Deaths at Crater Lake National Park

1997

January 18

A Milwaukee, Oregon woman is killed when the snowmobile she was operating strikes a tree, on the North Road, between the North Entrance Station and Hwy 138. Mary Stewart Lanz, age 62, was at the park with members of her family. Oregon State Police initially investigated the accident. The Park Service was not alerted until several hours after the accident. Another snowmobile accident occurred about an hour later within in a mile of the first accident. One person was seriously injured. Because of heavy rains, the snow pack was extremely icy.

1996

September 11

Lodge employee, Kristen Gehling, 20, falls to her death on Mt. Thielsen. An Oregon National Guard helicopter flew in from Salem with special night-vision goggles and located the body at 2:55 a.m. in hazardous terrain and held off moving Gehling until after daylight.

1995

August 22

Dorothy Gifford, a 73 year-old Medford woman falls to her death from Sinnott Overlook. The woman was sitting on the stone wall, changing film in her camera, when she apparently fainted from the combination of high elevation and the effects of recent surgery and plunged 700 feet to the rocks below. 

September 24

An Aerospatiale AS 350 helicopter from Seattle, (heading for Las Vegas) crashes and sinks in 1,500 feet of water between Wizard Island and the Lodge. Several dozen Park visitors watched while the helicopter skimmed over the smooth surface of the Lake and then suddenly plunged into the deep water. Speculation is that the pilot, George W. Causey, 52, of Enumclaw, WA, became confused by the near perfect reflection as he flew toward the Lake reflection thinking it was the sky. There was no indication of engine problems. Killed, along with the pilot. was passenger Edward O. Tulleners of West Linn, on his 45th birthday. The helicopter was a seven passenger Eurocopter, built by the World’s largest manufacturer of civil helicopters. Little was recovered except for some shreds of the rotors and a seat cushion. In June, 1996, Park Superintendent Al Hendricks was quoted as saying, “The technology is there to proceed with recover. What we are struggling with is whether it’s worth it. Both families decided the bottom of Crater Lake would be a pretty good place (for the crash victims) to spend eternity.”

1992

September 16

Kerstin Hadelka, 23, of Gelsenkirchen, Germany, falls to her death inside the caldera, just below Rim Village. She had been traveling in the U.S. for less than a week. She and her friend were hiking below the Rim in a dangerous and closed area. He body was found about 300 feet above the Lake shore.

1991

October

Searchers spend three weeks slogging through four feet of snow looking for Glenn Allen Mackie, 33, of Brea, California. Snow had begun falling when Mackie’s car was first noticed in the parking lot. It contained his driver’s license, keys, passport, cash and toiletries. No trace of the man was ever found.

1990

July 27

A woman falls 700 to her death at Discovery Point at 3:20 p.m. The only eyewitness, besides her three children (Jeremy, 16; John, 7; and Brittany, 5) was former ranger, Bruce Black, who saw the fall from Wizard Island. Bruce resides at 850 N.W. Antelope Place, Corvallis 97330. The body of Della Marie Zielinski, 33, of Mead, Washington was recovered the next day. The Zielinski family had walked out beyond the warning signs to a narrow, rocky, spine-like ridge to gain a better view of Wizard Island. The mother was holding the youngest child when she lost her footing. The woman tossed the youngster to her teenager as she fell to her death.

1988

October 29

A hiker along the Pacific Crest Trail discovers the body of Douglas Cracker, one half mile north of Hwy 62. Cracker had died of a single shot to the head. In tracing Cracker’s movements, rangers discover that the young man had left his home in California on August 22 and later stayed in a Klamath Falls motel on the nights of October 7 & 8. On October 9, the motel managers drove him to Fish Lake so that he could hike the PCT, north. When no further word was received from him by October 19, the managers reported Cracker missing. Cracker was seen in the Rim Cafeteria on October 20. That afternoon he began hiking south on the Dutton Creek Trail. He set up camp on the PCT and stayed there one or two days before committing suicide. A note was found in his wallet. Between October 20 and 29 a black bear found the body and dragged it downslope. Ranger McGuinness and Van Horn were the first rangers to respond to the hiker’s report, but they had to call for assistance when they determined that the bear was present nearby. The retrieval operation pretty much killed the Park’s Halloween party that Saturday night.

