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Original
Visitors
 A
Native American connection with Crater Lake has been traced back
to before the cataclysmic eruption of Mount Mazama. Archeologists
have found sandals and other artifacts buried 7,700 years ago
under layers of ash, dust, and pumice.
Accounts of the eruption can be found in stories told by the
Klamath Indians, who are descendants of the Makalak people. The
Makalaks lived in an area southeast of the present park. More
recently, other tribes populated the Rogue and Umpqua River valleys
west of the park. Tribal members visited the lower slopes of
Mount Mazama to hunt, fish, and gather berries, and climbed its
higher peaks or descended to the lake itself for religious purposes.
Crater Lake remains a significant part of the culture of the
Klamath Tribes today.
What's
in a Name?
On June 12, 1853, a group of prospectors from Jacksonville, Oregon
came upon a large body of water surrounded by sheer cliffs. John
W. Hillman exclaimed that the lake contained the bluest water
he had ever seen. Isaac Skeeters suggested they call it "Deep
Blue Lake." The men returned to Jacksonville where they
reported their discovery. However, with no prospect of gold,
it was soon forgotten.
In 1862, another party of Oregon prospectors found the lake.
Their leader, Chauncy Nye, decided to call it "Blue Lake."
Their account was published in the Oregon Sentinel. A year later,
the U.S. Army established Fort Klamath to ease hostilities between
Native Americans and settlers. Several soldiers and civilians
journeyed to see the lake. Sergeant Orsen Stearns was so awestruck
by what he saw that he climbed into the caldera and became the
first non-Native American to reach the lake's shore. Captain
Franklin Sprague soon joined him and suggested the name "Lake
Majesty." In 1869, newspaper editor Jim Sutton and several
others decided to visit Lake Majesty and explore it by boat.
By August, a canvas boat had been constructed and lowered to
the water. Five people reached Wizard Island and spent several
hours exploring the cinder cone. Sutton wrote an article describing
the trip for his Jacksonville newspaper. Instead of Lake Majesty,
Sutton substituted the name "Crater Lake." Though technically
Crater Lake rests in a caldera, not a crater, the name has stuck.
Becoming
a National Park
 In
1870, a young man from Kan sas named William Gladstone Steel
unwrapped his lunch from a newspaper. As he ate, he read an
article about an unusual lake in Oregon. The story sparked Steel's
imagination and he vowed to see the lake for himself someday.
Two years later, his family moved to Portland, Oregon, but another
thirteen years passed before Steel finally gazed upon the beauty
of Crater Lake. He was so moved that he decided that it should
forever be a public park. Steel's proposals to create a national
park met with much resistance from sheep herders and mining interests,
as well as from members of the United States Congress who thought
that managing a National Park would be too expensive. However,
a growing conservation movement greatly helped Steel's efforts
by promoting the idea of preserving natural areas.
The lake received some protection in 1893 as part of the
Cascade Range Forest Reserve, but for Steel, this was not quite
good enough. He continued to work, and on May 22, 1902, seventeen
years after he first vowed to protect it, Crater Lake finally
became one of the nation's first national parks.
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