National Park Service History Electronic Library & Archive

CRATER LAKE NATIONAL PARK, Oregon

The NPS History Electronic Library & Archive is a portal to electronic publications covering the history of the National Park Service (NPS) and the cultural and natural history of the national parks, monuments, and historic sites of the (U.S.) National Park System. Also included are documents for national monuments managed by other federal agencies, along with a collection of U.S. Forest Service publications.

The information contained in this Website is historical in scope and is not meant as an aid for travel planning; please refer to the official NATIONAL PARK SERVICE Website for current/additional information. While we are not affiliated with the National Park Service, we gratefully acknowledge the contributions by park employees and advocates, which has enabled us to create this free digital repository.

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Featured Publications

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Wilderness and the American Mind
(Roderick Frazier Nash, 2014)

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Wilderness in National Parks
Playground or Preserve
(John C. Miles, 2009)

The Wilderness Act (September 3, 1964)

The National Park Wilderness (Howard R. Stagner, 1957)

Wilderness in the National Parks—Now More Than Ever (Jay Watson, extract from International Journal of Wilderness, Vol. 2 No. 1, May 1996)

Wilderness Management in National Parks and Wildlife Refuges (Sandra B. Zellmer, May 2014)

Wilderness in the National Park Service (Resource Brief) (June 23, 2023)

The Path Not Taken (Richard West Sellars, extract from The George Wright Forum, v. 17, no. 4, 2000, ©The George Wright Society)

Wilderness and Natural Resource Management in the NPS: Another View (Bob Krumenaker, extract from The George Wright Forum, v18 n1, 2001, ©The George Wright Society)

Contributions to the Archaeology of Mammoth Cave and Vicinity, Kentucky (N.C. Nelson, Anthropological Papers of the American Museum of Natural History, Vol. XXII Part I, 1917)

Discover One of Oregon's Historic Grand Lodges: The Chateau at the Oregon Caves National Monument & Preserve (Nicole Possert, extract from Field Notes, Summer 2024; ©Restore Oregon

20th Anniversary Celebration, Voyageur National Park (Elmer L. Andersen, August 25, 1991)

Interpretation of Parks Through Use of Visual Aid Materials (H. Raymond Gregg extract from Parks and Recreation Magazine, May-June 1952)

More than a Waterfall: The Story of White Oak Canyon Nature Trail, an Experiment in Nature Education (Bernard Frank and Ivan Tarnowaky, c1947)

Cultural Landscape Report: West Potomac Park, Lincoln Memorial Grounds — Part 1 (August 1999)

The 19th Coast Artillery and Fort Rosecrans: Remembrances (Howard B. Overton, comp. and ed., 1993)

Historic Structures Report: Bluffs Lodge, Blue Ridge Parkway (Panamerican Consultants, Inc. and Wiss, Janney, Elstner Associates, Inc., August 2024)

Ethnographic Guide to the Archaeology of Mt. Rainier National Park (Allan H. Smith, July 1964)

The Mount Rainier National Park: Season of 1915 (1915)

Mount Rainier National Park (1917)

Forests of Mount Rainier National Park (G.F. Allen, 1916)

The Ascent of Takhoma (Hazard Stevens, extract from The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XXXVIII No. CCXXIX, November 1876)

Circular of General Information Regarding Crater Lake National Park, Oregon (1930)

Elbee Site (32ME408) and Karishta Site (32ME466), 2010 Archeological Test Excavations, Knife River Indian Villages National Historic Site, Mercer County, North Dakota (Dennis L. Toom and Michael A. Jackson, March 2012)

Elbee Village Site (32ME408), 2003 Archeological Test Excavations, Knife River Indian Villages National Historic Site, Mercer County, North Dakota (Dennis L. Toom, Michael A. Jackson, Carrie F. Jackson, Zachary W. Wilson and Robert K. Nickel, October 2004)

Historic Structure Report: Courtney Cabin, North Cascades National Park Service Complex, WA (Hennebery Eddy Architects and KPFF Consulting Engineers, April 2024)

Rebuilding the Walls of Fort Jefferson (Craig M. Bennett, extract from Structure, Vol. 20 No. 5, May 2013)

Cultural Landscape History for Fire Island National Seashore (Marstel-Day, Kristie Baynard, Kara Saffos and Paula Bienenfeld, 2022)

Cultural Landscape Report for Liberty Island, Statue of Liberty National Monument (Lance Guerro, John Hammond, James Mealey, Julia Miller, Carlos Silva-Trejo, Aidan Ackerman, Meaghan Keefe, Elise Robinson and Anna Tiburzi, 2024)

