After we had restored ourselves to the semblance of respectability with a bath and change of raiment, there was still time to walk about the town before dinner. It is built mainly along a broad, well-paved street and both public and private buildings are rather better than usual in towns of five thousand. The stores, shops, and theaters are above the average, the school buildings are handsome and substantial, and a new courthouse of imposing, classic design was nearing completion at a cost of a quarter of a million dollars. The chief source of the apparent prosperity of the town is the lumbering business with a pay roll of more than one hundred thousand dollars monthly. Klamath Falls is also the gateway to Crater Lake, to which the tide of travel is constantly increasing, and it lays claim itself to being something of a summer resort. The White Pelican Hotel, which, we were assured, cost nearly four hundred thousand dollars, is built over a mineral spring with a temperature near the boiling point and waters closely resembling Carlsbad in mineral constituents. There are elaborate baths and a swimming pool in connection with the hotel and its beautiful appointments and excellent service make it a delightful home for any who wish to take advantage of the waters. Motorists will find the White Pelican Garage, just across the street, quite the equal of the hotel for excellent service and up-to-date equipment. In fact, both hotel and garage would do credit to a place ten times the size of Klamath Falls. To be sure, Klamath Falls expects to be a place of ten times its present size in the somewhat indefinite future—several railroad projects are now under way which, when complete, will make accessible much more of the thirty-one billion feet of standing timber in the county and double the amount of productive irrigated land. All of which seems to justify the emphatic claims of the town’s Chamber of Commerce that “Klamath Falls is bound to grow, bound to grow on account of her great resources, timber, irrigated lands, water power, Nature’s play ground (America’s Switzerland) and railroad development!”
CRATER LAKE
From photo by Winter Photo Co., Portland, Oregon
IV
THE MARVELS OF CRATER LAKE
We left Klamath Falls early in the morning with high anticipation. Our destination was one of the great objectives of our tour, for were we not to see Crater Lake, which no competent authority would omit from a list of the seven greatest wonders of America, if not, indeed, of the whole world? The run, every mile of the way, is beautiful and inspiring, a fit introduction to the grand climax that greets you at the end. A few miles out of the town the road took us to the shores of Klamath Lake, which we followed to the northern extremity—a distance of some twenty-five miles. While by no means a perfect highway, we rejoiced to find it free from the bottomless dust that strangled us when entering the town—a few sandy stretches and a stony spot here and there were only pleasant variations compared with our experiences of the previous clay.
A short distance out of the town we passed two immense sawmills on the lake shore where the huge logs cut on the surrounding hills and floated to the mills are converted into merchantable lumber. Great log-rafts could be seen moored along the banks or being towed by little steam tugs. A railroad closely following the shore line gives outlet to the finished product. Klamath Lake is now playing a similar part in lumbering to that which Tahoe underwent thirty years ago and we must confess that it does not add to the beauty of the scene. Yet we realized when we ascended the long grades which brought us to splendid vantage points commanding practically the whole lake, that Klamath was very beautiful and picturesque—not the equal of Tahoe, it is true, but a lake that would attract many pilgrims on its own account were it not overshadowed by more famous rivals.
The day was rather dull and gave little opportunity to judge what the play of color might be under a bright, clear sky, but the lake is shallow and probably the blue monotone that we saw on Goose Lake would prevail under such conditions. On the opposite side the purple hills come up to the very shore and beyond them the wooded crests stretch out in a vast panorama to the blue haze of the horizon. Below us was an extensive marsh covered with reeds through which a monster steam dredge was eating its way and rapidly converting the reed-covered swamp into wonderfully fertile grain fields, some of which were already bearing bountiful harvests. Between the main body of the lake and Pelican Bay, an offshoot at the northern end, we crossed Williamson River, a broad, clear, full-flowing stream whose still surface was occasionally ruffled by the breeze.
Leaving the lake we sped onward over a level and fairly good road winding through meadows studded with pine trees and passing Klamath Agency, the capital of the Indian Reservation. Fort Klamath is a town of three hundred people just outside the reservation. The Indian trade and the outfitting and supplies required by tourists make it a lively place during the season—from July to September inclusive. The principal resource of the roundabout country, an obliging garage owner informed us, is cattle raising, in which most of the people of the town are interested directly or indirectly. It is a wonderful grazing country, since the grass is green the year round except when covered by snow, and wild hay provides winter feed in abundance.