Open Questions

One of the two original district courtrooms on the sixth floor — that much is spatial certainty. Nothing we have found names the room, and this site declines to guess.

The Oregonian or Oregon Journal for June 12–13, 1942, which typically named the courtroom; or the court's own file, held at the National Archives in Seattle as United States v. Minoru Yasui, Criminal No. 16056.

The 1962 city directory lists “Mrs. Claire Mundorff, United States Commissioner, 512 US Court House.” The commissioner set bail and heard preliminary matters; a woman holding the office in 1962 is remarkable. Beyond that single line, no trace of her has surfaced anywhere.

Oregon State Bar records, an obituary, court personnel files, or a family member.

The bas-relief figures on the foyer's end walls memorialize Oregonians who died in the war. Neither the National Register nomination nor the federal building record names the sculptor.

The Whitehouse office correspondence for 1932–33, of which we have photographed a large part; Treasury Department contract records; or the Oregonian's coverage of the interior finishes.

On August 23, 1932, a metal box was sealed into the cornerstone holding five Portland newspapers, historic documents, and a snapshot of the architects swimming in Oswego Lake. No record exists, anywhere we have looked, of the box being opened since.

Any inspection record from the General Services Administration or the building's present owner. Absent one, the snapshot is presumably still in the wall.

Solomon described a candelabrum “in shades of black” that he looked at before sentencing. The Brodie estate holds Candelabra with Wine (1960), which matches the description; whether that exact canvas or a near-twin from the same series hung here is unconfirmed.

The Brodie estate's provenance records, the Solomon family, or the research files of Solomon's biographer Harry Stein, held at the Oregon Historical Society.

Congress renamed the building on October 28, 1988. Manuel Neri's sculpture was dedicated beside the entrance in April 1989. The ceremony itself — its date, its program, who spoke — we have not found.

The Oregonian for 1989, or the dedication-programs folder in the Oregon Historical Society's architecture collection (Mss 1525, Series B).

The hearings named fifty-three Oregonians and led to contempt prosecutions in this building. Whether the committee itself sat here, in the Pioneer Courthouse, or elsewhere is unstated in every source we have.

The Oregonian for June 1954, or the Michael Munk collection at the Oregon Historical Society.

Judge Solomon recalled that the crier was paid only on days court opened, and that he opened court on Saturdays so the man could be paid. He did not give the name.

Court personnel records of the 1950s, or a family who remembers.

Naturalization ceremonies were held in the sixth-floor courtrooms from 1933 into the 2000s. Solomon turned a two-minute formality into a ceremony in which every new citizen introduced themselves. No count exists, and almost no names.

Court and immigration records — or, more directly, the people themselves and their families. This is the question readers can answer.