Cultural Landscape Report: Au Sable Light Station, Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore, Michigan (Quinn Evans, Land and Community Associates and Rachel Franklin Weekley, October 1998)

Historic Structure Report: Grand Marais UCSG Life Saving Station, Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore (October 2020)

Historic Structure Report: Rangers' Dormitory Building #21, Denali National Park and Preserve (Hennebery Eddy Architects, KPFF and Interface Engineering, Inc., May 2020)

Into the Unknown: The Logistics Preparation of the Lewis and Clark Expedition (©Donald L. Carr, Master's Thesis U.S. Army Command and General Staff College, 2003)

Ranger: The Journal of the Association of National Park Rangers (Vol 39 No 4, Fall 2023; ©Association of National Park Rangers)

Park Science (Vol. 38 No. 1, Summer 2024)

Natural Resource Condition Assessment, Lincoln Boyhood National Memorial NPS Natural Resource Report NPS/LIBO/NRR-2024/2617 (David S. Jones, Roy Cook, John Sovell, Matt Ley, Hannah Shepler, David Weinzimmer and Carlos Linares, January 2024)

Status and Trends of Springs at Hovenweep National Monument, 1999-2021 NPS Natural Resource Report NPS/NCPN/NRR-2023/2560 (Rebecca Weissinger, August 2023)

Men and Birds in Joint Occupation of National Parks (George M. Wright, May 6, 1934)

The Vegetation and Carrying Capacity of the Ocracoke Pony Pen, Cape Hatteras National Seashore CPSU Technical Report 13 (Kathryn Davison, July 31, 1985)

Horses on Ocracoke, Cape Hatteras National Seashore: An Information Review (Elaine F. Leslie and Kenet H. Redford, October 13, 2023)

Modelling Effects of Flow Withdrawal Scenarios on Riverine and Riparian Features of the Yampa River in Dinosaur National Monument NPS Science Report NPS/SR-2024/178 (Rebecca M. Diehl and Jonathan M. Friedman, September 2024)

Geologic Resources Inventory Report, Petersburg National Battlefield NPS Science Report NPS/SR-2024/190 (Trista L. Thornberry-Ehrlich, September 2024)

Geologic Resources Inventory Report, Washita Battlefield National Historic Site NPS Science Report NPS/SR-2024/188 (Katie KellerLynn, September 2024)

Landscape Phenology, Vegetation Condition, ,and Relations with Climate at Bryce Canyon National Park: 2000-2019 NPS Science Report NPS/SR-2024/189 (David Thoma, September 2024)

From public lands to museums: The foundation of U.S. paleontology, the early history of federal lands and museums, and the developing role of the U.S. Department of the Interior (Gregory A. Liggett, S. Terry Childs, Nicholas A. Famoso, H. Gregory McDonald, Alan L. Titus, Elizabeth Varner and Cameron L. Liggett, extract from Museums at the Forefront of the History and Philosophy of Geology: History Made, History in the Making, Geological Society of America Special Paper 535, 2018, ©Geological Society of America)

Cape Chronicle Newsletter (Cape Hatteras NS, Fort Raleigh NHS, Wright Brothers NMem)

2018: July 26 • August 2 • August 9 • August 15 • August 23 • August 30 • September 7 • September 20 • September 28 • October 4 • October 15 • October 26 • November 1 • November 8 • November 16 • November 21 • November 28 • December 13

2019: March 14 • March 21 • March 29 • April 5 • April 11 • April 19 • April 24 • May 2 • May 8 • May 15 • May 23 • May 30 • June 6 • June 12 • June 20 • July 3 • July 11 • July 18 • July 26 • August 1 • August 8 • August 15 • August 22 • August 29 • September 26 • October 4 • October 10 • October 23 • October 30 • December 5

2020: February 20 • March 3 • April 9 • April 15 • April 27 • May 22 • May 27 • June 11 • June 25 • July 9 • July 21 • August 20 • September 3 • September 10 • October 8 • October 15 • October 21 • November 5 • November 20

2021: March 3 • April 22 • April 29 • May 5 • May 13 • May 20 • May 27 • June • June • June 17 • June 28 • July 22 • August 6 • August 19 • August 26 • September 6 • September 15 • November 22

2022: February 11 • February 24 • March 21 • April 8 • April 11 • April 29 • May 5 • May 27 • June 30 • July 29 • August 25 • September 12

2023: January 11 • January 25 • January 30 • February 9 • February 23 • March 8 • March 23 • April 10 • April 25 • May 22 • June 13 • June 23

