America’s School Trust Library The Zybach Collection

What changed in Soap Creek Valley?

A guided research trail · four stops · about 11 minutes

Historic photograph of the Moore family farm beside Soap Creek.
The Moore family farm on Soap Creek, about 1899 or 1900. Photograph by Samuel H. Moore.
Credit and original

Courtesy of Myra Moore Lauridson and the Soap Creek Schoolhouse Foundation, as credited on Bob Zybach’s original site. Creator’s original image

Follow a vanished town, a resident’s memory of Camp Adair, and the work of managing a research forest. These are different witnesses to a changing landscape.

Read the question, open the source, and keep an observation at each stop. Source links open in a new tab so your place here stays put. Download or print your notes and source links when you finish.

Four connected sources to explore

Stop 1 of 4

Where did the town go?

Read Bob’s short 1989 account of Tampico. Notice the difference between a place that disappears and stories that survive.

Tampico: Auto Tour stop 5

Keep the speaker or author, original work, and page or recording time with what you noticed.

Compare, download or print your notes ↓

Stop 2 of 4

What did change feel like to a resident?

Read Velma Carter Rawie’s answer on page 43. Her response to Camp Adair is a personal judgment; keep her voice distinct from the tour writer’s account.

Velma Carter Rawie, page 43

Keep the speaker or author, original work, and page or recording time with what you noticed.

Compare, download or print your notes ↓

Stop 3 of 4

Who else remembered Camp Adair?

Open the Camp Adair place page and follow one other narrator’s page reference. Compare what each person chose to remember.

Camp Adair: map and recollections

Keep the speaker or author, original work, and page or recording time with what you noticed.

Compare, download or print your notes ↓

Stop 4 of 4

What can a fallen tree tell you?

Hear Bob Zybach and Marvin Rowley discuss hardwoods, roots and soil. Follow the printed words, examine the original page and see Rowley in the forest. What would you want to check on the ground?

Listen and read with Bob and Marvin Rowley Read Rowley on the earlier forest management work ↗

Keep the speaker or author, original work, and page or recording time with what you noticed.

Compare, download or print your notes ↓

Your reading notebook

Put the sources together

Keep an observation at each stop, then compare what you found. A useful note names the speaker or author, the original work, and a page or recording time. Distinguish what the source says from what you think it means.

Notes stay in this browser; the Library does not receive them. They do not travel with a shared link or move to another device. Download a copy to keep them.

See a worked citation example →

What changed in Soap Creek Valley?

Follow a vanished town, a resident’s memory of Camp Adair, and the work of managing a research forest. These are different witnesses to a changing landscape.

Follow the same valley into Letitia Carson’s records →

All source links for this trail
  1. Tampico: Auto Tour stop 5
  2. Velma Carter Rawie, page 43
  3. Camp Adair: map and recollections
  4. Listen and read with Bob and Marvin Rowley · Read Rowley on the earlier forest management work

Follow another question

Questions and connections: the Library, with Codex assistance. Original sources retain their own authorship and rights statements. Some collection pages remain held.