Owner(s): Kevin Lafky
429 Court Street, NE
Salem, Oregon 97301

Description: This building has predominantly Queen Anne characteristics. It has two bay windows joined into one complex bay by an ornamental balustrade. Each of the six windows is emphasized by panels below the sill. The four windows, which are oriented diagonally to the street, are one-over-one, double-hung sash; the two windows parallel with the street are fixed. This multiple, complex bay window is topped with a front gable having two prominent brackets mounted over fish scale shingles. The front gable, in turn, projects from a hip roof dormer which projects from the frieze of the building's primary facade.

The ground floor has been altered. The transom area is similar in side, however, the windows are new. The entire ground floor has been recessed, and the window openings changed. However, the uniqueness and remaining integrity of the upper story, which is more visible, is sufficient to consider this building a contributing structure in the downtown district.

History and Significance: The building exhibits distinctly Queen Anne style design characteristics, such as a bay window and a combination of different exterior materials. John A. Darr, owner of the property between 1892 and 1898, may have constructed this two-story building in the 1890s. A building of similar height and proportions, used primarily as a dwelling, appears on an 1895 Sanborn map of Salem. (However, the building is referred to as the "new Skiff building" in a 1904 newspaper article.) The two-story, brick Ada & Mark Skiff Building, was constructed, or, perhaps, remodeled, around 1903.

This building is associated with the lives of Mark and Ada Velma Calvert Skiff, long-time Salem residents associated with medical and commercial developments in the community.

Mark S. Skiff, the son of prominent pioneering local dentist Lansing S. Skiff, was born in Salem in 1865. The elder Skiff, who pioneered the practice of dentistry in Oregon, bought property and established his home and dental office at 155 Liberty Street, NE in the early 1860s after traveling from his native home in Syracuse, New York, to California (1849), and then to Washington Territory, before arriving in Salem, Oregon, in 1858. Lansing S. Skiff immediately opened a dentist’s office. Skiff is reputedly one of the first persons to practice dentistry in the Far West, and was also one of the first so-called "circuit riders" in dentistry in the Oregon Territory. Dr. L.S. Skiff distinguished himself in his profession by becoming one of the first dentists in the United States to make use of a water motor in the operation of his burring machine for cleaning teeth. He also founded the Oregon State Dental Society and served a term as both its president and vice president. Mark S. Skiff apprenticed under his father and joined the senior Skiff in the practice of dentistry under the business name of "L.S. Skiff and Son." Mark Skiff, like his father, pioneered progressive dentistry practices. He reportedly set the first gold crown in Salem around 1890; the "pivot work" for this procedure was done by setting hickory pegs in cement. He kept abreast of the most modern methods of extraction and maintained up-to-date equipment. In 1926 Dr. Mark S. Skiff had the distinction of being the fourth oldest dentist in continuous practice in Oregon. At that time, his dentist’s office occupied space in the Masonic Building on High Street (in the nominated historic commercial district).

Mark Skiff apparently never occupied this building. Soon after Ada and Mark Skiff bought this property, Norwood’s Grocery Store moved into the Queen Anne style building and remained there for at least a decade. J.A. Norwood, native of North Carolina, arrived in Oregon in the late 1870s and farmed in the Howell Prairie area (ten miles east of Salem) for about twenty-five years. In the early 1900s, he moved to Salem and purchased the grocery stock of J.A. Taylor, and moved to the Ada and Mark Skiff Block. In the mid-1920s, a millinery shop occupied the old Norwood’s Grocery Store space. This property remained in the Skiff family until the late 1980s.