U.. Berry Creek Schoolhouse

U. Berry Creek Schoolhouse

Bob Zybach: Okay, we're driving past the spring that's between the 200 Road turnoff, where we've been looking at the first two Coote sites, and the bottom of the hill here. But this is a spring that they opened up.

Neil Vanderburg: They dug this up when they built this road. They tried everything they could to make the spring drain into the gutter or do something with it, and it always came up right in the middle of the road. And that's close to 50 years ago and it's still here!

Bob Zybach: Did you call that the Coote's Mill Road at that time?

Neil Vanderburg: Yeah.

Bob Zybach: That connects up with this road here. Did this road go through at that time?

Neil Vanderburg: This road wasn't here. You see the school house [Berry Creek] was right here.

Bob Zybach: Right next to where this gate is.

Neil Vanderburg: See the survey marker there?

Bob Zybach: Yeah.

Neil Vanderburg: The school house sat on the section line, on the south side of the section line. So it sat right here.

Bob Zybach: Okay. And it took up about an acre?

Neil Vanderburg: Yeah.

Bob Zybach: Now there's a couple little fruit trees around through here. Were those here at that time?

Neil Vanderburg: The fruit trees were, but there was no sign of a house here.

Bob Zybach: Okay. Were they raised like an orchard or were they just kind of scattered?

Neil Vanderburg: Just scattered like they are now.

Bob Zybach: Could they have been put there by sheep, or do you think they were planted trees?

Neil Vanderburg: It was possible. You've got an apple tree over here. Could have been scattered by sheep. But they seem to be mostly apple trees. But there had to be an apple tree here, maybe Johnny Appleseed planted it.

Bob Zybach: Do you recall any road or farm grade or anything along the base of the hill over there?

Neil Vanderburg: No, there was nothing. I walked all over here and saw all the rattlesnakes on that hill. Which was none. But after the big snow.

Bob Zybach: That's the '37-'38 snow?

Neil Vanderburg: Yeah. After that we came up here and pulled some wool off the sheep that had died in that snow. So I was pretty much all over that hill. And there was no roads or anything, just sheep trails.

Bob Zybach: Okay, no roads at all.

Neil Vanderburg: No, huh uh. And what we did, my mother...

Bob Zybach: Now, we're looking at Smith Peak from the north side. And on that, at that time, did you call that Folk's Hill?

Neil Vanderburg: Really, I think we probably called it Smith's Hill. We didn't really name these hills like you do. I mean we all knew where they were, and you know, basically it was over here or over there you know.

Bob Zybach: Do you think. . something that we talked about, with all the families that moved in here in

Bob Zybach: the late '20s and '30s, do you think maybe they lost some of those pioneer names like Savage Creek and Smith Peak?

Neil Vanderburg: I'm sure they did. Of course, like I said, this whole creek system was Berry Creek to me until I talked to you and Donald and so forth. But we always called this Berry Creek. That went past the school house here.

Bob Zybach: So we can't blame this on Camp Adair. This is probably just the immigration of people