Salem, the capital of Oregon, in the heart of the Willamette Valley and on the banks of the eponymously named river, keeps peaceful hours in the valley. We spend several days in Marion and Polk counties, exploring the rich surrounding farmland and Salem’s charming neighborhoods.

Photography by Autumn Schrock. Directed by Nate Luebbe. Written by Josiah Roe. Produced by Salina Bastos and Emily Clancy.

The dynamic and diverse state of Oregon governs itself from Salem. Very little in the city insists on this fact.

The capitol itself stands on a rise above downtown, with its gilded pioneer facing north. Two blocks away the traffic thins and the pace settles into that of a farm town.

We drive south on Highway 99 in search of the slower half of the valley and find it here, across the two counties Travel Salem represents: Marion to the east of the river, Polk to the west. Farmland reaches the edge of the pavement in both.

A room above the river

The Holman Riverfront Park Hotel stands at the downtown edge of the Willamette River. Its name honors Joseph Holman, whose earlier building on this ground housed Oregon’s state government from 1857 to 1876, after fire destroyed the first capitol.

The owners named the gathering rooms for women who shaped the city. Mary Purvine practiced as one of Oregon’s first female physicians. Anna Duerksen helped found the hospital and served for years as its only anesthetist. Chloe Willson taught the first classes at the school that became Willamette University.

Each name appears on a door rather than a placard. Guests walk past them on the way to breakfast.

Coffee by day, cocktails by night

Jesse Hayes and Justin Doyle opened Archive Coffee & Bar downtown in 2014, and the room has worked two shifts ever since. Hayes roasts the coffee on site. Doyle builds the drinks.

Their list draws on what bartenders call the Golden Age of the cocktail, the decades before Prohibition when fresh ingredients and good spirits still met in the same glass. The Bee’s Knees combines espresso, honey, rosemary, and lavender.

We visit twice: once for the morning light through the front windows, once for the room after dark.

Four hundred and fifty years of oak

Twenty minutes west, near Rickreall in Polk County, Left Coast Estate occupies 447 acres in the Van Duzer Corridor. Vineyards covers part of the property. Oak savanna covers a great deal more.

Some of the Oregon white oaks on the estate have stood for 450 years. The owners maintain more than 200 acres as wildlife habitat and hold LIVE sustainable certification, and in 2024 the program recognized the estate for excellence in sustainability.

A trail crosses the savanna. We walk it before lunch and eat afterward on the patio, where the kitchen turns out wood-fired pizza.

Bearing witness

Back in Salem, the Oregon State Hospital Museum of Mental Health occupies part of a hospital that still treats patients. Miloš Forman filmed One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest in these buildings in 1975, and the museum now marks a stop on the Oregon Film Trail.

The curators do not build the experience around the film. Four words state the museum’s purpose: bearing witness, giving voice. The exhibits trace how the institution treated patients across more than a century.

Visitors tend to leave quieter than they arrived.

Eat. Drink. Remember.

Christopher Holland opened Taproot Lounge & Cafe in a nineteenth-century building on State Street in 2015, financing the work through a Kickstarter campaign. The motto above the door reads Eat. Drink. Thrive.

The kitchen serves vegans, vegetarians, and carnivores from a single menu. The bacon-wrapped Brussels sprouts have become a signature.

A small stage occupies one corner, and musicians fill most evenings.

The last two hours of light

We finish on the water. Oregon Kayak Tours launches from Wallace Marine Park in West Salem for a two-hour evening paddle past downtown and Minto-Brown Island, timed to reach the takeout just before dark.

Shannon Valdez grew up on this stretch of the Willamette River, at a marina her family ran. She points out beaver slides and river otters while herons lift off ahead of the boats.

The capitol stands less than a mile away, screened by cottonwoods. From the river we see no sign of it.

More than an afternoon

Salem rewards a second morning. The first shows a visitor the capitol and the riverfront.

The second carries you west to Rickreall, or into a museum that asks something of the people who enter it, or onto the water at the hour the valley turns gold. None of that fits into a stop between destinations.

Highway 99 runs straight through town. The rest of Salem lies on either side of it.