Soap Lake woman seeks town's memorabilia

Photos from 1960s to 1980s welcome

SOAP LAKE - It's winter and the small Soap Lake Information Center is closed until about March.

But that doesn't mean Denise Keegan's interest in the town's history has subsided.

Keegan, the center's manager, is looking for new items to add to the center's small museum area.

The town of 1,750 is known for mineral-rich Soap Lake's "healing waters." And there's photos in the center reflecting the town's heightened popularity during the early 1900's and the late 1920s.

That's when people heavily visited the lake to bathe in the waters.

Some of the visitors were World War I veterans seeking a cure for Buerger's disease, which causes skin ulcers and gangrene.

There will likely always be interest in the town's early years, as more than 500 people stopped by the center last year.

But today, Keegan's wish list includes Soap Lake photos from the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s.

"A lot of people don't realize their everyday lives are a part of history," she said.

She's also seeking photos of a Soap Lake homestead from 1901 that was once at the southwest corner of the lake.

Early settler Lucy Gray and her mother lived at the homestead and are believed to be the first people to settle in the area.

Although the museum area's full, Keegan will consider rotating new items to show if people find others to display. The photos don't have to be the originals, she added.

"I would love to find anyone with old mementos and pictures," she said.

The museum area is mostly hidden behind a large case of brochures. The last empty corner in the building is a small alcove area.

That's where she's storing 1930s-era wooden closet doors and slate chalkboards removed from Soap Lake's former Delancey-Houghton Elementary School.

She wants to set up a display showing the school's heritage because she's known many people who attended school there.

The school was sold to a Seattle man in early 2007 and was last used about four years ago as a center for afterschool and outreach programs, according to a Herald article from November.

Other pieces of Soap Lake's past displayed at the center include a small white bicycle license plate from 1963 and cloudy-looking glass pop bottles retrieved from the lake.

Scrapbooks of news clippings from the 1950s and 1960s are also on hand to flip through.

Keegan, 57, says she heard oral history told through the town's residents, but discovered there wasn't a lot of tangible history in Soap Lake. She started volunteering at the center after her children were grown and she had more time to devote.

So her work at the center "just kind of snowballed," she added.

She's said she's getting closer to being the older generation.

She traveled as a child because her father served in the Air Force, grew up in Grant County during the 1950s and returned to the area permanently in 1975.

During her travels, she absorbed the areas' histories she lived in by talking with others.

As an adult, her interest in history is noticed by others.

"Denise would love to see Soap Lake have its own museum, but she isn't one to wait around until that happens; she's passionate about preserving and sharing Soap Lake's unique history - now," wrote Eileen Beckwith of Soap Lake, in an e-mail to the Herald.

"She jumps right in and gets things done. She's created a mini-museum in the visitors' information center and always has her eyes and ears open for items of historical significance," Beckwith wrote.

Keegan can be reached at 509-246-1506.