Soap Creek Valley · 1989 Auto Tour
STOP #7 BEEF BARNS [Agriculture]
Stop 7 of the 1989 Historic Soap Creek Valley Auto Tour, printed page 21.
17.3 miles from the Peavy Arboretum entrance on the 1989 route. Open these pages in the original PDF · Read the text below
![Original illustrated spread for STOP #7 BEEF BARNS [Agriculture], printed pages 20–21. The transcribed text and picture captions follow below.](/images/zybach/soap-creek/auto-tour-1989/spread-12.jpg)
The text, as printed
The first cattle brought into the Willamette Valley were a wild and untamed herd imported from Mexican California by Ewing Young in 1837. Fences were put up around pioneer homesteads and fields to keep the cattle out, not in. Children were often chased or threatened on their way to school. One of the first fenced wheat fields in Benton County, dating to the 1840's, is believed to be located near this stop, about 1/4 mile northeast of here.
With the discovery of gold in the 1840's, '50's, and '60's - first in California, then in southern Oregon, and finally in eastern Oregon and Idaho - the butchering and selling of beef and hogs to hopeful miners formed a lucrative portion of many Soap Creek farmers' incomes. Gradually, however, the smaller farms were consolidated into larger holdings and, by 1900, sheep and tillable crops had replaced cattle raising for most local landowners.
The shift from grazing to tilling had the effect of concentrating agricultural activities onto the flatter areas of the valley, allowing surrounding forests to seed abandoned pastures and hayfields along the hillsides. By World War I, many families had become more dependent upon the timber industry than upon farming for their income. Depression-era subsistance farming saw several families with a few milk cows, but most unable to afford to raise or eat beef.
Following the creation of Camp Adair during World War II, the local farmers were bought out by the Army and their pastures turned into training grounds and rifle ranges. Today, the trend has come full circle, and the OSU College of Agriculture is once again raising cattle on these lands.
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Named at this stop
Places. Willamette Valley · Mexican California · Benton County · California · southern Oregon · eastern Oregon · Idaho · Camp Adair
People. Ewing Young
Narrators who speak of this place
- #1 Lorna Grabe p. 15, p. 59, p. 60, p. 12, p. 57, p. 58
- #2 Paul M. Dunn p. 40, p. 5, p. 7, p. 8, p. 15, p. 32, p. 5, p. 31, p. 33
- #3 Donald Dickey p. 23, p. 3, p. 4, p. 45, p. 46, p. 47, p. 51, p. 54
- #4 Edward Sekermestrovich p. 14, p. 4
- #5 John Jacob & Wilma Rohner p. 58, p. 76, p. 98, p. 4, p. 22, p. 36, p. 37, p. 40, p. 45, p. 50, p. 54, p. 57, p. 87, p. 92, p. 93, p. 97, p. 106, p. 109, p. 111, p. 112, p. 118, p. 121
- #6 James Hanish p. 5, p. 10, p. 16, p. 21, p. 65, p. 74, p. 75, p. 76, p. 17, p. 57, p. 30
- #7 Charlie Olson p. 153, p. 169, p. 123, p. 127, p. 133, p. 138, p. 149, p. 155, p. 22
- #8 Neil Vanderburg p. 1, p. 12, p. 86, p. 96, p. 101, p. 127, p. 18, p. 30, p. 38, p. 72, p. 85, p. 89, p. 104, p. 12, p. 22, p. 44, p. 65, p. 94, p. 115, p. 124, p. 125, p. 16
- #9 Eugene Glender p. 3, p. 5, p. 10, p. 27, p. 44, p. 105, p. 106, p. 5, p. 20, p. 83, p. 99, p. 102, p. 2, p. 13, p. 20, p. 34, p. 38, p. 47, p. 55, p. 71, p. 79, p. 83, p. 16, p. 101, p. 109
- #10 Velma Carter Rawie p. 3, p. 5, p. 8, p. 10, p. 32, p. 60, p. 82, p. 85, p. 100, p. 108, p. 115, p. 116, p. 30, p. 90, p. 91, p. 104, p. 111, p. 9, p. 16, p. 39, p. 41, p. 43, p. 47, p. 59, p. 60, p. 68, p. 74, p. 76, p. 78, p. 82, p. 97, p. 98, p. 115
- #11 Bessie Murphy p. 52, p. 105, p. 58, p. 70, p. 48, p. 49, p. 57, p. 15, p. 69, p. 92, p. 25, p. 93, p. 94
- #12 Wanda Marcks Cook p. 4, p. 44, p. 68, p. 69, p. 76, p. 80, p. 85, p. 3, p. 17, p. 29, p. 44, p. 47, p. 17, p. 29, p. 8
- #13 WILLIAM A. DAVIES p. 7, p. 41, p. 73
- #14 Charles and Norman Hindes p. 1, p. 3, p. 5, p. 7, p. 35, p. 45
- #15 Marvin Rowley p. 7, p. 30, p. 36, p. 90, p. 28, p. 8, p. 106
Photographs printed with this stop
- The Moore's were a prominent Soap Creek Valley farming family at the turn of the century, raising cattle, sheep, and hogs.. Sam Moore's father, James, donated the land upon which the Soap Creek Schoolhouse is located. Notice Coffin Butte in the left background, the developing fir and oak forest on the right, and the fencing. The view is from "Sheep Hill," on the old Alfred Writsman Homestead. It can be approximated today from Moss Rock Drive, about 3 miles southwest of this spot.
Citation and source history
Collection source history · The complete booklet and its credits
How to cite this item
The first line is the citation as it is printed in the original. Use it when you cite the work itself. Use the second when you cite this page.
- As printed
- Zybach, Bob 1989. Historic Soap Creek Valley Auto Tour. Oregon State University Research Forests and College of Forestry, Corvallis, Oregon: 32 pp.
- This page
- Zybach 1989. America's School Trust Library, The Zybach Collection. https://schooltrusts.org/collections/zybach/soap-creek/auto-tour/stop-7/
More on citing this collection: How to cite the Zybach Collection.
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