1985

August 3

Ranger John Salinas discovers human ashes “not 20 feet from the Mt. Scott Trail, on saddle”. The plastic bag was removed. The label was posted into the Mt. Scott Lookout Log Book. “Cheri Mari Peterson, age 32, Place of death: El Centro, CA. Date of cremation: July 22, 1982. Mortician: Hems Brothers Mortuary, Frye Chapel and Mortuary Crematory, Brawley, CA 92227

1984

April 17

A light plane, flying in dense fog and drizzle, crashes into 140 inches of snow, 1000 feet north of the northern boundary of the Park. The pilot, Joseph Kemery, 26, and his wife Heather, 22, are both killed.

1982

July 5

Plane wreckage and three skeletal remains are discovered by a hiker near Huckleberry Campground, one mile west of Crater Lake National Park. The plane had disappeared on February 26, 1975, during a snow storm, with a Klamath Falls high school teacher and two of his students on board.

August 29

Patrol Ranger Alice Siebecker attempts to stop a slightly speeding, 1982 Volvo on the South Entrance Road. The driver refuses to stop and Alice gives chase. As Alice’s patrol car comes up from behind, the Volvo suddenly explodes, runs off the road, flies through the air and hits a pumice embankment 500 feet from the road. The driver, Amdris Merzejuskis, a German national, is instantly killed. The body remained in the wrecked car for four hours while the Jackson County Sheriff bomb squad and the F.B.I. check the car over for hidden explosives. The explosion was a military type of hand grenade which was being held in Merzdjuskis’s hand at the time of explosion. The German’s left hand was blown off, along with the victim’s face. Found during a search of the car was a knife, and a pistol, both stored in the driver’s door and a rifle was found in the trunk. Also found was several sets of identifications, all false, and two California license plates. The Volvo had been stolen from a car rental company out of San Diego, California. Merzejuskis is wanted in Texas for drug smuggling charges and had served time in federal prison. Amdris had either planned to use the grenade against the Park Ranger and had accidentally dropped the device or he used the grenade to commit suicide. Alice leaves the Park Service and returns to her former career of violin making.

1981

January 18

Paul Heron, age 77, long time boat operator at Crater lake, dies in Klamath Fall, Oregon. Paul began working at Crater Lake as an auto mechanic in 1933. He was placed in charge of operating the Lodge Company’s boats two years later. Mr. Herron made “several thousand” hikes up and down the Caldera wall during his 28 summers at Crater Lake. He retired in 1961 following a massive heart attack, but Paul continued to work part-time for the Lodge Company in an advisory position as a machinist until his death.

April 2

Monte Hawk, 21, from South Dakota is found dead, inside of his car at the Ponderosa Pine Picnic Area. Hawk had committed suicide by asphyxiation from Carbon Monoxide. Monte’s death note stated that since public schools were interested in allowing prayers in schools, it was “time to throw in the towel... I’m filled with much despair for this perverse society in which we’re forced to eek out a living. When one of the fundamental tenants of our Constitution separation of church and state is so blatantly challenged, I can only hang my head and cry...There’s a thin line between genius and insanity. I believe I’ve walked both sides of that line at times.”... A quantity of porno and sado masochistic magazines was found in his car. A partial burned pile of porno magazines was found along side the car. The vehicle had been reported stolen on March 21. The death note asked that Hawk’s mother not blame herself for what happened.

1979

May 27

Jerry Civitts is killed and passenger Sandra Coeiz is injured near the West Park Boundary, when the motorcycle they are riding slides out of control on a corner and strikes a tree.

1978

August 24

Massive air and ground search conducted by the National Guard and volunteers in search for a Cessna 182 that disappeared in the Crater Lake area with three on board, February, 1975. The search concentrates on a 50 square mile region in the southwestern portion of the park and the Northeast corner of Jackson County. The results were negative.

September 8

Gary Roden, 29, of Enumclaw, Washington, asks Ranger Hank Tanski for permission to leave his pack at the Visitor Center for a few hours while he explored the Rim Village area. When Gary did not return by closing time, Hank left a message and phone number on the door of the center and took the pack to Headquarters, returning to the Rim area several times during the evening, in search of Roden. Several days later, Hank discovered a postcard of Wizard Island in Roden’s pack saying, “I are on the island, and I’m not coming back alone.” This note, plus the report of several visitors say they had seen movement on the Island, prompted Tanski and Rick Kirchner to attempt a rescue in the Park’s Zodiac Raft which first required carrying the boat down the Cleetwood Lake Trail. As the craft arrived outside the boathouse, the door was flung open and Roden asked, “Are you looking for someone?”

