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From the Table Rock Sentinel of July 1984
Edited by Michael Oaks
The Discovery and Rediscovery of CRATER LAKE
Several people have claimed to be the first white man to set eyes upon Crater Lake. The Indians, who knew of its existence for ages, were indifferent about the discoverer. They had early decided the lake was the battleground of the gods and the less attention given it the better; they stayed the hell away. Probably the earliest discovery of which there is any record was on June 12, 1853, by a party of prospectors made up of John Wesley Hillman, James L. London, Patrick McManus, George Ross, Isaac Goodman Skeeters, Henry Klippel, Mr. Little, Mr. Dodd, Mr. BcGarrie and two others whose names are not known. How they came to be beating around the bushes in that remote spot is a tale in itself.
Legend has it that an old prospector was found dying from some pretty messy wounds. He had had a run in with some Indians who were fully equipped with tommy hawks and scalping knives, and he had gotten the worst of the deal. Some other fellows came along before he breathed his last, and in the course of offering him final rites, they went through his leather pouch as a mater of casual interest. As you might suspect they found it full of nuggets of the purest gold. The poor dying wretch then rallied himself a little and found energy enough to draw a map of the mine.
He warned the well-meaning but ineffectual first-aid crew that “the savages also know its whereabouts, and they are protecting it.” That took all of his ebbing strength and just before he went to that big, big placer mine, he gasped out: “It is the richest gold mine in the west.”
Then a mad scramble to find the mine began. The story says that scores of men were killed by the “savages” who constantly guarded the incredible find––a far-fetched claim indeed because the Indians at the time had no interest in gold. At last the unsuccessful seekers gave up and the map disappeared from circulation. The elusive treasure trove was called the “Lost Cabin Mine.” Where the lost cabin comes in is anybody’s guess.
In 1853 ten Californians showed up in Southern Oregon––the location just about had to be Jacksonville–and the local prospectors, always nosy about strangers, observed their movements closely and soon detected that they were doing a lot of whispering among themselves and were clearly up to something suspicious. John Hillman cunningly cornered one of the visitors in a saloon, regaled him with spiritous waters, and when he was sufficiently smashed, wheedled the story out of him that one of his associates had acquired the original map of the lost cabin Mine and they were fixing to go scoop up the loot.
John Hillman immediately spilled the story to his friends and they formed a party to follow the Californians. They expected trouble at most any time, and they were prepared to defend themselves. As the Californians started out and forged their way through the underbrush, the pursuers scrambled after them. The leading party, aware they were being tailgated, did their best to out-wit the tagalongs by scattering and doubling back and covering their trail but the Jacksonville bunch wouldn’t be shaken. And finally both groups ran out of food.
One day John Hillman killed a deer and as he was skinning it, up came one of the Californians and asked him why the dickens his bunch was tailing the lead outfit. Hillman grabbed for his rifle, but the stranger appeared friendly enough so Hillman told the story. The called an amicable truce and both groups sensibly joined forces. It was agreed that when and if the fellows from California, who had the map, discovered the vein, the Jacksonville miners could stake their claims nearby. That night they dined on saddle of venison over on campfire.
From then on they hunted and prospected together, and it was well they did; once or twice they caught sight of a party of warriors watching their every move but no open attack was attempted. Their party was too large and heavily armed for the Rogues to try any shenanigans.
One night when they made camp, they were so hungry and beaten down by the futile search for game and disgusted by the constant failure to find a trace of the Lost Cabin mine, they decided to divide the group in half, eleven would stay in camp for a rest, and eleven would go out and look for food.
Next day the food committee, thrashing around on the mountain looking for something to shoot at, discovered they had lost their bearings. Trying to get a fix on just where they were, they decided to ride their mules up a ridge and scale one of the peaks to discover their location. John Hillman, Henry Klippel and Isaac Skeeters were in the lead. After climbing steadily for some distance they came to a long gentle slope, and at the crest they suddenly saw before them a large deep lake with water as blue as Indigo. John Hillman later wrote: “I realized I was looking at a most unusual sight. I was at the very edge of the precipice and nestling far down in the heart of the mountain was the most beautiful body of water I had ever seen.” The other members of the party soon joined them and stared in awe at the lake.
