Building History

The Lipman, Wolfe and Company Department Store occupied the first fwo floors of the 100-foot-by-100-foot Dekum Building when it opened in 1892 and remained here until 1912. Offices, many measuring 12x12 feet, were located on floors 3 through 8 and were accessible via a separate entrance on the southern side of the block's 3rd Avenue facade. This side entrance led up several stairs to an elevator and stair lobby, providing access to offices above.

In later years, the Seattle-based Frederick and Nelson Department Store chain maintained a store in the Dekum Building.

In 1980, the Skidmore Development Corporation, with an office at 1021 SW 4th Avenue in Portland, owned the Dekum Building.

Building Notes

The architects designed the first and second floors to be faced in rusticated Siskiyou sandstone, obtained in the southwest part of the state. Kilns in Newberg, OR, produced the brick used on the skin of the upper six floors.

During the 1890s, landlords sought out affluent professionals to lease their offices. Portland's Dekum and the Marquam Buildings, both new in the 1892. became some of the most popular business addresses for these high-income individuals.

The Wieden+Kennedy advertising agency occupied space in Dekum Building.

Alteration

The Dekum Building underwent a fire on 03/03/1903 that caused between $150,000 and $200,000 worth of damage. The fire was confined to the top three stories, and supposedly started in the top-floor office of a photographer, E.W. Moore. Water and smoke wrecked about $100,000 of the Lipman, Wolfe and Company Department Store's inventory. (See Tacoma Daily News, "Portland Has a Conflagration," 03/03/1903. p. 5 and GenDisasters.com, "Portland, OR Waterfront Fire, May 1903," accessed 08/24/2018.) Insurance companies made assertions that Lipman, Wolfe used the fire as a pretext to defraud them. Litigation over this fire went on for many years. The Pacific Coast insurance magazine, The Adjuster, wrote in its issue of 04/1916: "Nine suits, forerunners of a score or more, have been filed in the circuit court at Portland, Ore., to recover large sums of money paid insurance companies by Lipman, Wolfe & Co. in 1910 through fear of giving publicity to alleged false statements charging fraud on the part of the firm in connection with a fire in 1903 when the Dekum building caught fire. The companies involved are the North America, London Assurance, Law Union & Rock, Phoenix Assurance, Liverpool & London & Globe, Aetna, Western, Royal, and Queen. Total amount involves, $32,210." (See "Resume of Pacific Coast Happenings," The Adjuster, vol 52, no. 4, 04/1916, p. 169.)

According to its National Register of Historic Places Inventory Nomination Form, the Dekum Building had some renovation work done in the 1970s "...that included exterior cleaning, sash painting, work in the elevator lobby and the present oak framed glass entrance doors." (See George A. McMath, "National Register of Historic Places Inventory—Nomination Form: The Dekum," [Washington, DC: National Park Service, 1980], p. 6.)