The Hoover-Minthorn House

Of the 46 presidents who have steered the helm of the United States, only one has ever hailed from the Pacific Northwest.

The 31^st president of the United States, Herbert Hoover, was born in West Branch, Iowa on August 10^th, 1874 into modest beginnings; not so much because his family was poor, but because their beliefs honored humility. Herbert’s father, Jesse Hoover, was a blacksmith turned farm store owner who passed away in 1880. His mother, Hulda Randall Minthorn Hoover, who was a school teacher prior to marrying Jesse Hoover, died in 1884. Orphaned at the age of 9, young Bert was sent to live with his Uncle and Aunt, Dr. John Minthorn and wife Laura, in Newberg, Oregon in November 1885.

Although his stay there was relatively brief, a mere 3 years or so, Bertie and Newberg managed to make permanent impressions upon each other; today stands the historical house in Newberg which provides an important history lesson to those who visit, and before Herbert Hoover’s death in 1964 he was able to cherish and share some of his fondest memories of the small town he had so long ago called home. He wrote in his memoirs, “Oregon lives in my mind for its gleaming wheat fields, its abundant fruit, its luxuriant forest vegetation, and the fish in its mountain streams. To step into its forests with their tangles of berry bushes, their ferns, their masses of wild-flowers stirs up odors peculiar to Oregon. Within these woods are never-ending journeys of discovery.” His aunt Laura’s pear tree also left an indelible impression on Bert; It is said that he was so sick from overeating the pears which he loved so much that he never touched another.

The Hoover-Minthorn House at 115 South River Street in Newberg is a museum maintained by The National Society of The Colonial Dames of America in Oregon. This childhood home of Herbert Hoover was built in 1881 by Jesse Edwards, founder of Newberg, and is the oldest residence in town. The house can be classified as an 1880’s Vernacular and has Italianate detail in the trim under the eaves.

The Minthorn family moved to Salem in 1888, then Hoover went off to study at Stanford university in 1891, becoming such a successful mining engineer that he retired from mining in 1912. During World War 1, even before the United States entered the battle, Hoover devised a plan to feed the starving civilians of war-torn France and Belgium, a plan that by the end of the war would save close to 10 million lives; 2 million French and 7 million Belgians. This gargantuan humanitarian effort endeared Hoover to many, and he continued to be successful in government. While Secretary of Commerce, Hoover often warned President Calvin Coolidge of the dangers of Stock Market speculation, but as finances were booming, Hoover’s warning went mostly unheeded. It is while Hoover served as President from 1929 to 1933 that the crash which he had foreseen occurred in such a degree that not even he could engineer a successful solution.

In 1947, nearly 20 years after Hoover’s term as President, a childhood friend, Burt Brown Barker, began to organize, collect, and restore Hoover’s boyhood home and furninshings to what is now known as the Hoover-Minthorn House; a museum where visitors can see Hoover’s actual bedroom set, period pieces such as a baby cradle, a wood stove, a kitchen queen, a well bucket, a butter churn, some of Hoover’s own fly fishing gear, and more. The Hoover-Minthorn house was dedicated by Herbert Hoover on August 10^th, 1955; Hoover’s 81^st birthday.