After viewing the wonder for some time they decided to give it a name. Henry Klippel said, “It’s such a mysterious looking place, let’s name it Lake Mysterious.” But Isaac Skeeters was for “Deep Blue Lake” and when they voted, Deep Blue had the odds. They wrote the new name, the date of discovery and their names on a piece of paper which they attached to a forked stick and stuck in some boulders along the rim.
It was an impermanent marker and probably blew into Deep Blue Lake before the day was over. Some of the men were for making an attempt to descend to the waters edge, but they were outvoted by their hungry fellow nimrods who thought they should continue the search for game.
There is no document declaring that they found the Lost Cabin Mine, struck it rich and lived the rest of their lives in idle splendor. The story of the fabulous hidden vein, like the tales of the Blue Bucket and the Red Blanket, was probably dredged up by some devilish prospector jest to tantalize his fellow diggers.
When the intrepid discoverers returned to Jacksonville to announce their astonishing discovery, they found the citizens in a panic. The ungrateful Indians were on the warpath and that news completely overshadowed the existence of a mysterious and beautiful lake. Of course the discovery didn’t make the newspapers because there weren’t any newspapers. The exploring party disbanded, each member went at the business of battling the common enemy and Deep Blue Lake was tabled for the duration––and then some.
During the next ten years hunters or prospectors or adventurers must have stumbled onto the lake but they failed to record the fact. It had to be discovered over again and again. Sometime during 1862 Uncle Jimmy Lehman, a forty-niner from Amatively County who was piloting a passel of prospectors over the mountains from Grant County to Southern Oregon, came upon the amazing lake and decided he was the first white man to see it.
Uncle Jimmy might have stirred up some interest in his discovery, but when he returned to Eastern Oregon, he also discovered the Umatilla Hot Springs and, since he could charge folks to take a hot bath, he got busy fixing up Lehman’s Hot Springs and Spa and his first discovery became of secondary interest.
Along about October 21, the same year, Chauncey Nye, heading another party of prospectors on their way from Eastern Oregon to Jacksonville, discovered the lake. His group decided to call it Blue Lake. But they didn’t really make much fuss about it and when the natives of Southern Oregon were told about the astonishing natural phenomenon, they probably said, “Well, is that so?” A deep blue lake. H’mmm. Imagine that,” and continued their soliloquies on the Civil War or the outrageous cost of groceries.
The fourth discovery was a little more complicated and involves a bigger cast of players. When Orson A. Stearns of Wagoner Creek, south of Talent, Oregon reached his twenty-first birthday, in 1864, to celebrate his arrival at the age when he could vote and enter the saloon, he enlisted in the First Oregon Infantry. There wasn’t any bootcamp in Southern Oregon for inexperienced recruits––shooting a weapon in those days didn’t require marching––and young Stearns was sent over to Klamath County to join a company of cavalry that had been detailed to build Fort Klamath. Incidentally Judge William Colvig was a member of this cavalry.
A makeshift wagon road had been constructed by way of Mount Pitt to Fort Klamath, but it was deeply rutted, and deteriorated at the steepest parts, was barely passable in summer and was a complete washout in winter.
Orson Stearns, along with a company of other soldiers, was detailed to explore the area and come up with a more satisfactory route through the wilderness. After about three weeks of trial and error and beating around the rough terrain, the amateur surveyors came up with a better trail by way of Rogue River and Union Creek. The brass Captain Sprague selected twenty tried and true rookies to construct the road.
Two members of this road gang, who had proved their skill at marksmanship––F.M. Smith and John M. Corbell––were singled out to hunt for game and supply the camp with meat. Although they were good hunters, they were better liars. They could both keep their faces straight and come up with completely outlandish tall tales, and they continually entertained the road crew with their fanciful exploits. There’s at least one fellow in every troop that stretches the truth out of shape, but these two took the prize.
A delegation of four or five Jacksonville business men decided to ride up the mountain and check the progress of the road. They had generously contributed money for construction and supplied work outfits and boots for the crew and they were naturally interested in their investment. Captain Sprague figured he might as well go on over and meet them just for good public relations and he took along Orson, who had been promoted to sergeant because he’d done such a great job blazing the new trail. Captain Sprague, Orson and the city folk had been there only long enough to shake hands and start a preliminary discussion about the weather when the two hunters, Smith and Corbell, hove into camp toting a fat buck. After they had deposited their quarry in the mess tent, they came back and joined the others.
