Soap Creek Valley · Person
Marvin Rowley
Marvin Rowley— narrator, co-author, mentioned in the Soap Creek Valley oral history series.
narratorco-authormentioned
Provenance
- Dates
- 1928 – unknown
- Work
- Forester; logging contractor; manager of the Oregon State University (McDonald-Dunn) Research Forests, 1946–1986
- Home site
- Corvallis, Oregon
- Interview focus
- Forestry research
- Where this comes from
- #15 Marvin Rowley, p. 1, narrator profile; the 1999 thesis, p. 39, Table 4 (informant profile); the 1999 thesis, p. 39, born (from Table 4 lifetime); #15 Marvin Rowley, 115, 121, contributors / front matter credit; SCARC OH 006 finding aid: interview dates and cassette counts; #2 Paul M. Dunn, p. 43, printed back index; #3 Donald Dickey, p. 48, printed back index; #9 Eugene Glender, p. 99, p. 103, printed back index; #13 WILLIAM A. DAVIES, p. 6, p. 11, p. 22, p. 25, p. 26, p. 28, p. 30, 33-37, 39-46, 48-50, printed back index; #14 Charles and Norman Hindes, p. 3, printed back index; #15 Marvin Rowley, i, ix, p. 2, p. 7, p. 48, p. 98, p. 104, p. 114, p. 119, printed back index; the 1999 thesis, p. 5, p. 14, p. 17, p. 23, p. 25, p. 26, p. 37, p. 39, p. 40, p. 41, p. 42, p. 45, p. 46, p. 48, p. 51, p. 61, p. 72, p. 76, p. 84, p. 87, p. 89, p. 90, p. 97, p. 99, p. 101, p. 102, p. 106, p. 108, p. 109, p. 111, p. 116, p. 119, p. 124, p. 125, p. 126, p. 127, p. 129, p. 130, p. 132, p. 133, p. 135, p. 144, p. 154, p. 170, p. 177, p. 180, p. 181, p. 182, p. 186, p. 191, p. 192, p. 199, p. 220, p. 226, p. 237, p. 294, people mentioned in the thesis; the 1999 thesis, p. 5, Table 1 citation rule: cited as (Rowley 1996), referenced as (Jackson, Lee and Zybach 1996), #15; the 1989 Auto Tour, p. 2, people named in the Auto Tour; the 1999 thesis, p. 235, p. 236, p. 237, Appendix A, Table A.1 (monograph numbers and titles) and Table A.2 (page counts)
- Accessioned
- From Bob Zybach’s upload, 23 August 2026
Home site
Plotted at Oregon State University, as on Map 9 of the 1999 thesis.
The map could not load. The list below carries the same places.
Sessions
- January 25, 1979 — Peavy Hall, Oregon State University
- January 31, 1979 — Peavy Hall, Oregon State University
- February 6, 1979 — Peavy Hall, Oregon State University, Corvallis
- February 7, 1979 — Peavy Hall, Oregon State University, Corvallis
- February 23, 1991 — Oak Creek Guard Station and in the forest (McDonald-Dunn Forest)
- May 8, 1995 — Forestry Club Cabin, Oregon State University Research Forests, Corvallis
Where others mention them
Dates they give
- 1800 — The earliest records in New England have Rowleys in them, and as far back as we know is Saratoga County, New York, about 1800.
- 1800 — From 1800 on, I think.
- 1826 — When that tree fell in the undercut, there was an ax mark there opened up that we figured was made in 1826.
- 1826 — It was put on in 1826, which says that either an Indian or a trapper was in the area.
- 1826 — In 1979, Rowley (Jackson 1980; Rowley 1996) described “axe marks” dating to 1826 in a Soap Creek Valley tree near Lewisburg Saddle.
- 1830 — This plot is located in a stand that was seeded in about 1830 to 1840.
- 1848 — There are some portions of donation land claims within the school area, and these are areas that were homesteaded or settled before the Homestead Act, which, the Homestead Act was 1848, was it, or 1849?
