Chauncey Nye

Chauncey Nye

Chauncey Nye “re-discovered” Crater Lake while leading a mining party in 1862. The party was crossing the Cascades on its way to the Rogue River Valley from the Granite Creek mines on the North Fork of the John Day River. While searching for a camping place for the night and a high summit from which to view the surrounding countryside, they came upon the lake. The importance of the Nye party’s discovery lay in the fact that the men not only authenticated the lake’s existence and provided a description of its approximate location but published the first printed account of the lake in the Oregon Sentinel (Jacksonville).

Entire story here in the Administrative History of Crater Lake.

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