Wright Building

410 NE 3rd Street  |  Built 1893

Constructed in 1893 for $12,500, the Wright Building is a Queen Anne-style commercial
building features scallops, sun patterns, and intricate brickwork in the frieze. A central
pediment reads E. Wright, 1893, honoring its original owner and builder. A fancy brickwork
belt course runs above and below the second story windows. The ground floor has a recessed
central entrance and an open entrance to the second floor located at the east end of the
building. A two-story addition to the west elevation at the south end, which likely took place
somewhere between 1912 and 1928, lacks the metal cornice but contains second story windows
identical to the original windows.

A steam generation plant, known as the ‘Central Heating Plant’, operated out of the basement
of the Wright Building. The plant offered heat service for sale to an approximate 11-block area
of McMinnville’s downtown merchants until the early 1960s. The Wright Building was also
home to McMinnville’s second largest full-service department store, Millers, for nearly 70 years
from 1903 through the 1960s. The Ladies Civic Improvement Club and the City of McMinnville
operated a public library on the second floor in the northwest corner of the Wright Building
between 1910 through 1912, when it moved into the new Carnegie Library building at the
southeast corner of City Park.

The Wright Building’s owner and builder was Elsia Wright, who came to Oregon from Illinois
in 1871. Wright had a harness business and began constructing commercial buildings in
McMinnville in 1892. As a member of the McMinnville Building and Improvement Company,
Wright invested in the Union Block property in 1890. A notable citizen, he served on the Water
Committee, a precursor to McMinnville Water and Light, in 1889, the McMinnville City
Council in the 1890s and as a Water and Light Commissioner from 1908-1912.

For images of the the property, and further details, check out the link below:

Historic Resources Inventory Documentation