Roden claims to have swum over to the Island with the idea of committing suicide by swallowing drugs, including cocaine. Roden had a change of heart and supposedly burned the drugs. He spent his first two nights in the Island’s crater, the next two nights under the trees and one night in the boat house. He also thought that the Island would be a quiet place to play his silver flute, which he had brought with him. Roden stated that the water was two cold to swim back, and waited five days for his rescue. The only food Gary was able to find was a shriveled up orange in one of the boathouses. On the way back to Cleetwood, as Hank was offering Roden part of his lunch, he asked Hank, “Are there any fish in the Lake?” Since this is the number one question asked by visitors and since Hank had heard the question all summer, he said he felt like pushing Roden overboard. It was later determined that Roden was a mental patient from Salem.

1977

July 4

Steven Hummerville, 14, of Wilmington, Delaware, falls to his death while attempting to climb down to the Lake from behind the lodge. His brother Mike, 15, is rescued after failing to reach his brother. The father, an engineer for Dupont, had planned to take the boys on a boat trip, following short noon-time nap in the Lodge. Steven’s mother had died the previous summer.

1976

September 10

Brian Thomas, 26, a Viet Nam veteran suffering from a severe case of post battle shock, arrives at Crater Lake, along with his wife, hoping that the peaceful, mountain surroundings will calm his troubled spirit. Brian had been threatening suicide while battling bouts of depression. Thomas spent much of the night, sitting in the Lodge lobby, wrapped in a sheet, talking and praying. Mrs. Thomas keeps an all night vigil, hoping to be able to intervene in case her husband becomes violent or dangerous to himself.

September 11

At about 8:00 a.m. Brian Thomas suddenly jumps up, announcing that he is going to kill himself, and runs out of the Lodge. Mrs. Thomas screams for help, and is quickly joined in the chase by the boat crew and several other Lodge employees. Thomas leads his pursuers along the Rim Promenade toward the Visitor Center and the Sinnott Overlook. Running down the long stone stairway, with the boat crew yelling for him to stop, Thomas, without missing a step, jumps to his death from the curving parapet of the entrance walkway in full view of Ranger Linda Appanaitis and a group of Park visitors.

October 13

Two hikers, from Texas, turn in to Park Headquarters a ripped and torn backpack they found while walking along a little used trail in the Sphagnum Bog area of the Park. The two Texans had been hiking the Pacific Crest Trail when they mistakenly took the abandoned spur trail into the bog.

October 14

While inventorying the contents of a nearly empty, dirty, ripped and torn backpack, Rangers Larry Smith and Marion Jack discover a Volkswagen key in a zippered side pocket. A suggestion is made to compare the VW key with a Xerox copy of a VW key from the Charles McCullar file, who was thought to have disappeared somewhere in the Park a year and half earlier. An “electric charge” went through the two rangers as the overlaid key made a perfect fit. A horse patrol, lead by Marion and Dave Lange set out immediately to search the area where the backpack had been found. At 1:30 p.m. the radio call came that McCullar’s remains had been found, scattered over and down a steep bank of the Bybee Creek drainage, four miles from Lightning Springs. The FBI is called in to complete the investigation.

McCullar’s cause of death is ruled by natural causes, but the mystery remains how it was possible for McCullar to have walked from the North Entrance, on top of 105 inches of new snow, 14 miles into Bybee Creek, especially considering that the young man was not prepared for winter survival. One theory is that McCullar may have followed snowmobile tracks, but the machines are not allowed into remote areas of the Park and secondly, the new snow was so fresh and deep, it would have been impossible for snowmobiles to have traveled the distance.

So, just how McCullar was able to get into the Bybee Creek drainage remains conjecture, as does his exact cause of death. The boy’s father remains convinced that his son was the victim of foul play because none of McCullar’s expensive camera equipment was ever found.

1975

February 26

A blue Cessna 182, with a Klamath Falls teacher and two of his students on board, is reported lost at 9 p.m. about 35 miles northeast of Klamath Falls. Searchers feel the plane possibly could have gone down over the Park. No wreckage found. (See July 5, 1982)

Summer

A massive ground and air search is conducted for Charles McCullar at the direction of the young man’s father. Mr. McCullar spends much of the summer camped at various locations in the Park searching most of the Northern area. During a one week period, YCC and Park personnel conduct a through grid search for the boy along the North Entrance Road. No trace of young McCullar is found until October 14, 1976.

