EVENTS
OF HISTORICAL IMPORTANCE
1853—John Wesley Hillman and a group of prospectors discovered the lake and named it Deep Blue Lake. 1862—Chauncey Nye and party of prospectors, unaware of the previous discovery, accidentally visited the lake. 1865—Soldiers from Fort Klamath, without knowledge of previous discoveries, visited the lake and named it Lake Majesty. 1869—Jim Sutton, accompanied by David Linn and family, of Jacksonville, visited the lake and named it Crater Lake. 1873—First photograph, a daguerreotype, taken of Crater Lake by Peter Britt, southern Oregon pioneer. 1883—J. S. Diller, geologist, and Everett Hayden, of the United States Geological Survey, visited the lake. 1885—William Gladstone Steel, with Prof. Joseph Le Conte, Capt. Clarence E. Dutton, J. M. Brock, Jr., and others, visited Crater Lake. Mr. Steel suggested that a national park be established and a petition was sent to President Cleveland. 1886—The President issued a proclamation withdrawing 10 townships, including Crater Lake. Lake surveyed and sounded by the United States Geological Survey. 1888—First fish planted in Crater Lake by William Gladstone Steel. 1896—Mazamas visited Crater Lake and christened the ancestral mountain, of which only the caldera and lower slopes remain, Mount Mazama. 1902—Crater Lake National Park, created by congressional action, approved by President Theodore Roosevelt. First superintendent, W. F. Arant, appointed. 1907—First automobile driven to the rim of Crater Lake by Charles True, from Medford, Oreg. The Wocus, the first boat used in rendering a launch service to visitors, placed on the lake. 1912—Crater Lake Lodge, the oldest structure now existing in the rim area, was built. 1927—Crater Lake Ski Club organized. First annual ski races held. 1931—Sinnott Memorial completed and dedicated. 1932—The Watchman Observation Station completed. 1935—Park approach roads and highway to rim open for first time throughout winter.
OREGON CAVES
NATIONAL MONUMENT
Located 160 miles southwest of Crater Lake, the Oregon Caves National Monument in Josephine County, administered by the superintendent and staff of the Crater Lake National Park, is one of the most popular scenic attractions of Oregon. The caves, occurring at an elevation of 4,000 feet in the heart of the Siskiyou Mountains, are easily reached over hard-surfaced highways.
The monument is 20 miles distant from the famous Redwood Highway, between Crescent City, Calif., and Grants Pass, Oreg. Motorists to the monument turn off at Caves Junction, a small settlement at the junction of the Redwood and Caves Highways.
The caverns, also known as the “Marble Halls of Oregon,” were discovered by a pioneer bear hunter, Elijah Davidson, in 1874 when a bruin sought refuge in their darkness. Davidson, intent on a kill, followed close behind, aided by a flickering pitch torch. He made a cursory exploration, followed by others in later years, but he never viewed the many wonders of their interior as seen today by the visiting public. There are several miles of winding passageways, large rooms, and scores of fantastic formations weird in their eerie beauty.
The monument, covering 480 acres, was established by proclamation of President Taft on July 12, 1909. During recent years numerous improvements, such as new trails, steel ladders, illumination, and removal of obstructions, have been completed to make the caves more accessible and visits more enjoyable.
A limestone, long ago altered to marble, is the soluble rock in which the passageways were formed. The caves offer outstanding underground beauty along a route which brings visitors past their most attractive formations, the result of constant water action for many thousands of years. These formations assume odd, grotesque, and fantastic shapes, resembling draperies, flowers, fruits, palaces, and gargoyles.
The rocks of the region are complexly folded, faulted, and metamorphosed shales, sandstones, and minor bodies of limestone, intruded by vast amounts of basic igneous rock, most of which is now serpentine. The whole is crushed and squeezed into intricate and apparently hopeless confusion from the structural and stratigraphic viewpoint.
Here and there in sparkling beauty are exquisite miniatures of Niagaras, Gardens of Eden, cotton blossoms, forests, and castles. A number of the unusual features carry such strange names as Music Room, River Styx, Ghost Room, Dante’s Inferno, Paradise Lost, and Joaquin Miller’s Chapel. Paradise Lost is the most beautiful exhibit of the caves with its flowerlike stalactitic pendants adorning the walls of a room 60 feet high.