How to Research Your Land's History · Section 5 of 7

5. Worked examples

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.

Abbott Butte, from the Tiller study

The question. The Tiller study set out “to describe forest conditions for the study area as they existed 200 years ago, and to contrast them with current conditions” (Tiller 2011, p. 8). Abbott Butte served as its step-by-step example (paraphrase; Tiller 2011, p. 9).

The sources. One ridgeline route, the North-South Trail, appears on a 1936 Forest Service recreation map and the 1938 survey plat, is referenced in the 1937 survey field notes, and was copied onto the 2010 predictive field map (paraphrase; Tiller 2011, p. 33). The study also had a 1939 aerial photograph of the butte and a 1933 fire-lookout panorama taken from it (paraphrase; Tiller 2011, pp. 21–24), and photographs taken from and on the butte between 1899 and 2010 (paraphrase; Tiller 2011, p. 32).

How they were layered. Records, field visits and measurements were combined into a map of trails and vegetation for about 1800 (paraphrase; Tiller 2011, p. 33).

What it found. The photographs show “the steady influx of conifers over the past 100 years, but also the persistence of many of the prairie plants” (Tiller 2011, p. 32).

What stayed uncertain. Along one stretch of the trail the records disagreed: both the 1936 vegetation map and the study’s own map for about 1800 showed subalpine forest, but the trees recorded in the 1937 survey were almost pure Douglas-fir, many of them small or medium-sized (paraphrase; Tiller 2011, pp. 36–37). Drawing on forester Mike Dubrasich’s analysis in the report’s Appendix B, old aerial photographs and field observations, the report concludes that this stretch of ridge was likely a bracken fern prairie, grassland or huckleberry field before contact with Europeans, later seeded in by Douglas-fir from below (paraphrase; Tiller 2011, p. 37). Likely, not certain, and the report does not say which.

One thing to borrow. Pick one feature, such as a trail, a clearing or an old fence line, and follow it through every record you have, year by year.

Port Orford trails, from Coquelle Trails

Coquelle Trails is by Bob Zybach and Don Ivy. Question for Bob: should Don Ivy, or the Coquille Indian Tribe, see this summary before it is published?

The question. On ancestral Coquille Indian lands, the project set out “to locate and document, so near as possible, the exact locations of the earliest historical trails, named landmarks, private landowners, and important events” (Coquelle Trails 2013, p. 1). Its approach: “This project is based on traditional archival research methods, followed by physical transcription of data to maps, and then location and documentation in the field.” (Coquelle Trails 2013, p. 7).

The sources. The report’s example starts with an 1875 government township map of the Port Orford area, a road highlighted and section numbers circled to show which survey notes its lines were drawn from (paraphrase; Coquelle Trails 2013, p. 7). Then come a geological map from the late 1890s, “apparently showing pre-automobile roads and trails to a very accurate degree at that time” (Coquelle Trails 2013, p. 10), and a 1941 Metsker county ownership map of the same township (paraphrase; Coquelle Trails 2013, pp. 10–11).

How they were layered. The maps share the same survey lines (paraphrase; Coquelle Trails 2013, p. 10), so they line up: “Note the differences in Port Orford between the maps, but also the similarity in road and trail alignments between 1875 and 1941.” (Coquelle Trails 2013, p. 11). Possible routes went onto modern topographic maps, with solid lines along roads and trails that still exist and dotted lines for predicted routes or documented ones no longer shown (paraphrase; Coquelle Trails 2013, p. 11). Then came the field: GPS-tagged photographs (paraphrase; Coquelle Trails 2013, p. 16) and talks with knowledgeable local people (paraphrase; Coquelle Trails 2013, pp. 11–12).

What it found. A final network of routes, recording “the final editorial decisions made by the authors following much discussion and consideration of the possible alternative routes and the documentation that supported each alternative” (Coquelle Trails 2013, p. 13).

What stayed uncertain. About 80 percent of the whole study area was visited (paraphrase; Coquelle Trails 2013, p. 16), but “Some areas could not be visited because of locked gates, snow, or time” (Coquelle Trails 2013, p. 16). Survey notes of 1855 from another township name an old Indian trail and a Klickitat trail; the authors judged the first more likely a foot trail and the second a pack trail, though separate trails for political or social reasons remained possible (paraphrase; Coquelle Trails 2013, pp. 9–10).

One thing to borrow. Each survey-note find was printed, “annotated with the name of the surveyor and date the observations were written, and filed in a folder labeled with the individual township in which the notes were made” (Coquelle Trails 2013, p. 15).

Alsea Valley maps, from Great Fires

The question. How well do three regional vegetation maps, from 1900, 1914 and 1936, show one valley, or one square mile? Great Fires 2003 tested them on the Alsea Valley in Benton County (paraphrase; Great Fires 2003, pp. 119–120).

The sources. The three maps; a new map of the valley about 1850, built from the original survey data; and five square-mile timber cruise maps by Bagley, dated 1915 (paraphrase; Great Fires 2003, p. 120).

How they were layered. The cruise maps were placed on each of the other maps “in their correct geographic positions, and to scale” (Great Fires 2003, p. 120), and the five sections were compared map by map (paraphrase; Great Fires 2003, p. 123).

What it found. On the 1900 map, the mix of forest, burn, grass and brush was “almost abstract, with Lobster Valley appearing to be three or four times as large as Alsea Valley” (Great Fires 2003, p. 120). For one section, “none of the four other maps comes close to matching 1915 Bagley for detail or accuracy” (Great Fires 2003, p. 126). Yet “In sum, all of the regional maps use representative vegetation types that are comparable over time and at differing scales.” (Great Fires 2003, p. 126). And two maps can seem to agree while their lines mean different things. A shape labeled A, drawn around the valley’s bottomland Indian prairies, seemed to match on the 1850 and 1936 maps (paraphrase; Great Fires 2003, p. 122), but:

“However, the two were drawn in entirely different fashions: the 1936 "A" was drawn by following the innermost forest and wildfire boundaries, while the other three maps, including the 1850 "A," were drawn by following the outermost grassland boundaries.”

What stayed uncertain. Simplifying the 1850 map made conifer forest look scarcer low down and more common up high, hid openings at middle elevations, and probably shows too few trails, especially low down; even so, the dissertation judges the overall pattern recognizable and representative of the time before white settlement and survey (paraphrase; Great Fires 2003, p. 117). The valley seems to have escaped catastrophic fire for 250 years (paraphrase; Great Fires 2003, p. 122), but “It may not be possible to determine why--or even if--this is true.” (Great Fires 2003, p. 122).

One thing to borrow. Before comparing two maps, find out how each line was drawn. And lay a small, detailed map on a large, general one, in the right place and at the same scale.