1972

March 5

Miss Jean Steel, daughter of Judge and Mrs. William G. Steel, passes away in Walla Walla, Washington. Miss Steel worked at Crater lake as Park Commissioner, following her father’s death before joining the Veterans Administration in Alaska and Washington State.

1971

March 28

Nick Carlino of Grants Pass, Oregon disappears while snow shoeing along the Rim, just west of Rim Village. When his German Shepherd returned to the Cafeteria Building alone, Nick’s wife instituted a search. Calino’s snowshoe tracks were traced to the Crater’s edge where they abruptly disappeared, giving the impression that Carlino had been carried over the edge on top of an avalanche when the cornice broke loose.

April 7

Nick Carlino’s body found in approximately five feet of water, encased in ice, near the base of the fatal avalanche.

1970

August 17

Skull of F-6-F Hellcat pilot found by Seasonal Ranger David Panebaker, one half mile from the 1945 crash site near Mt. Scott. Navy identifies the Hell Cat’s pilot as Ens. Frank R. Lupo, 22, of Newark, N.J. David Panebaker had become lost while searching for the crash site. While sitting on a log wondering which direction to continue exploring, David had a feeling that something or somebody was looking at him. As he glanced about the trees, David discovered the skull “staring” back at him from beneath a nearby log.

Labor Day

Fatal heart attack in Rim Village.

1969

August 17

Tina Bassett, 14 years old of Grants Pass, Oregon, falls to her death while short cutting the Cleetwood Lake Trail. Tina, the daughter of a State Senator, was walking down to the boats with an older woman. Upon hearing the boat engines running, Tina expresses fear that the two of them might miss the boat. Tina asks permission to hurry on ahead. Approaching two fisherman ascending the trail, the girl inquires if there is a shortcut down to the dock. One of the men suggests that she cut on down along a rocky ridge directly above the dock. Soon after walking out on the rocky ledge, Tina slips and falls to her death in full view of the loaded Lake launch. An Oregon State Patrolman is quickly to her side, administering first aid, but the girl soon dies of a broken neck.

October 24

A pickup camper rolls into Annie Creek Canyon killing the driver, Cecil Armstrong, and critically injuring his passenger. The passenger spends the night trapped in the canyon before being rescued.

1968

August 30

The body of murder victim, George S. Mear of Florida, is found by a family camped at Mazama Campground, while out searching for fire wood. Mear was apparently beaten and stabbed to death outside of the Park, stuffed into a sleeping bag liner and dumped just off the access road into the Pole Bridge gravel quarry. Mear had just been mustered out of the Army and was spending the summer traveling across the country with hopes of landing a job somewhere by fall. The FBI determined that Mear had been dead for about 3 days and that he had eaten a Chinese dinner prior to his death. His stolen car, minus his camping equipment and camera was found several weeks later on a side street in Fresno, California, with his camera equipment showing up in a pawn shop. No motive has been established and the case has not been solved.

When Billy Baker, the first ranger on the scene radioed that the victim was a male, Dispatcher Larry Smith asked how he knew this. Baker, rather impatiently radioed back, “I can see the hair on his legs” (sticking out of the sleeping bag liner).

1963

August 2

Fatal on-the-job accident, when a dump truck backs over a construction worker during the rebuilding of the South entrance road.

August 7

Fatal heart attack.

Summer

A woman passenger is killed when the family’s travel trailer runs off the road near the Pumice Desert and flips the car. The children become hysterical when they hear the news of their mother’s death over the Ranger radio while being transported to the hospital. Chief Ranger Buck Evens institutes a strict policy of keeping the car radios turned down in the presence of family members.

1962

August 30

Natural death occurs in Mazama Campground.

1961

August 16

Park Rangers aid in the investigation of a fatal auto accident on Highway 230. (now Hwy 138)

1960

November 27

Larry Ralph Peyton, the 19 year-old son of Ralph & Kathryn Peyton, Crater Lake Lodge owners, is found stabbed to death in his car which was parked at Forest Park in Portland. Peyton had been stabbed 23 times. The interior of the car showed evidence of “a terrific struggle”. Missing and presumed kidnapped or slain was Peyton’s girlfriend, Beverly Ann Allen, also 19, from Washington State. Peyton and Allen had met the previous summer while employed at Crater Lake Lodge. Miss Allen had been visiting the Peytons during the Thanksgiving weekend. The two college students had left for an evening drive following dinner. Allen’s body was discovered nearly two months later lying in roadside brush, alongside a highway, west of Portland. (The murders were eventually solved 10 or so years later, but not conclusively.)

