How to Research Your Land's History · Section 2 of 7

2. Where the evidence lives

Written by AI A draft for Dr. Bob Zybach's review, written by AI from his four published documents (one of them, Coquelle Trails, written with Don Ivy). Words inside quotation marks are quoted from those documents, with the page. He has not reviewed this draft.

The Soap Creek study lists the kinds of evidence it drew on:

“At least 19 different types of information were used for research purposes during the course of this thesis. Specific sources of information are listed in the reference section and representative findings are described in text and/or displayed as tables, figures, and/or maps in the body of this document. Types of information used in this research included: 1) aerial photographs, 2) archives (including libraries), 3) artifacts, 4) drawings, 5) fossils, 6) journals (including diaries and correspondence), 7) land surveys, 8) living memory (source of oral traditions, oral histories, interviews, and consultations), 9) maps, 10) newspapers, 11) photographs (other than aerial photographs), 12) pollens, 13) popular literature, 14) satellite imagery, 15) scientific literature, 16) timber cruises, 17) tree rings, 18) vegetation patterns, and 19) video (and film).”

This booklet sorts the 19 into four groups and keeps the numbers from the list above. The grouping is the booklet’s, and the order is not a ranking: the thesis does not say which types to consult first. Its Table 7, which numbers the types differently, scores each one for how useful it proved at Soap Creek and how useful it might be in similar future studies (paraphrase; Thesis 1999, pp. 57–58), and the thesis says “Arbitrary numbers are also assigned by the author” (Thesis 1999, p. 57). Each Where to look line is a general suggestion unless it carries a citation.

Written records

Archives (2). Records kept at libraries and archives; for Soap Creek, “student and business reports, census data, property transaction records, photographs, maps, and legal filings” (Thesis 1999, p. 19). Where to look: the county clerk, the county historical society or museum, the state archives, and university special collections. The Tiller study searched a county museum and the county surveyor’s office, the state forestry department’s history center, university map libraries, archives and special collections, and a national forest office (paraphrase; Tiller 2011, p. 14).

Journals (6). Diaries, letters and other correspondence. “Journals were the first form of historical documentation for Soap Creek Valley” (Thesis 1999, p. 21). Mind who held the pen. Of the earliest Coast Range journals, Great Fires 2003 notes: “All of the journalists were white males, so a certain amount of demographic bias needs to be taken into account for these narratives.” (Great Fires 2003, p. 77). Where to look: family papers, the county historical society, and published travelers’ journals in libraries.

Land surveys (7). The original land surveys of the General Land Office (GLO), made and recorded by the US government: a map of each township, called the plat, and the surveyor’s field notes. Most in western Oregon were finished by 1910, though remote areas with few private land claims were not surveyed until the 1920s and 1930s (paraphrase; Tiller 2011, p. 20). They “provided valuable information regarding forest cover patterns that preceded living memory (1890s), timber cruises (1910s), and aerial photographs (1930s)” (Thesis 1999, p. 21). But surveyors were “probably not trained to recognize such localized features as elk pits, peeled trees, or rock ovens” (Great Fires 2003, p. 96). Where to look: the county surveyor’s office or the Bureau of Land Management; Coquelle Trails used both (paraphrase; Coquelle Trails 2013, p. 15).

Maps (9). Here, maps other than survey plats and timber cruises, such as county land ownership maps (paraphrase; Thesis 1999, p. 22). Soap Creek’s maps “provided good means for directing oral history subjects to designated meeting spots and for helping to document recorded tours of the study area” (Thesis 1999, p. 22). But a simplified map drops detail, such as “the locations of roads, trails, springs, and houses” (Great Fires 2003, p. 101). Where to look: county surveyor and assessor’s offices, university map libraries, and old county atlases.

Newspapers (10). “Newspapers were used extensively as a source of background data and to corroborate names, dates, and events discussed by oral history subjects.” (Thesis 1999, p. 22). Where to look: the public library, the paper’s own files, and university and state libraries.

Popular literature (13). Local histories and the like: good for context and for keeping a conversation going (paraphrase; Thesis 1999, p. 23), though for Soap Creek “more precise and reliable information was readily obtained through other sources” (Thesis 1999, p. 23). Where to look: the library’s local-history shelf and the county historical society.

Scientific literature (15). Published research, used at Soap Creek for methods, for times before anyone’s memory, and to check other evidence (paraphrase; Thesis 1999, p. 24). Where to look: university libraries and agency publications.

Timber cruises (16). “Timber cruises are usually systematic and detailed accountings of the amount and value of principal tree products within a given area.” (Great Fires 2003, p. 56). At Soap Creek, “A key use of timber cruises was to interpret and display new findings” (Thesis 1999, p. 25). Coverage is patchy, and “existing cruises are of a highly uneven quality” (Great Fires 2003, p. 98). Where to look: county archives and assessor’s records, the state forestry department, and timber company or family papers.