2024: April 30 • May 9 • May 23 • June 28

National Heritage Areas Program — A Year in Review: 2023

Statistical Abstract 2023 NPS Science Report NPS/SR-2024/139 (Pamela S. Ziesler and Claire M. Spalding, June 2024)

FY 2022: Deferred Maintenance & Repair Infrastructure Fact Sheets (FY2022)

Alternatives Newsletter for the General Management Plan and Environmental Impact Statement: Executive Summary, Lake Chelan National Recreation Area, Washington (March 1993)

Final General Management Plan/Environmental Impact Statement: Executive Summary, Lake Chelan National Recreation Area, Washington (June 1995)

Draft General Management Plan/Environmental Impact Statement, Grand Canyon National Park, Arizona (March 1995)

General Plan: Chesapeake & Ohio Canal National Historical Park, District of Columbia/Maryland (John G. Parsons, January 30, 1976)

Accessibility Assessment Summary of Findings and Recommendations, Acadia National Park (National Center on Accessibility Eppley Institute for Parks and Public Lands, December 2021)

Accessibility Assessment Findings and Recommendations, Thomas Edison National Historical Park (National Center on Accessibility Eppley Institute for Parks and Public Lands, August 2021)

Accessibility Assessment Findings and Recommendations, Lincoln Home National Historic Site (National Center on Accessibility Eppley Institute for Parks and Public Lands, January 2022)

Accessibility Assessment Findings and Recommendations, Fort Donelson National Battlefield (National Center on Accessibility Eppley Institute for Parks and Public Lands, April 2022)

Literature Review: Visitor Use Estimation for National Trails and National Wild and Scenic Rivers Systems (The Otak Team w/RRC Associates, September 2024)

Socioeconomic Data Needs Assessment: Visitor Use Estimation for National Trails and National Wild and Scenic Rivers Systems (The Otak Team w/RRC Associates, September 2024)

Proceedings of the Tacoma Academy of Science: Is it Mount Tacoma, or Rainier? (James Wickersham, 1893)

Before the United States Geographic Board in the Matter of the Proposal to Change the Name of Mount Rainier (May 11, 1917)

The Great Myth - "Mount Tacoma": Mount Rainier and the Facts of History (Olympia Chamber of Commerce, January 1924)

The Name of Mount Tacoma (A.H. Denman, April 1924)

Report of United States Geographic Board on S. J. Res. 64: A Joint Resolution to Change the Name of "Mount Rainier" to "Mount Tacoma" and for Other Purposes (1924)

Hearings Before the Committee on the Public Lands House of Representatives, Sixty-Eighth Congress, Second Session on S. J. Res. 64: A Joint Resolution to Change the Name of "Mount Rainier" to "Mount Tacoma" and For Other Purposes (January 9, 1925)

Mount Rainier or Mount Tacoma? (A.D. Martinson, extract from Columbia: The Magaine of Northwest History, Vol. 3 No. 2, Summer 1989; ©Washington State Historical Society)

DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR

1849-2024

In Touch With People
Conservation Yearbook No. 9
(1973)

A Guide to the National Parks of America (Edward Frank Allen, 1915)

National Parks (American Civic Association, Series 11 No. 6, December 1912)

President Taft on a National Parks Bureau (William Howard Taft)

National Parks — The Need of the Future (James Bryce)

The Need for a Bureau of National Parks (Walter L. Fisher)

Are National Parks Worth While? (J. Horace McFarland)

California and the Far West: Suggestions For The West Bound Traveler (K.E.M. Dumbell, 1914)

The Pacific Coast Scenic Tour (Henry T. Finck, 1907)

The Eleven Eaglets of the West (Paul Fountain, 1906)

Recommendations of the Large Industrial Artifact Advisory Panel (February 1991)

Reconnaissance Survey of Western Pennsylvania Roads and Sites (September 1985)

Special History Study: The Evolution of Transportation in Western Pennsylvania (May 1994)

A Legacy of Coal: The Coal Company Towns of Southwestern Pennsylvania Historic American Buildings Survey/Historic American Engineering Record America's Industrial Heritage Project (Margaret M. Mulrooney, 1989)

Two Historic Pennsylvania Canal Towns: Alexandria and Saltsburg Historic American Buildings Survey/Historic American Engineering Record America's Industrial Heritage Project (Sara Amy Leach, ed., March 1989)

Radio for the Fireline: A History of Electronic Communication in the Forest Service, 1905-1975 FS-369 (Gary Craven Gray, March 1982)

