the early 1970s to make the decision to acquire the large parcel of land.
The future looks bright for the hospital as it embarks on a 10-year plan to build an additional 360,000 square feet of facilities and 1,300 parking spaces.
But for the nearby neighborhood, the future growth of the entire complex, including that of The Corvallis Clinic, comes with extra benefits and stresses felt by residents n and topping the list of concerns is the same thing that catches the eye of Thomas Owens: Traffic.
The days when the high school sat on the last paved street north of town have long since passed for Owens and now he listens to the constant buzz of Highway 99 pass by his house.
"Especially after a game, you can't see anything but traffic down there," he said.
Tomorrow, hear from local residents as they discuss their likes and concerns about their north Corvallis neighborhood.
Reporter Wendy Geist interviews Thomas Owens, who lives on the historic Knotts-Owens farmstead near Highway 99W.