1956

Summer

Photographer falls to his death while attempting to photograph the Phantom Ship at Sun Notch.

Mission: 66 instituted. Mission: 66 was a national, ten year program to update National Park facilities. Crater Lake would never be the same again. Roads were rebuilt, permanent housing added and new life was added to older, historic buildings.

1954

Teen-age girl falls to her death while hiking along the Rim between the Sinnott Overlook and the Lodge. Her sister works at McLoughlin Junior High School in Medford.

July 19

Fatal heart attack.

Mid-1950’s

A woman is killed when the car her husband is driving strikes a tree on the West Road. She was declared dead by her doctor husband.

1953

June 12

Edmond Clark of Cave Junction, Oregon, falls to his death in Castle Creek Canyon while trying to take a photograph.

1952

March 15

Ernest P. Leavitt, Park Superintendent since 1937 retires to Central Point, Oregon. At the time of his retirement, Mr. Leavitt had served the longest of any employee within the National Park Service; 46 years. In a letter dated August 11, 1978 Mrs. Katherine Leavitt writes, “I have lots of interesting memories - some about the bears. They were in our home twice - resulting in the death of the second one. Also one wrecked the upholstery in Mr. Leavitt’s car the day before he was to meet the director. Mr. Levitt formed a children’s bottle brigade to pick up bottles and debris in the Park after gasoline rationing was over and visitors came in droves scattering bottles along the roadsides and leaving Kleenex blossoms on the shrubbery.”

July 19

Albert Marston Jones, 56, of Concord, Calf. and Charles Patrick Culhane, 52, of Detroit, Mich., are found murdered on the South Road, 3.5 miles north of the south boundary. Both men were executives with United Motors Service, a subsidiary of General Motors. The case has never been solved. The two men, taking a shortcut through the Park, had driven on ahead of their wives, agreeing to meet at a summer cabin at Union Creek. The men’s wives found the car the men had been driving, a green 1951 Pontiac, parked along a turnout overlooking Annie Creek Canyon. The doors to the car were standing open. When the missing husbands could not be found, the rangers were alerted. The two bodies were found a short time later, about a quarter of a mile off the road, in an open stand of Ponderosa Pine. Both men were found with their hands bound with rope, their shoes removed and powder burns to their heads, indicating an execution style of murder. The two men had been gagged but not tied up. Their stockings were clean which indicated they had not walked after removing their shoes. While Jones’ shoes were lying nearby, Culhane’s shoes were never found. In the excitement of the discovery, dozens of people trampled the murder site, destroying much of the evidence. Since the entrance rangers during these years recorded the license number of every car entering the park, the FBI began a massive investigation, taking years to trace each tag number. Some people were even tracked to Europe. Several local suspects were identified, but lacking hard evidence, no arrests were ever made.

Virginia Jones Cota, A.M. Jones’ daughter, always felt that the killing of the two men was actually a murder, made to look like a robbery. Even though over $300 was taken from their wallets and their watches taken, the men’s luggage was left in the car. In a letter to his daughter one month before he was murdered, Jones wrote, “Things are worse than they have ever been.” In a letter dated, Sept. 29, 1990 to the Mail Tribune, but never mailed, Ms. Cota writes, “I know who was responsible for my father’s murder. I don’t know the murder’s name, but I know the organization that arranged for my father’s death. I just don’t believe the story that it was a simple robbery. I have a feeling there was so much more to this, that the people who killed them knew them.”

1949

September 29

Fatal auto accident, with one injured critically.

1948

August 6

Fatal fall of Lodge employee near Vidae Falls.

1947

July 4

A Park visitor, Mr. Cornelius suddenly hands his startled wife his billfold and watch as he sits down on a snow chute near the old Lake Trail, and slides to the Lake attempting suicide. Since the fall only broke his leg, Cornelius crawls to the water’s edge and drowns himself.