A Cultural Resources Overview: Prehistory and Ethnography, Wenatchee National Forest (Jan L. Hollenbeck and Susan L. Carter, April 1986)

Pacific Northwest Trail: A Report Based on a Joint Study by the Forest Service and National Park Service (June 1980)

NPS Reflections

Ranger Naturalist with party of visitors on the rim of Crater Lake National Park (George A. Grant/NPS photo)

The Extraneous And The Parks

By Dr. G. C. Ruhle, Park Naturalist

Originally our national parks were set aside with an expressed purpose of protecting the outstanding and peculiar values found within them. They were essentially in primitive state and the primitive was to be cherished and preserved. At the same time limited development was to be undertaken, so that visitors might come in reasonable ease to see, learn and enjoy. But always the scientific significance, the primitive character, the ideal of sanctuary for native life, both plant and animal, and the aesthetic appeal were to fashion park policy and operation. Any departure from these standards was to be regarded as unhealthful intrusion in the parks. Cultivation of crowds for the sake of records or profit was considered as unworthy violation of principle.

Within the past few years, numbers of visitors to national park areas have mounted to staggering figures, far surpassing a score of millions annually, and with these crowds come the many who understand not, neither do they love. Theirs is not a visit for inspiration, study, and appreciation of the natural phenomena. Theirs is not respect for cleanliness and order, for propriety and fitness and decorum, for consideration of the fellow who follows, let alone for generations unborn. Their wake is marked by roadsides strewn with bottles, cartons, and refuse, by vandalism to structures and natural features, by wildfolk with lives disrupted by unnatural feeding and fraternization, by waste meadows stripped of flowers and herbage, by charred masts in lifeless forests swept by fire. With decreasing revenues and man-power, park efforts have been futile to check and to minimize the devastation. The cry of alarm is rising from those who look beyond the use of national parks for picnicking, motoring, and conventional activities.

NPS employee standing in front of Crater Lake and Wizard Island in Crater Lake National Park (NPS photo)

Drastic possible measures have been proposed to curb impairment of the parks from overuse and inflated development. One hears of limitation of numbers admitted, of control of numbers of campers in campgrounds, of removal of overnight facilities to sites remote from principal features, of day-use of parks only. Some advocate a screening of admittees; it were interesting to discover what screening process and what criteria would be advocated.

It seems that greatest consideration should be given to that which is charged by law as proper use of the parks. My contention is that if we restrict attractions to the enjoyment and interpretation of the features for which the park has been set aside, the overwhelming tide of visitors will be stemmed and controlled, and the destruction of the primitive will be checkmated. This, too, is drastic, for by it such crowd impellents as ski carnivals, conventions, mass picnics, are out, as are golf links, pinball machines, and dress dinners. This means that such lures as skiing, fishing, and dancing, all laudable in their proper sphere, be reduced to an incident in, and not the purpose of a visit to a park. All "sports" inducements, such as ski lifts and competitive meets, are incompatible with proper use, as predicated by those who seek refuge in them for silence, relaxation, aesthetic inspiration and to marvel over God's handiwork. It means further that artificialities, such as our Lady-of-the-Woods, yes, even the popular firefall in Yosemite, deserve the ban which has been put on the Rock-of-Ages ceremony in Carlsbad Cavern and on the various "bear shows" in other parks.

A view of Wizard Island covered in snow. (NPS photo)

Crater Lake National Park has been exceptional in its resistance to the demands of a public seeking ordinary resort entertainment. Adequate, suitable divertissement of this type is and should be provided elsewhere than in a national park. We offer skiing, fishing, and similar diversions, but only as they may be the means by which one enjoys in fuller measure the natural wonders of the park. The Park Service welcomes the man who revels in wetting a fly in the singing streams of our parks while noting the exuberance of the companion ouzel, the sparkle of dancing waters, the caress of mountain breezes, the flowers nodding and dipping in the ripples, the diamond dew-drops on web and branchlet. Such a fisherman can have successful day fishing and still not catch a single fish. The Park Service beckons to the skier who delights in the wintery grandeur while gliding on langlauf through the somber forests on the mountains.

In the face of all of the serious impairment of the primitive in every national park, how can there be any question about the inadvisability of a "Come one, come all" program? Wilderness character is fragile and easily dissipated, and once lost, seems irrevocable despite our best efforts. The need for correction is urgent and delay is costly. Control what is offered to the visitor in a national park, and there will quickly be natural control of the visitor and visitor use of the park.

Text from Crater Lake Nature Notes Volume XIV No. 1 - September, 1948

A view from the top of Watchman Peak, just before sunrise. (NPS photo)

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