- 1848 — I think most of them ended about 1848, and of course the Donation Land Claim gives the settlers I think 640 acres, but he could lay it out any way he wanted to.
- 1850 — The family came to Illinois about 1850, and on west the next generations.
- 1850s — The surveyors of the 1850s described McDonald Forest area as open savanna oak forest for the most part.
- 1850s — For instance, the original survey in the 1850s identified as much as six degrees variation along the west line of Section 6, T11S, R5W at the head of Soap Creek.
- 1850 — It was surveyed and the Homestead Act required them to take up surveyed areas, but I don’t remember any Donation Land Claims that go beyond 1850 at all.
- 1850 — In 1850, it would have been an open oak forest.
- 1850 — The ecology of the area—in 1850, we were looking at a savanna-type of forest in oak.
- 1850s — That was in the 1850s, and he sold it to a son-in-law.
- 1852 — Well, I think by 1852 they were taking up the area.
- 1870s — First, I’ve read stories, and then I’ve known in my lifetime people that were born in the 1870s that lived in this area.
- 1878 — And he told Harry Nettleton he’d sit on his front porch and watch the Indians go by after the 1878 uprising in southern Oregon.
- 1900 — I think this legislature we, if we get through the small woodland option bill that state forestry and the small woodland group have worked on, we’ll probably make the biggest headway since 1900 as far as small woodland owners….
- 1900 — Like I say, we don’t have any record of the real early mills, of where they were before 1900, but after 1900, especially the rebuilding time after the First World War, there were numerous mills scattered throughout the area.
- 1900s — And, other than that, it’s been like these old buildings that have been abandoned out there were probably built around the 1900s or so.
- 1900 — I followed it all the way through until after 1900.
- 1900 — It was in the family until about 1900.
- 1905 — In 1905, my father’s family moved to Seattle and my grandfather worked for his father-in-law in a sawmill where downtown Seattle is now.
- 1906 — His family moved to Seattle, and then to Portland about 1906.
- November 16 1906 — In the beginning, when a forestry curriculum was developing at Oregon Agricultural College under the tutelage of Professor Edward Lake, he and five students met on November 16, 1906, and officially formed the Forestry Club.
- 1907 — Noted in the minutes of a 1907 meeting is an item that “girls” not be allowed in the club.
- 1908 — In 1908, there were five freshmen and five sophomore members, one of whom was T.
- 1910 — About 1910, my grandmother, grandfather, and family came to Oregon.
- 1910 — In 1910, 22 students registered in forestry and the future Dean Peavy arrived on the scene.
- 1919 — He’d started working when he was thirteen as an office boy for a printing company, and his father died when he was—I think grandfather died in 1919 of the flu epidemic of the First World War.
- 1919 — I believe it was operating around 1919–1920, but as to how much earlier than that and how long it was there, I wouldn’t have a whole lot of information.
- '20s — During the ‘20s and ‘30s, the blacktail-deer population was hunted until they were getting hard to find.
- '20s — It was a work-and-play day and holds many a fond memory for those old times of the ‘20s and ‘30s.
- 1920 — The Annual Cruise was first published in 1920, and served as the school’s yearbook.
- 1920 — I found a piece of these sawmills, but they’re 1920 mostly.
- 1920s — We found the bottles occasionally, but I think they’re all 1920s or later, too.
- '20s — It’s not just Harry Nettleton’s management, but, if you look back to the ‘20s, and the ‘30s and the ‘teens, in the USDA Forest Service, Bureau of Land Management, Bureau of Indian Affairs, the first managers of the forests were basically preserving the forests.
- 1921 — Probably it was nearly finished logging by 1921.
- 1921 — I think they gave it to the School, the University, in 1921 or 1922.
In the Series Index
How to cite this item
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- As printed
- The Zybach Collection, Soap Creek Valley series: Marvin Rowley (person record).
- This page
- Soap Creek Valley: Marvin Rowley. America's School Trust Library, The Zybach Collection. https://schooltrusts.org/collections/zybach/soap-creek/people/marvin-rowley/
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