1945

December 3

Grumman Hell Cat fighter plane crashes east of Skell Head. The remains of the pilot are found 25 years later. A group of seven planes had left Redding, California heading for Washington. As the formation entered clouds near the Park, one of the planes disappeared. The seven plane squadron was part of a larger group of 100 F-6-F Hell Cats heading eventually to San Diego. The planes were flying in squadron of 4 each, flying at 21,000 feet. The squad master saw Pilot Frank Lupo trying to switch his gas tanks. Apparently the switch failed, the engine quit and the Hell Cat was last seen heading down through the clouds. The official investigation of the crash was conducted in 1970, following the discovery of the Lupo’s skull. (See entry for: August 17, 1970)

1944

April or May

Dan Jackman (899-8719 of Jacksonville) reports that he while was stationed in Klamath Falls when a Grumman Torpedo plane TBF-VC 88-9=89, was reported crashing into the Lake. Two planes were flying in formation near Mt. Scott, when one partner turned away and when he looked back, the other pilot was gone. The government kept the crash a secret because they did not want it to get out to the enemy. The pilot did not actually see the plane go into the Lake. Jackman reported that 2 or 3 planes crashed each week near the Army air base in Klamath Falls.

Another plane story says that a SNJ trainer went down late fall of 1944, while heading north and was never found. The pilot and turret gunner were lost. Another time a plane’s engine quite over the park and the plane was guided southeast until it crashed into either Agency or Klamath Lakes. (Dick McCullock, 826-7237 and Tony Gallo 779-4611)

1942

June

Fatal fall of man over rim near Sinnott Memorial Overlook.

1939

September 26

Search for missing person, but never found.

1938

October 21

Fatal heart attack.

October 23

Road laborer killed on the job after being hit by blasted rock.

1937

May 31

Young lady falls to her death near Sinnott Overlook.

1936

July 20

Fatal fall from below Sinnott Memorial Overlook.

1935

August 31

Fisherman drowns in the Lake, near Wizard Island, when his boat overturns.

Winter 1935 - 1936

Twelve year old Frances Fraley falls to his death from behind the Lodge, during a snow outing with a Christian Endeavor group up from Medford. Apparently he rode a sled over the edge. Fraley’s body was never recovered. (Story related by Mrs. Brainerd of Jacksonville.) Some accounts say that he was 16 or 17 and that he fell while skiing and that the accident happened in 1938 or 39.)

1934

April 12

The bodies of Doris Sparks, 27, and Audrea Mardelle, 33, Hollywood beauty demonstrators are found 150 below the East Entrance Road in Sand Creek Canyon. The two women had driven around a road-closed sign and while turning their car around in the snow, the Chevrolet car plunged through a weakened guard rail. The two women had been the object of an intense search covering the Northwest for 6 months. Their bodies and the car were found by snow plower operators as the East Road was being opened. The broken guard rail lead to a further investigation and the discovery of their wrecked car. Fearing the two had driven into the Columbia River during a heavy fog, the local sheriff drug the river in several places searching for the car. An airplane search was also conducted. Apparently the accident happened on November 12, based on their intended travel plans. They left Spokane on the 11th of November and drove all night, planning to meet friends in Klamath Falls the next day. The two beauty experts had asked a service station operator in Crescent, Oregon about road conditions to Crater Lake. He warned them to not attempt to enter the Park because of heavy snows. The Park Service, based on this information, searched Sand Creek Canyon in November, but no trace of the car was found at that time.

August 7

Fatal auto accident near Pumice Desert. George Pomeroy of Albany, California, is instantly killed when a tire blows out on a car he is driving, on the Diamond Lake Road, approaching Crater Lake.

November 21

Judge William Gladstone Steel, The Father of Crater Lake National Park, dies in Medford, Oregon and is buried in his NPS uniform. Jean Steel, the Judge’s daughter, is appointed Park Commissioner. Will Steel and daughter Jean, had lived out Will’s final two years at Cargill Court, 6th & Ivy Streets in Medford. His final days, at least the last few months, were spent at the Medford Hotel.

The epitaph on Will Steel’s grave marker, in Siskiyou Memorial Park in Medford, reads, “The Father of Crater Lake National Park”, while the epitaph on Mrs. Steel’s graver marker reads, “The wife of William Gladstone Steel.”

In the Mazama yearly report, C.H. Sholes writes of Steel, “If I am to write about my friend of forty-seven years, I must write as I knew him. Steel was more than an enthusiastic dreamer. He had vision; he walked among the stars. And he had indomitable will...an unyielding and tenacious as gravitation. Integrity of soul he had, and plain old-fashioned honesty, as immaculate as the skirts of God. To have known Will Steel intimately...to have received into the sanctuary of his confidence and love...was a greater honor than to receive a patent of nobility from the highest potentate on earth.

