Upon the deaths of Dr. John and Marguerite McLoughlin, their Oregon City, Ore., home passed to their son, David, and daughter, Eloise, and her husband, Daniel Harvey. The area around the home slowly industrialized and decayed. After a two-story building rose across the street, the Harveys sold their property on the east bank of the Willamette River near Willamette Falls and moved to Portland in 1867.

The new owners turned the mansion into the Phoenix Hotel. In 1870, a lodger reported the early morning burning of the woolen mill across the street, likely caused by grease storage. Rumors buzzed that Chinese laborers, convenient scapegoats, had set the blaze because many lived at the Phoenix. Later, after becoming a bawdy house, the McLoughlins’ former home slid into moral and material decli

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