Who started Soul Train in the 60s before Don Cornelius and is it possible to see the tapes?

Soul Train was initially created by Don Cornelius in 1970, but its roots can be traced back to a show called "Soul Train" that aired in the 1960s as a local program in Chicago, which Cornelius later expanded. There are no known tapes of the very first broadcasts from the 1960s, as the early episodes are considered lost. However, many episodes from the 1970s and beyond were preserved and have been made available through various media.