Bush House Museum

WeLcome to the bush house museum

Current shows

https://bushhousemuseum.org/past-is-prologue/

MUSEUM TOURS
Thursday through Saturday with guided tours at 1, 2, 3, & 4 p.m. Free tickets are available at the Bush Barn Art Center. The Museum will be closed Christmas and New Years weekends.

What began as an onsite field trip, for underserved fourth-grade students in selected Title I schools in Marion, Polk, and Yamhill counties, is now available to students in an online format. This virtual program, which support Oregon educational standards, is made possible with support from:

Art Department
Braemar Charitable Trust
Bush House Museum Endowment
Herbert A. Templeton Foundation
Marion County Development Corporation
RE/MAX Integrity Foundation, Salem Office
Salem Art Association
Siletz Tribal Charitable Fund
William S. Walton Charitable Trust

Please enjoy a virtual guided tour of the Bush House Museum. Staff may be reached at 503-363-4714 or Connect@BushHouseMuseum.org.

See full tour here.

An Early View of the Bush House and Mission Street, c. 1885.

Salem’s Bush House Museum, in Bush’s Pasture Park, was the home of pioneer entrepreneur and political influencer Asahel Bush (1824-1913), and his family, from 1878 to 1953. The 100 acre farmstead, which Bush acquired with his wife in 1860, is a portion of the donation land claim Reverend David Leslie established on the ancestral lands of the Kalapuya tribe, in the early 1840s. The museum complex, which includes the Bush Conservatory (1882), a root house and the original Leslie barn, now the Salem Art Association’s Bush Barn Art Center, is rare surviving example of a 19^th century farmstead. The Bush House Museum and Bush’s Pasture Park are owned by the City of Salem who collaborate with the Mission Street Parks Conservancy to maintain the grounds and nearby Rose Garden.

Asahel Bush was founding editor of the Oregon Statesman newspaper, 1851-1863, and co-founder of Salem’s Ladd & Bush Bank in 1868. Bush had the Leslie house moved off the property in 1877, and the two-story Italianate home was completed the next year. Along with the extant farm buildings, the Bush House Museum retains a significant amount of original furnishings, wallpaper and fixtures. There is also an archive of original photographs, documents and ephemera documenting the Bush Family. Since 1953, the Bush House Museum’s guided tours and programming have been a significant cultural-heritage asset for Salem residents and visitors.

The Bush House Museum is preserved to explore and interpret Salem’s Bush Family and Bush’s Pasture Park, the cultural diversity of Salem history and the development of early Oregon. Bush House Museum is supported in part by a grant of Transient Occupancy Tax funds from the City of Salem.