In the issue of the Oregon Daily Journal on February 22, 1914, the story of P.A. Marquam and his improvement on the Marquam Building from a $500 property to a million dollar building appeared. The article covers the entire front page of the Oregon Daily Journal, which includes both a large picture of the eight-story building as well as a lengthy write up on the history of the property the Marquam sat on.
The news article, titled “Block Now Worth Huge Sum Once Given to Settle $500 Debt”, explains that Marquam acquired the lot from William W. Chapman in 1854 as a $500 payment in legal fees; after acquiring the property, Marquam decided that he would invest $600,000 to build the property into a large “skyscraper” (8 stories was very tall for Portland in the 1800’s) that included both office space and an opera house. One of the most interesting pieces of information that I found from this news article in the Oregon Daily Journal were the plans for the building that required around a whopping 3,000,000 bricks. Because of the large number of bricks, Marquam purchased a brickyard in San Francisco that allowed him to get the cheapest rates of brick to build his extravagant building.
The Marquam Building sat on the corner of Sixth and Morrison Street and was home to Portland’s first opera house. This theater was seen as one of the most extravagant opera houses on the west coast, and one of the largest. The opera house was 70 feet by 130 feet and five stories high; Portlander’s loved to come out to the Marquam Grand Opera House as it sat right in the prime of downtown. The theater hosted vaudeville acts which included song, comedy, dance and other forms of entertainment.
