Soap Creek Valley · Timeline
1860–1890
1860–1890. 70 dated statements, each one printed exactly as it was said or written, with the narrator and the page.
- 1860
This house remained standing over a century, having been torn down in 1860.
- 1860
Tampico, c. 1860. This watercolor was painted by William Ball in 1925 under the direction of OfAC history professor, John Homer, based upon the memories of several 1850s-era Tampico residents.
- 1860
McDonough was found cremated in his cabin on a nearby land claim— thought to have been murdered by several local residents—and this incident is believed to have had a bearing on Green Berry Smith’s closure of the town in 1860.
- 1860-01-23
Tampico was officially a town for less than three years.
- 1860-01-23
the townsite came into the possession of Green Berry Smith, by whom the plat was annulled and canceled on January 23, 1860.
- 1861
Do you know if have any family stories come through about, say, the flood of 1861 or the snow storm in 1883?
- 1861
Did he, had he lost that eye by the time he was a child, or could that have been the snowstorm of 1861 maybe?
- 1861-1865
Grandpa Hanish came from Austria with his parents when he was a small child. Later in life he met a girl who also came from Austria. They married and had two sons: Fred and Harry, and four daughters: Lora, Nora, Cora, Erma. Grandpa Hanish served in the civil war, and died in the Old Soldier House, Terra Haute, Indiana.
- 1861/1865
My husband's grandmother [Elizabeth Schultz (1836-1935)], was fifteen years old during the Civil War and she used to tell me stories about that.
- 1861
The snowstorm of 1861 likely killed a majority of the livestock in the Willamette Valley (Oliphant 1932), including herds based in Soap Creek Valley.
- 1861-1865
Economic depression, brought about partly by the Civil War, prevented local farmers and ranchers from rebuilding their herds for several years (Oliphant 1932; Longwood 1940).
- 1861
Catastrophic snowstorm kills thousands of livestock in Willamette Valley
- 1861
After the town was disbanded in 1861 (Zybach 1989; Zybach & Meranda 1989), it is unlikely many people bothered to sing or repeat the Tampico Song; several however, thought it worth preserving, and it has continued to survive in many forms of publications.
- 1862
Was 1862, wasn’t it?
- 1862
Thilenius (1968) traces general Willamette Valley oak woodland development to 1862, but relates forestation process only to cessation of Indian burning and doesn’t factor in potential effects of livestock-killing snows, floods, and freezes of 1861-1862 (Tables 10 and 11).
- 1863
15 Sept 1863 Webbs Mills, Chemung Co.
- 1864
de Ruchie, as he was known, was born 1 August 1864 in Portland, Maine.
- 1864
She's the one that came with an ox team, wagons and ox team, in 1864. And settled down by Amity And she was lots . . . she was the oldest one in the family She was quite a bit older than my father. And her kids were all grown and married and moved, and we didn't move to where
- 1870-1880
A two story hotel was constructed on this spot sometime around 1870 or 1880.
- 1870s
So he was watching them, this was in the 1870's or '80's, this is from the Indian Wars, as they were putting people back on the reservation then?
- 1870s
She said just one year, and before that I thought it was back to the 1870's.
- 1870s
Neither were you if it was 1870's.
- 1870
Nellie Wilson was born 5 March 1870 in Mackinaw, Illinois.
- 1870
Charles Metge entered the U.S. headed for Wisconsin in 1870.
- 1870
Do you think there's the same vermits and insects in the 1870's when they were raising wheat?
- 1870s
The farm you were living on was settled by a Black lady [Lettia Carson] and there was also near Wells, a Black man [Lew Sozahworth] that lived there in the 1870's a couple of the very few Blacks in the Pacific Northwest.
- 1870
Now, theres another story in which the Blakes talked about two girls that rode up to their house in the 1870's or 1880's and they stuck their riding crops in the ground and both crops started growing.
- 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.
- 1872
No, because my dad wasn't born untill 1872.
- 1872
This former portrait of Tolbert Carter may have been taken as early as 1872, when he was first elected to the Oregon State Legislature as the Benton County Representative, or as recent as 1895, when he was serving a 4-year term as the Joint Senator of both Lincoln and Benton Counties.
- 1872
And I read in the paper somewhere, not too long ago, that 1872 was the end of the period that you could be considered a pioneer.
- 1872-03-09
the Survey known as County Survey #91.; in Tp 10 & 11 South, Range 5 W. of Will. Mer. in Benton County: Survey began at the original N.W. corner of the A.Writsman D.L.C.#47 Ran thence South on said line to the S.W. corner thereof. Reestablished said corner; thence N. 89°-58'E to the original corner of said Claim, thence North to
- 1878
Mr. Carter was prominent in early Oregon politics and server as a member of the state senate for two terms, having been first elected in 1878.
