Clark, Robert F. and Elizabeth, House

The two-story frame house in the Italianate style located on Washington Street, near the intersection of Clark Street in Baker, Oregon was built in 1880 for local farmer and real estate entrepreneur Robert F. Clark and his wife. It is significant under National Register Criterion C as a rare and generally well-preserved example of a distinct architectural type. It is, in fact, the only example of its particular variant of the Italian Villa in Baker.

The city of Baker claims two outstanding examples of High Victorian Italianate architecture of the type known as "Symmetrical Bracketed Villa," a type popularized by builders' handbooks in the later 19th century. The Smith-Baer House at 2333 Main Street, built in 1882, and the Fuller-Baisley House at 2305 Main Street, built in 1890, was included in the Baker Historic District and listed on the National Register in 1978. The Clark House antedates these high style examples and represents a plainer, more compact version of the villa type which does not have bilateral symmetry. The facade of the Clark House has one two-story polygonal window bay offset by a side entry as opposed to the polygonal bay on either side of a central entrance. Neither does the Clark House have the arched window heads which are a hallmark of the Italianate style. The house has a certain architectural pretension nonetheless. It has a low-hipped roof and bracketed cornice in which brackets are spaced between frieze panels. Shiplap siding is used on all exterior elevations and is accented at all corners of the building by staggered quoins. Windows are elongated, plainly trimmed, and fitted with double-hung sash having one-over-one lights. Those in the ground story are thought to have been shortened as a consequence of a general ceiling modification after 1900.

The hipped roof of the porch is supported by chamfered posts with shadow pilasters and by a fascia having a modified basket arch profile. The front door is an especially handsome four-panel door with moldings and stilted, flat arches crowning the upper panels. The interior is organized on the side hall plan, with bed chambers on the second story above a parlor and sitting-dining room which have been opened as a single space without subdivision. The kitchen at the rear was enlarged by the filling in of a back porch by a subsequent owner, George Moulton, who acquired the house in 1885. Moulton also was responsible for a small bath addition on the north face in the 1920s.

Sandstone masonry units making up the foundation were quarried at a site 15 miles east of Baker. The framing system of rough pine lumber was produced by a local mill. Interior wood trim is standard millwork of the day characterized by the beaded door and window frames with decorated corner blocks and high baseboard with elaborate crown moldings. The fireplace and chimney on the west wall of the house are non-historic additions from 1975. The garage and pumphouse are noncontributing features of the property.

Situated at the south end of a broad valley, where the Powder River flows out of the Blue Mountains of northeastern Oregon on its eastward course to the Snake River, Baker evolved as the center of trade and shipping for an extensive mining region. Shortly after the initial gold strike in the foothills south of Baker in 1861, the town experienced the first of two dramatic periods of growth. The second occurred with new strikes after 1890.

In 1874 the town was incorporated as Baker City, named in honor of Colonel Edward D. Baker, United States Senator from the State of Oregon who died early in the Civil War leading his Union troops. In the following year, the boom was underway. Several sawmills operated in the vicinity. Timber was plentiful and cheap. Between 1880 and 1890 the population jumped from 1,258 to 6,663, in large part owing to the completion of the Oregon-Washington Railroad and Navigation Company's connection to the mainline rail network in 1884. The town had all the earmarks of a regional trade center: brick bank buildings and stores, livery stables, industrial plants, churches, schools and academies, and prosperous-looking residential sections.

For a time, Baker was larger even than Spokane and Boise city in the neighboring states of Washington and Idaho and was considered the "Queen City of the Inland Empire." The local economy solidly based on gold mining was strengthened by the lumber and cattle industries. In 1895 the mines near Baker shipped $1.3 million in gold and employed about a thousand miners. During the final heyday of gold production locally, through 1910, most of the city's public buildings and several important commercial edifices were built of tuff, an indigenous volcanic rock. The city's strong social and economic underpinnings prevented decline when the mines ceased production, but Baker ultimately was outstripped by other metropolises of the intermountain region.

