Photograph of Waller Hall — Photograph by M.O. Stevens at en.wikipedia, Public domain. Via Wikimedia Commons.

Waller Hall, Willamette University

Built in 1864 (Renaissance Revival architecture). Listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1975.

From the record

“Waller Hall is a building on the campus of Willamette University in Salem, Oregon, in the United States. Opened in 1867 as University Hall, it is the oldest higher-education building west of the Mississippi River still in use, currently housing the university's administrative offices.”
Wikipedia article Waller Hall, CC BY-SA 4.0.

One of 120 National Register listings published here for Marion County · listed in 1975 · category: Building · built in 1864, Renaissance Revival architecture.

Sources: the Wikipedia article · the case file at the National Archives · the National Register database, National Park Service

The listing

What is counted as historic. The nomination lists 1 building as contributing to the listing.
Address. 900 State St., Salem, 97301
When was it listed? November 1975
Category. building
Census division. Salem
When was it built? 1864
Architectural style. Renaissance Revival architecture
National Register reference number. 75001593 - the number the National Park Service assigned this property when it was listed, and the key its nomination file is catalogued under at the National Archives.

Fires near this property

3 since 1992

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal wildfire occurrence database lists 3 fires within 5 miles of Waller Hall, Willamette University between 1992 and 2017, burning under an acre in total. 2 started naturally. None was recorded as arson. Distance is straight-line from the map coordinates, so a fire counted here may appear on a neighbouring settlement's page as well.

Reported cause	Fires
Natural	2
Equipment and vehicle use	1

The most recent of them, most recent first, with the day each was reported and the service that recorded it.

Date	Cause	Size	Reported by	Name on the report
26 July 2017	Equipment and vehicle use	under an acre	Oregon Department of Forestry Salem Headquarters	SPENCER BUTTE
20 July 1992	Natural	under an acre	Grand Ronde Tribes	W FRK SNAG
20 July 1992	Natural	under an acre	Grand Ronde Tribes	E FRK SNAG

Every fire recorded in Marion County

Mines and quarries near this property

10 of 68 shown

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal mineral resources record lists 68 workings within 5 miles of Waller Hall, Willamette University: 38 past producers, 25 producers, 4 occurrences, 1 prospect. 25 still produce. What was taken out: Sand and Gravel, Construction, Uranium, Stone, Crushed/Broken, Vanadium. Distance is straight-line from the map coordinates, so a quarry counted here may appear on a neighbouring settlement's page as well.

Site	Commodity	Status	Recorded
Bauxite Chapman and Eola Hills	Aluminum, Titanium, Metal, Iron	Occurrence	Bauxite, Gibbsite
Chapman and Eola Hills Bauxite	Aluminum, Titanium, Iron	Occurrence
Hills Quarry	Stone, Crushed/Broken	Producer
Illahee Hill	Vanadium	Prospect
Illahee Hill	Uranium	Occurrence
Unnamed Uranium Occurrence	Uranium	Occurrence
Austin Borrow	Sand and Gravel, Construction	Past Producer
Austin Bottow Pit	Sand and Gravel, Construction	Producer
Epping Site	Sand and Gravel, Construction	Past Producer
Epping Site	Sand and Gravel, Construction	Producer

Every working recorded in Marion County

Storms near this property

7 since 1996

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The National Weather Service names Salem, the town this property stands in, in 7 storm reports between 1996 and 2023: 3 funnel cloud, 2 thunderstorm wind, 1 tornado, 1 hail. No death or injury is recorded in these reports. Each account below is quoted exactly as the forecast office filed it, from the NOAA Storm Events Database, and each date opens the federal record of that event.

When	Event	Place named	Harm	What the report says
April 1996	Thunderstorm Wind	Salem	$20,000	no account filed
June 2009	Thunderstorm Wind	Salem	$2,000	A report called in by a former spotter, strong gusty winds brought numerous trees down along Hwy. 22. Other reports from this storm included wind gusts strong enough to snap Cottonwood tree branches estimated at 10 to 12 inches in diameter along Hwy. 214.
June 2023	Funnel Cloud	Salem	-	A National Weather Service Skywarn Spotter observed a funnel cloud south of Salem.
May 2007	Hail	Salem	-	Reported residents estimated half an inch accumulations on the ground.
December 2006	Tornado (F0)	Salem	-	Immediately after a thunderstorm with frequent lightning and small hail, a small tornado touched down. The tornado crossed an acre and a half of floodwater up to three feet deep and sucked all the water up into the funnel. The tornado continued on and picked up a 12-inch diameter cedar tree and tossed it into a barn. The tornado then changed direction and picked up an RV and threw it on its side.
October 2003	Funnel Cloud	Salem	-	no account filed
June 2001	Funnel Cloud	Salem	-	no account filed

Every storm recorded in Marion County

Map coverage status

No historic map-sheet match is published for this property yet. That does not mean no map exists. This record needs a coordinate-quality review before it can be joined to a sheet boundary. Browse the county's mapped places while that work is pending.

Listed places nearby

6 within 8 miles

Other National Register properties close enough to walk or drive between, ordered by distance from this one. Both positions come from the same geocoding pass that matched these properties to their map sheets.

Property	Distance	Listed
Oregon State Capitol	0.1 miles	1988
Supreme Court and Library Building	0.2 miles	2020
State Library of Oregon	0.2 miles	2022
First Methodist Episcopal Church of Salem	0.2 miles	1983
Thomas Kay Woolen Mill	0.2 miles	1973
Mill Building, The Thomas Kay Woolen Mill	0.2 miles	1973

Sources for this property

National Archives record	The nomination case file for reference 75001593 in Record Group 79.
Wikipedia article	Community-written account of this property, licensed CC BY-SA.
Marion County	All 120 listed properties in this county.

Provenance

Listing record. National Park Service National Register of Historic Places, listed-properties dataset, current to 2026-05-22.
Map join. Address geocoded through the United States Census geocoder, then tested against the published boundary of every sheet in the USGS Historical Topographic Map Collection.
How this page is made. Listing fields come from federal records; map-sheet coverage is a labelled coordinate-to-boundary calculation, not a source-field claim.
Wildfire. Short, Karen C. 2022. Spatial wildfire occurrence data for the United States, 1992-2020 [FPA_FOD_20221014]. 6th Edition. Fort Collins, CO: Forest Service Research Data Archive. https://doi.org/10.2737/RDS-2013-0009.6 Collected with United States Government funding and usable without additional permissions or fees.
Mines and quarries. USGS Mineral Resources Data System (MRDS) https://mrdata.usgs.gov/mrds/ A work of the United States government, no copyright under 17 U.S.C. 105.
Storms. NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information, Storm Events Database https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/stormevents/ A work of the United States government, no copyright under 17 U.S.C. 105. Narratives are quoted verbatim from the National Weather Service report and are not edited or summarised.