Images

Aerial photographs (1). “Aerial photographs are photographs taken from the air typically from airplanes or balloons.” (Thesis 1999, p. 19). At Soap Creek, a series running from the 1930s on (paraphrase; Thesis 1999, p. 19) “provided the surest, most reliable, and most detailed form of repeat photography” (Thesis 1999, p. 19). For earlier times, Great Fires 2003 found them “limited principally to interpretive--rather than documentary--purposes” (Great Fires 2003, p. 85). Where to look: university map libraries, national forest offices, and federal agencies such as the U.S. Geological Survey. In 2003, “The University of Oregon has the most complete collection of aerial photographs available in Oregon” (Great Fires 2003, p. 84). Question for Bob: written in 2003, and repeated in the Tiller report in 2011 (p. 21); is this still the best place to start?

Drawings (4). For Soap Creek, drawings were “of limited value for this research, unless one includes hand sketched maps” (Thesis 1999, p. 20). But detailed landscape drawings published in 1885 bridge the 1850s surveys and the 1890s photographs, and one drawing helped secure the oral histories of two people (paraphrase; Thesis 1999, p. 20). Where to look: old county histories and atlases, family papers, and local museums.

Photographs (11). “Photographs were also important stimuli at key points of nearly all of the oral history interviews conducted for this study” (Thesis 1999, p. 23). They also allow repeat photography: “taking new landscape photographs from the same locations and perspectives as historical photographs in order to compare differences and document change” (Thesis 1999, p. 23). The Tiller study used 1930s fire-lookout panoramas, “highly detailed maps of the visible landscape created at an exact point in time” (Tiller 2011, p. 22). Where to look: family albums, historical societies and museums, and national forest offices.

Satellite imagery (14). At Soap Creek, less detailed than aerial photographs for the people interviewed to read, and less accurate than land surveys and timber cruises for showing most forest conditions at a useful scale (paraphrase; Thesis 1999, p. 23), with “no data before the 1970s” (Thesis 1999, p. 24). Where to look: online map services and the U.S. Geological Survey.

Video and film (19). “Videos (and films) were likely the most underutilized and, potentially, one of the most useful types of data associated with this study.” (Thesis 1999, p. 26). No earlier video or film of Soap Creek turned up; the study made its own video panoramas of the valley in 1998, and the thesis says video could capture much of what a sound recording misses, and tours of particular places (paraphrase; Thesis 1999, p. 26). Where to look: home movies, historical societies, and local television archives.

The land itself

Artifacts (3). In the Soap Creek study, “the physical cultural remains of past and current residents and visitors” (Thesis 1999, p. 20), from stone tools to telephone poles; they were good at jogging memories and checking other sources (paraphrase; Thesis 1999, p. 20). Archaeological finds can be hard to date, and site locations are usually kept from the public to discourage looting (paraphrase; Tiller 2011, p. 9). Where to look: your own fields and old house sites. If something may be old, leave it where it lies and ask the State Historic Preservation Office or a tribal cultural resources office.

Fossils (5). Remains of prehistoric plants and animals (paraphrase; Thesis 1999, p. 20). Soap Creek’s only example, two elephant teeth found by a local family, still helped spark the interest and cooperation of several people in the study (paraphrase; Thesis 1999, p. 20). Where to look: natural history museums and university geology departments.

Pollens (12). Ancient pollen, which lasts tens of thousands of years and gives the long view back to the last ice age (paraphrase; Thesis 1999, p. 23). For Soap Creek’s last 500 years its value “was minimal and limited largely to discussions of their seasonal allergenic properties” (Thesis 1999, p. 23). Where to look: published pollen studies in university libraries.

Tree rings (17). A tree adds a ring each year, so rings can age a stand and hint at past climate (paraphrase; Tiller 2011, p. 31). At Soap Creek they were “a useful tool for interpreting forest conditions for prehistoric time in Soap Creek Valley” (Thesis 1999, p. 25). Tiller 2011 judged others’ fire-scar studies “of limited value for detecting landscape-scale practices that occur on a regular basis or wildfires that result in stand replacement events” (Tiller 2011, p. 10). Where to look: fresh stumps on your own land.

Vegetation patterns (18). “Documented vegetation patterns, in conjunction with early land surveys, also provided a useful source of information for interpreting late prehistoric and early historical forest cover conditions.” (Thesis 1999, p. 26). Long-lived trees, and plants such as camas and bracken fern, can hold their ground for decades or centuries (paraphrase; Tiller 2011, p. 31). Where to look: your own land: old oaks among younger firs, patches of camas or fern, prairie plants in openings.

Living memory

Living memory (8). “Living Memory is the basis for oral histories, oral traditions, formal interviews, focus groups, conversations, and consultations.” (Thesis 1999, p. 21). In the Soap Creek study it was “the principal, and foundational, data source used for this study” (Thesis 1999, p. 21). Where to look: neighbors and former owners; retired loggers, foresters and ranchers; and the oral history collections of county and state historical societies. In most cases the original Soap Creek tapes went to the Oregon Historical Society, with copies to the Oregon State University Archives (paraphrase; Thesis 1999, p. 51).