- 1878
1878. [Phil] I'm tiying to figure out what those hills are, that's Timber Hill and that's IV Hill behind it, there 's the ridge up in Dunn Forest. There's an orchard there and fir starling to move in here, fir back up in there. [Phil] But most of Vinyard Hill was pretty bare. And so you made this her letterhead.
- 1878
Oh, so this picture says 1878 on the background because these trees are older than six or seven years old. So this picture might be from 1890 or 1900.
- 1878
Well, as I said, the Mason's got onto it, when the, some of the Masonic carpenters worked on building grandfather's house in 1878.
- 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.
- 1879
" Wife, Josephine died 20 December 1879.
- 1880s
The community was originally named "Wells Station" when it developed as a railroad town in the 1880's and became known as "Wellsdale" until it was purchased by the government at the outset of World War II.
- 1880
She has outlived three houses, the present home having been built a good many years ago, in 1880.
- 1880
The Opera House was built around the 1880's I think, where Safeway's old parking lot is. They had traveling companies of players and I remember our high school had a play there once. It was a big rectangular building and quite a landmark.
- 1880s
There's records from the 1880's saying the soil was depleted then, so by 1904 that certainly had to be the case.
- 1881
Black and white copy of the 1881 cover of the "Merchant's Gargling Oil Songster." The original cover was printed in four colors.
- 1881
Copy of an 1881 bifi of sale to James Gingles for a piano to be delivered to the Wells Store.
- 1881-1882
The snowstorm of 1881-82 also had a devastating effect on local livestock populations (Oliphant 1932; Nettleton 1956; Jackson 1980; Starker 1984), and local landowners began to develop alternate strategies to produce income.
- 1881
Major snowstorm kills livestock, crushes buildings in Willamette Valley
Sources disagree
- 1883
Then that was the snowstorm in 1883?
Sources disagree
- 1883
By the early 1880s, a new generation of farmers and landowners had succeeded their pioneer predecessors in Soap Creek Valley.
- 1883-1914
Pastureland that had been dedicated to the production of beef and wool were being converted to wheat and oat crops and planted to commercial fruit and nut orchards. (Longwood 1940).
- 1885
Mount Jefferson appears in the background of this drawing of Coffin Butte, published in 1885.
- 1885
By 1885, Tampico had become a "ghost town." Only the local tavern and several colorful stories remained.
- 1885
Mary died 2 March 1885.
- 1885
By 1885 David Fagan was already designating Tampico as a "has-been" in the county
- 1885
But the glory of Tampico has departed, and for years past it has been a pasture for browsing cattle and nibbling sheep; only a few dilapidated houses remain (p. 455).
- 1887/1888
[See Starker and Berg oral histories regarding the "Blue Snow" of 1887-1888. BZ]
- 1887
So your dad and mom were probably married 1887?
- 1888
Your brother was born about 1888.
- 1888
So your dad came out here after 1888?
- 1889
No, I couldn't tell you, my mother and father [Louis Guideo Marcks] were married in 1889, Ithink.
- 1890s
In the 1890's many Corvallis residents took part in the new fad of bicycling by taking a trip to Sulphur Springs.
- 1890
Would that have been about 1890 that he did that or 1895?
- 1890
So this picture might be from 1890 or 1900.
- 1890
Well we were having a major depression here in the 1890's, but a lot of these people seem to have come about that time.
- 1890
Did they do it before the 1890's?
- 1890s
Where that cyclone fence is over there was an old [saw] mill from the 1890's.
- 1890s
1, Box 327B); it probably operated during the 1890's.
- 1890
Sometime around 1890, a regular practice of clearcut logging began in this section (Olson 1994), but the area and volume of large trees remained greatest for Soap Creek Valley (see Tables 14, 15, 20 and 21; Appendices F and G) until the entire stand was finally clearcut during and shortly after WW II (Sauerwein 1948; Jackson 1980; Rowley 1997).
- 1890
The national economic depression of the 1890s likely affected local families to a lesser degree than their urban counterparts due to a tradition and capability of self sufficiency.
- 1890
The establishment of local sawmills during the 1890s resulted in the first industrial clearcut logging in Soap Creek Valley and offered opportunities for local landowners to capitalize on forested hillsides that had previously held little financial value (Thomas & Schroeder 1936).
- 1890
First commercial sawmills begin operation in Soap Creek Valley