“There are literally hundreds in Oregon and Washington and a scattering all over the United States who owe the unforgettable glory of their first ascent of Mt. Hood to Will Stell. Of that fortunate company who will ever forget his rapt smile when at last the slowest climber in the lot...with palpitating heart, eyes glowing with triumph, gazed spellbound upon the scene? Never impatient, tactful and smiling, he measured his footsteps to the weakest; and if one dropped painting in the snow he halted the line to cheer and encourage. ‘Getting on fine,’ he’d say; ‘soon to be on top!’

“In private life Steel served as faithful public servant for some years, and he engaged in various business enterprises, some of which were moderately successful. One was financially catastrophic...With two partners the firm was conducting a prosperous real estate business in Portland. They had a large deal on...which had been delicately nursed for weeks...success was at the apex...there would be a million dollars honest profit...the deal would be closed tomorrow...today the cable from London announced the fall of the great house of Baring Brothers!”

“With the tragic sequel that a few days before the option on the coal land would expire, Steel, borrowed $25,000. Steel told us the story in January ‘33...with smiles and tears...but they were tears of triumph! Just two weeks before, in December ‘32 he made the last payment of principal and interest...after a thirty-two year struggle!...And he had two dollars left, but owed not a nickel. January First came his monthly salary...and immediately he made his long-contemplated visit to Southern California.”

“No words...certainly no words of mine...can add to or exalt such integrity and simplicity as Will Steel exemplified in his eighty years of struggle. He left no perishable fortune, but he did leave an imperishable monument in Crater Lake National Park, for which he labored incessantly seventeen years. Still another gigantic work, completed just before his death, is a collection of 58,000 place-names, giving their origin and significance as gleaned from authentic sources, covering every country in the forty-eight States. To this Herculean task he dedicated sixty years of his life. Concurrently he complied forty-nine scrap-books of 200 pages each, covering every phase of current history.”

“And so, instead of weeping, or regretting his passing, let us be grateful that he was our friend, and that he has left the stamp of his unswerving honesty, his devotion to truth, and his fealty to his friends...Let us cheer our departed comrade on his way. Climb on, Will Steel, climb on...and on...and on!”

Mid-1930’s

Ann Strong, Box 25, Lions Bay, B.C. (Vonzeo) recalls reading a newspaper article about a Mafia murder at Crater Lake. The article stated that four men had been arrested for stabbing to death another man, and dumping his body somewhere on the Rim, above the Lake. (related, July, 1982)

1933

September 27

Fatal fall of woman off trail alongside Rim Road.

1932

Two years before his death, Will Steel writes, “Why were national parks created? Somewhere in musty legal documents it says they were created for the benefit and enjoyment of the people of the United States. A beautiful dream exists that they were created to maintain forever, nature in its wildest, most primitive state, without stroke or strait.”

“The government has spent millions of dollars to make them available to visitors, who were assured that everything would be done for their benefit and enjoyment. To this end roads and trails have been constructed, buildings erected and many other things done, including commercializing of everything in sight. Which plan shall be maintained?”

Superintendent Solinsky proposes an “Alex Sparrow Memorial Parkway” to run from the town of Trail on the Rogue River to the national forest boundary at River Bridge.

September 11

Fatal stroke at North Entrance.

1930

January 22

Death of Steven Mather, first director of the National Park Service.

November 17

Chief Ranger William Godfrey dies near Pole Bridge Creek after attempting to travel by foot from the South Entrance to Annie Spring, in a snow storm, after his car became mired in a snow drift. He left a wife and three children. A search party found him alive, but he died soon after his rescue. “Garden of the Gods” was changed to “Godfrey Glen”.

The following oral story was told to the authors by former CLNP ranger, Rudolph Luech, 88, May 16, 1992. Thirty inches of snow had fallen during the month, trapping a number of winter visitors and knocking down the phone lines into the Park. Chief Ranger Godfrey, in an effort to find out how everyone was doing, drove from K.Falls to the West Entrance, but found the road blocked by snow. The Chief then drove back around to the South Entrance and spent the night in his car. Early in the morning of the 17th Mr. Godfrey called the phone operator at Ft. Klamath from a nearby phone informing her of his decision to ski into the Park in hopes of meeting a snowplow. Meanwhile Ranger Luech, after learning that most of the trapped visitors were from Medford, directed the snow plow to open the West Road. Upon returning to the Annie Springs Checking Station, Luech checks the phone and finds the lines repaired. The Ft. K operator informs Rudy that the Chief was in the process of skiing into the Park. Since Godfrey hadn’t arrived a search party was organized. The group, led by Rudy, found Godfrey around 11 p.m. The Chief only lasted a few minutes before dying in Luech’s arms, probably of hypothermia.