Immediately those two fibbers began their act. Without cracking a smile, they claimed that on climbing a steep mountain, they had come to a jumping off place and there in the bottom of a huge hole was a lake, unbelievably blue and miles in extent.
“Yes,” laughed one of the listeners, “and I expect you saw a river or two with water running straight up the mountainside to fill up this lake.” They were the darndest pair; nothing could shake their story. The lake was about four miles east of Castle Camp, they said, and located right at the top of a mountain, set in like a big cup. The water was the same color as the sky and it was a sight to see.
They were insistent, stuck to their story and swore they were telling the truth, but you couldn’t believe a word either one of them said. The upshot of it was that Captain Sprague announced that on the way back to Fort Klamath, he and Orson would ride out that way and prove or disprove the story. The Jacksonville delegation, Deputy Sheriff Ford, Jim Cluggage, Mr. Coates and another fellow or two, decided to go with them.
Orson, in telling the story years later said: “It was a hot day in late August, 1865. We decided to leave our horses at Castle Camp and search for the lake afoot. We traveled through heavy timber for a couple of hours. Suddenly we merged from the timber at the rim of the crater. For a minute we stood there speechless. Then one of the men said, ‘It aint’ so. That must be the sky we are looking at but how we got so far above it I can’t understand.’ The rest of us didn’t say anything.”
At least one of the Jacksonville men said, “No living creature, unless he was supplied with wings, could get down to that water––if it is water.” Orson said, “I believe I can make my way down there.” Captain Sprague protested. “I forbid you to do such a foolhardy and dangerous thing,” he said. Coates, the civilian from Jacksonville, announced he was going to try it so Captain Sprague consented to allow Orson to make the attempt, “But you must use extreme caution,” he ordered.
Orson was considerably younger than Coates and sure-footed as a goat. He slid down a rockslide and dropped from ledge to ledge and finally reached the waters edge. He fired his pistol to let the others know he had succeeded. Coates soon came along and the party on the rim decided to join them. They all scrambled down but Jim Cluggage. He said, “There ain’t been enough gold dug and coined since the world began to pay me to try to get down to that water.”
Captain Sprague said, “We are the first white men to reach the shores of this wonderful body of water.” Since Orson had beaten Coates down by a minute or two, Captain Sprague declared he should have the honor of naming it. Orson was nimble on his feet, a good amateur surveyor and modest young man, but he wasn’t a very quick thinker. The statement caught him unawares and he stuttered around a little and said, “Well, it deserves a good name. I’ll have to think it over for awhile.”
Captain Sprague, who probably had decided on the name all along, said, “It is the most majestic body of water I ever saw.” Turning to Orson he said, “Sergeant, what do you think of Lake Majesty as a name for it?” Orson, a good and obedient soldier, said that was about what he had in mind, and so on its fourth discovery Deep Blue Lake became Lake Majesty.
It might better have been called Lake Dollar because it eventually became Southern Oregon’s greatest tourist attraction. But in 1869, J.M. Sutton, editor of the Jacksonville Sentinel and founder of the Ashland Tidings, with a party of men and women from Jacksonville, visited the lake and renamed it Crater Lake.
In a few years after 1869 Crater Lake had attracted widespread attention, and it was presented and described in most lyrical prose in many publications throughout the nation. Everyone wanted to visit it but it was so remote and the trail so precarious only the most intrepid made the effort. Even twenty years later reaching the lake meant a tedious trip of several days.
In 1889 a party of young people from Jacksonville decided to make the trip as an adventure, and one of them, Fletcher Linn (Mary Hoffman’s nephew), who later wrote his memoirs of early Jacksonville and its pioneer citizens, kept a diary of the trip. It is entertaining reading although there are a few private little jokes which only the members of the party would understand. Each traveler made a brief contribution which in this issue is printed in italics. The party took 17 days going and 4 days getting back. Descriptive passages have been cut.
The End
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