The Mill Place House Site, a historic site in Oregon, gains national recognition for its significance in Methodist missions and interactions with Indigenous communities, following recent archaeological findings and listing approval.
Salem, OR. – Official Release: The Mill Place House Site, also known as the Jason Lee House Site, is among Oregon’s latest entries in the National Register of Historic Places. The listing was submitted alongside the Oregon Country Methodist Mission Sites: 1834–1847 Multiple Property Documentation Form (MPD), which provides the historical framework for evaluating properties associated with the mid-nineteenth century Methodist mission to present-day Oregon and Washington. Both the site nomination and the MPD were recommended for approval by the State Advisory Committee on Historic Preservation (SACHP) at its February 2025 meeting and accepted by the National Park Service in late June 2025.
Originally built in 1841 by Methodist missionaries as part of their newly established Central Mission Station, the Mill Place House was the first dwelling constructed in what would become Salem. The house itself was relocated to the Thomas Kay Woolen Mill site at the Willamette Heritage Center in the 1960s, and the site has since been covered with a modern parking lot. Excavations conducted in 2020 confirmed the presence of handmade brick foundation elements below the parking lot and recovered domestic artifacts from the mission period that reflect the structure’s early residential use and continued archaeological integrity.
The site is significant for its association with the Methodist Mission’s efforts to Christianize and assimilate Indigenous communities and to establish Euro-American settlement ahead of a period of rapid and widespread colonization in the Pacific Northwest. As part of the broader Central Mission Station campus overseen by Reverend Jason Lee, the site reflects national ideologies of Manifest Destiny and Christian missionary outreach during the mid-nineteenth century. It is also significant for its potential to yield further insights into the lives of Methodist missionaries and their interactions with the Santiam Kalapuya people in the Chemeketa region…