A Century Of Splendor
by Michael Milstein, The Oregonian
Crater Lake National Park - After 100 years as a national park, Crater Lake has yet
to be "discovered."
Sure, it was long ago discovered by Native Americans, miners, scientists and early
champions who used it to cement Oregon's deep connections to the outdoors. And it
is rediscovered daily by Northwesterners and others from around the world who fall
in love with the lake's unbelievably blue waters under ever-changing light and sky.
But as Crater Lake marks its centennial on Wednesday as America's sixth national
park, with a proclamation by the governor and a campaign for a new park science center,
it records scarcely a half million visitors a year, fewer than any of the premier
parks created before it. Crowds are as rare at Crater Lake as they are common at
Yellowstone and Yosemite.
That turns out to be a lucky circumstance, not just for visitors but for national
park planning. It leaves all those who crest the crater rim and gaze at the lake
to discover it in their own way.
"Crater Lake could serve as an example of what the 21st-century national park
should be doing," said Rick Harmon, former editor of Oregon Historical Quarterly
and author of the new book, "Crater Lake National Park, A History." "It's
a new front-runner in part because people aren't overwhelming the place."
A series of centennial events is planned in coming months, celebrating Oregon's pre-eminent
lake and more. The climax will be a rededication on Aug. 25 of the park and groundbreaking
for a new $2 million Science and Learning Center. A commemorative license plate featuring
the lake should be available by then, with proceeds going toward the science center.
A $125,000 gift from Peter and Julie Stott of Portland will underwrite centennial
events and jump-start fund raising for the new center. The center, to house visiting
students and scientists and foster research in the park, will build on the park's
escalating value as a wildlife refuge and natural laboratory, said Superintendent
Chuck Lundy.
TR signs legislation After all, when President Theodore Roosevelt signed the bill
creating the state's only national park a century ago Wednesday, he fulfilled the
hopes of thousands of Oregonians who signed petitions backing the park. He also began
the memories of generations who would make it a must-see on family vacations.
But more than that, he saw to it that the country's deepest and purest lake and the
volcanic landscape that surrounds it would survive booming population and development
as a signature sight of Oregon, the Northwest and the nation.
"Had the founders of the national park system come back today and look at Crater
Lake, I think they would smile," Lundy said. "The lake is every bit as
magnificent today as it was 100 years ago."
Almost everything the founders of Crater Lake did aimed at exposing more and more
people to its magnificence. They sought roads and railroads, boats and even -- unsuccessfully
-- an elevator and tunnel to the lake's surface. Getting people to the lake, they
realized with a politician's savvy, was the only way to make sure they would appreciate
the place enough to protect it as the years rolled by.
"The average tourist," said Will Steel, the father of the national park,
"is willing to pay for his scenery but is not willing to endure hardship to
enjoy it."
Steel learned of Crater Lake through a newspaper that wrapped his lunch as a schoolboy
in Kansas. When his family moved to Portland, in 1872, the year Yellowstone became
the world's first national park, he asked everyone he could find about the legendary
lake.
A visit to the lake Finally, he visited it for himself in 1885, before roads, lodges
and campgrounds.
Standing on the rim, he later recalled, "the thought occurred to me that no
point around this wonderful cauldron had the hand of man yet desecrated with peanut
stands or other marks of desolation, and that something should be done to save it
forever for the people of this great country."
A clever showman, Steel already had made a name for himself by staging "illuminations"
-- colorful pyrotechnic displays -- on the slopes of Mount Hood to draw Portland's
attention to the peak on its doorstep. He also started the Oregon Alpine Club in
Portland, and its successor, the Mazamas, to popularize both mountain climbing and
the mountains they climbed.
"In addition to preserving the values of the outdoors, he also wanted to get
people there to experience them," said Sharon Howe, archivist for the Mazamas.
A Mazama outing in 1896 to Crater Lake may have been the first full-fledged tourism
venture to the lake, complete with package pricing, pack strings, cooks and camping
gear. On the trip, the group launched fireworks from the cinder cone that rises as
an island in the lake and christened the volcano that had exploded 8,000 years ago
to create the crater.
They named it Mount Mazama, after their own mountain goat mascot.
By taking scientists along on such trips, the Mazamas focused new public notice on
Crater Lake and started a legacy of park research that would later include big scientific
names such as the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. That, in turn, revived
the idea of a national park that had before hit opposition from lawmakers who considered
the growing list of parks too costly.
Other backers By then, the park proposal had won support from Gifford Pinchot, considered
the father of national forests; U.S. Rep. Thomas Tongue of Hillsboro, sponsor of
the bill to create the park; and John Wesley Powell, the Western explorer who then
was head of the U.S. Geological Survey.
"The scenery is of the same order as that of the Yosemite Valley or the finest
parts of the Yellowstone Park," Powell wrote to Congress. "The lake itself
is a unique object, as much so as Niagara, and the effect which it produces upon
the mind of the beholder is at once powerful and enduring. There are probably not
many natural objects in the world which impress the average spectator with so deep
a sense of the beauty and majesty of nature."
Once Tongue convinced other lawmakers the park would not cordon off any land vital
for mining, logging or other uses, his bill passed, and Roosevelt signed it on May
22, 1902.
Quickly new roads snaked to the crater rim and then around the lake, construction
began on a lodge, and the Southern Pacific Railroad began promoting the park as a
side trip for travelers on their way to or from Portland. But the progress did not
come fast enough for Steel; he called on political connections to have federal marshals
evict Crater Lake's first superintendent so Steel himself could take over.
A living history performance with an actor portraying Steel will travel the state
during the park's centennial.
Pleasing tourists The fledgling National Park Service, created in 1916, followed
Steel's lead, feeding bears and planting fish -- both taboo in today's parks -- to
please tourists. Park Service Chief Stephen Mather pushed to expand the park to encompass
Diamond Lake and Mount Bailey, seeing it as one of a grand circle of Western parks
that would also include Mount Hood.
While the powerful Forest Service fought off the expansion plan and held onto Mount
Hood for itself, postage stamps featuring the 10 most prominent parks of the time
included Crater Lake on a 6-cent stamp issued in 1934.
But a motorized country turned the park in later years from a destination by itself
to a stop on a circuit of the scenic West. Travelers sped through, instead of gathering
into crowds. By the 1960s more than half of visitors spent less than four hours,
and only 15 percent stayed overnight, even when a statewide movement prompted the
$30 million overhaul of historic Crater Lake Lodge.
And while Crater Lake's heavy snows, long winters and location off the beaten path
may isolate Oregon's park from the worldwide prominence and controversies that surround
the Yellowstones and Yosemites, it all secures Crater Lake a special place in the
eyes of everyone who sees it.
"There are only a few places that are expressly national, where everyone in
the nation knows about them, and this is probably one," said Steve Mark, park
historian. "This is one of those scenic places that were thought to embody the
greatness of the nation." You can reach Michael Milstein at 503-294-7689 or
by e-mail at michaelmilstein@news.oregonian.com.
Material used under Fair Use copyright law for educational purposes.
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