Robert Fozzard Clark (1832-1905), a farmer who had earlier followed the lure of gold excitement to California and southern Oregon, arrived at Baker city in 1877 and in the comparatively brief span of three years erected one of the distinctive houses of the period at that place. A carpenter-builder's version of High Victorian Italianate architecture in the villa mode, Clark's house represented the latest in fashion upon its completion in 1880. IT expressed the means attained by Clark through hard work and prudent investment in land at the height of Baker's early mining boom.

Baker County deed records provide evidence of the building's date of construction. Clark and his wife, Elizabeth Endersby Clark, acquired the land from the proprietor of the subdivision, J. P. Atwood, on November 17, 1879, for "$400.00 in gold coins of the United States." The property's improvement was reflected in the tax rolls for 1880. A perspective rendering of Baker city postdating 1880 shows the Clark dwelling place with a windmill, other outbuildings, and an orchard.

Robert Fozzard Clark was born in England on October 16, 1832. He came to the United States and settled in Illinois, from which place he removed to California in 1849, joining the rush to the gold fields. He left California and went to southern Oregon when gold was discovered there. He fought in the Rogue River Indian Wars in 1858. He met his wife, Elizabeth Endersby, in Lane County, Oregon. Elizabeth Endersby was a native of Illinois, having been born May 23, 1841. She and her family came to Oregon as overland trail immigrants settling near Estacada, Oregon. Her mother died when she was 11 years old, leaving her to take care of her younger brother and two sisters. A few years later she moved with her family to the Creswell vicinity, on the coast Fork of the Willamette River. There Elizabeth and Robert were married on May 30, 1858. Nine children were born of this union.

Robert and Elizabeth Clark settled in Baker city in 1877 and engaged in farming. They purchased the property in 1879 from J. P. Atwood and had their family home built at 1522 Washington Avenue in 1880. Their oldest daughter, Sarah, was married to John W. Barnes on March 6, 1882, in the family home.

The 1880 decennial census for the Baker city precinct listed Robert F. Clark as a farmer, his wife as a housekeeper, and five children residing with them, of whom the two oldest, daughters Sarah and Bessie, ages 20 and 17, were school teachers.
In 1885 Robert F. and Elizabeth Clark sold their house on Washington Avenue to George B. Moulton. The Clark family then moved to 1645 16th Street in Baker City. Washington Avenue was becoming built up as a residential area, whereas the area around 16th Street remained suburban and enabled Clark to continue his vocation. Although Clark's principal occupation was farming, Baker County records show many real estate transactions under his name.

In 1901, the Blue Mountain American, the newspaper of Sumpter, Oregon, reported the Pioneers of Baker County spent a day in the Blue Mountains. Robert F. Clark age 66, and Mrs. R. F. Clark, age 64, were in attendance.

Robert Fozzard Clark died in Baker city on November 28, 1905, at the age of 73, in the family home at 1645 16th Street. He was buried in the Baker Cemetery.3 Elizabeth Endersby Clark died November 15, 1925, at the age of 84, at the home of her daughter, Ella G. Cornwell in Prairie City, Oregon. She also was buried in the Baker Cemetery.

When the Clarks moved to their suburban location in 1885, they sold the property on Washington Avenue to George B. Moulton and his wife, Ellen Paxon Moulton, who recently had arrived in Baker City. The transaction was recorded on August 13, 1885. For the ensuing 45 years, until his death in 1930, Moulton, a prominent citizen, resided in the house, where he and his wife raised three children.
George B. Moulton died on January 21, 1930, at the age of 92 in the family home at 1522 Washington Avenue. He was buried in the Baker Cemetery.5 Ellen Amelia Moulton died April 5, 1939, at the age of 88, at St. Elizabeth Hospital in Baker. She also was buried in the Baker Cemetery.