1926

1926 Season

Man falls to his death near Lake Trail.

1917

1917 Season

State of Oregon relinquishes all jurisdiction in the Park. West Rim Road graded to Llao Rock and the East Rim Road is graded to The Wine Glass. Chief “powder monkey” Turner is killed while blasting for the Rim road. A small charge miss fires.

1911

January

Benjamin Heidel, U.S. highway engineer, Martin Erickson, Supervisor of the Crater National Forest and Harry Hicks of the Rogue River Valley University Club of Medford, set out for Crater Lake. “It is currently stated that no more than ten white persons have ever gone to Crater Lake in winter.” They start walking at Eagle Point because of deep slush on the roads. The group camps the night at a contractor’s camp at Flounce Rock. The third night is spent at Prospect. Only two trappers are found in the whole town. The great snow depth requires the use of snowshoes. Their fourth night is spent at Mill Creek Ranger Station. They spent the fifth night in 12 feet of snow, east of Union Creek. The 6th night is spent in relative comfort in the Superintendent’s house at Annie Spring and the seventh night is spent at the Rim Hotel, waiting out a raging storm. The party discovers Barkowski’s photography equipment, but no trace of the photographer is found. The three men sit out three days of gale force wind and falling snow. Finally, when the sun comes, the team is able to take the first winter photographs of the Lake. Their complete trip takes about 18 days. (Sunset, March, 1912)

February 22

“Photographer, B.B. Bakowski, of Oregon City, who left Ft. Klamath three weeks ago to secure photos of Crater lake in mid winter has been lost in the deep snows that now surround the Crater. Frank Burns and Albert Gipson started out to try and locate the missing adventurer. They found Bakowski’s sled and shovel one and half miles south of the Rim. His camera cases were found at the hotel, but his supplies were missing. Blizzard and gale raging for over three weeks, buried most clues to the man’s disappearance. His camp and supplies and a ten food snow tunnel were located, but not his body.”

1910

Summer

Iva Clark (Park), 16 and brother Theo Clark, 14, from Portland, while canoeing on the Lake, end up spending the night on Wizard Island because of bad storms and high winds. Their mother spends the night at the Lake shore, below the Lodge thinking her children have drowned. She met them with tears and blankets when they paddled back in the morning.

Superintendent’s residence built at Anna Spring. Large forest fires in the Park. Two men lost in the forest of the park and are never found.

1872

Dr. Munson of Fort Klamath dies of a heart attack while climbing Munson Point, while looking for the Lake. Munson Point was named by Captain O.C. Applegate. Also included was Munson Spring, Munson Valley and the various branches of Munson Creek. The bluff upon which the doctor died was so steep that the body had to lowered by log sled down 600 feet to the basin below which the old trial to Crater Lake crossed. After the autopsy at the Indian Agency, Lord F. William Maxwell’s party returned to the lake, taking lumber, properly shaped, from which to construct a boat, carrying everything down a ravine. Using oakum and pitch, they fabricated a boat for lake explorations. The expedition named the two largest peaks on the West Rim, Maxwell Peak, (later Glacier Peak and eventually Hillman Peak.) and Bentley Peak (later changed to The Watchman by the Cleetwood Party).

William Steel and family move to Portland and young William enters high school. “We were met at the steamer landing by my brothers. Before getting over the dock I asked them where that sunken lake was, and found that they had never heard of it; then I was told that there was something of that sort in southern Oregon, but my informer was not sure. In nine years I found a man who had actually seen it, and gave me a good description of it that greatly increased my desire to see it.” Will G. Steel, from a speech delivered January 3, 1917 at the National Parks Conference in Washington, D.C.

Captain Oliver O. Applegate names Dyar Rock for Leroy S. Dyar of Ontario, California, then Indian Agent on the Klamath Reservation and later a member of the Modoc Peace Commission. Dyar was the only commissioner who escaped uninjured when attacked by Captain Jack and other Modoc Indians in the Lava Beds on April 11, 1873. General E.R.S. Canby and Dr. E. Thomas were killed and Chairman A.B. Meacham was partially scalped and left for dead.

Victor Rock named for Mrs. Frances Fuller Victor, who is one of the leading historians of the west. Mrs. F. F. Victor views the lake and briefly describes it in “Atlantis Arisen.” Sinnott Memorial is later built upon Victor Rock. The Rim Village meadow was known for a time as “Victor Heights”.