History
The Monteith District, located on the west side of downtown Albany, is named after Walter and Thomas Monteith, the founders of Albany. After arriving in Oregon from New York in 1847, the Monteith brothers completed the first frame house in Albany in 1849, which now serves as a museum and is said to be the most authentically restored Pioneer Era home in Oregon. Much of the earlier history centers around the Monteith House.
The Monteith district contains a number of churches. A former United Presbyterian Church, now known as "Whitespires", is located at the corner of Washington and Fifth. It was built in 1891 and is noted for its stained glass windows and Carpenter Gothic details. Its spire is the highest point in Albany.
In 1851, the Monteith family built and owned the Magnolia Flouring Mills along the Calapooia River. With the mill in operation, the first boat ever to travel the upper Willamette River, the Multnomah, arrived in Albany, thereby increasing Albany's shipping potential for the manufacturing and farming industries.
The Monteith Historic District was placed on the National Register of Historic Places on February 29, 1980. The time period of significance for all of Albany’s historic districts was expanded in 2000 from 1849 to 1915 to 1849 to 1945 to capture resources and architectural styles constructed between 1915 and 1945 that reflect the growth and development of Albany. The Monteith District was expanded in November 2008 to add 78 properties on the southwest corner of the original boundary to include a cohesive collection of early to mid-twentieth century residential buildings. Many distinct architectural styles grace the district. Included are Federal, Craftsman, Classical Revival, Gothic Revival, Italianate, Queen Anne, French Second Empire, Stick, Eastlake, Colonial Revival, Rural Vernacular, Transitional Box, Bungalow, American Renaissance, Depression/WWII Cottages, and eclectic hybrids that combine elements of these styles.
Read more about this topic: Albany Monteith Historic District
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“The History of the world is not the theatre of happiness. Periods of happiness are blank pages in it, for they are periods of harmony—periods when the antithesis is in abeyance.”
—Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770–1831)
“Let us not underrate the value of a fact; it will one day flower in a truth. It is astonishing how few facts of importance are added in a century to the natural history of any animal. The natural history of man himself is still being gradually written.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“False history gets made all day, any day,
the truth of the new is never on the news
False history gets written every day
...
the lesbian archaeologist watches herself
sifting her own life out from the shards she’s piecing,
asking the clay all questions but her own.”
—Adrienne Rich (b. 1929)