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1928

February                1928      Manfred Jacobson of McCloud, California wins the second 42.6 mile Crater Lake Ski Race.

May  8                    1928      A headline from the Klmath Falls newspaper “EH”. Celebration of discovery of Crater Lake by J.W. Hillman

Summer                1928      Naturalist staff expresses anticipation of improved roadside flower displays because of the completion of the road paving.

The largest grading project ever attempted on the Rim is done in front of the Lodge with Fresno scrapers.

A pump house is constructed at Munson Spring (torn down in 1977) and water pipes laid.

  1928      (Or it could be 1929)  Lela Mead, 211 Glenn Allen Ave., Silver Springs, MD tells about a small boy standing beside a large Hemlock in the Rim Campground, when lightning struck the tree.  The boy was so scared he left his shoes behind as he jumped out of them.

(1928 Or 1929) Eleanor Holmes, English Channel swimmer, swims Crater Lake.  Ms. Holmes states after the swim that if the English Channel had been as cold, she would never have swum it.  (An oral story) Miss Holmes was dismissed from the 1936 Olympic swimming team for drinking Champaign with the press corps while on the boat to Germany.  

Eleanor Holm-Jarrett; Eleanor Holm Whalen

American athlete and entertainer (b. Dec. 6, 1913, Brooklyn, N.Y.—d. Jan. 31, 2004, Miami, Fla.), made international headlines after being dismissed from the U.S. Olympic swimming team for drinking and breaking curfew during the voyage to the 1936 Berlin Games. Although the incident ended her swimming career, which included a gold medal in the 100-m backstroke at the 1932 Olympics in Los Angeles and 21 national titles, the publicity surrounding it paved the way to her success as an entertainer.

When she boarded the S.S. Manhattan in New York Harbor on July 15, 1936, with some 330 fellow Olympians bound for the Berlin Olympics, Eleanor Holm Jarrett, as she was then known, stood at the pinnacle of the swimming world. She had captured the 100-meter backstroke at the 1932 Los Angeles Games and had set world records in that event and the 200-meter backstroke. She had not lost a race in seven years and was the first female swimmer to be chosen for three American Olympic teams. But when the ship docked at Hamburg, Germany, she was no longer a member of the Olympic team. The American Olympic Committee and its president, Avery Brundage, had expelled her from the Games for carousing and breaking curfew, an incident that became one of   the most publicized flaps in Olympic history.  She died in 1984 at the age of 80. Married 4 times.

Summer                1928       64,000 Rainbow Trout liberated in the Lake.

New cabin built at Park Headquarters and is assigned to Judge Steel and his wife.

The first edition of “Crater Lake Nature Notes”.

40% of all visitors camped with 28,000 campers being registered at the Rim Campground.  Nine campgrounds are listed as being in the Park:  Wheeler Creek, Lost Creek, two at Annie Spring, Headquarters, Cold Springs, Cold Creek, White Horse and one at the Rim.

(Some sources say, 1933) The Old Man of the Lake is definitely identified by boat operator Paul Herron and named by Fred Kiser, park photographer.  The old log may not be the same one referred to by Diller as the log he describes in his report of 1896, but Diller’s description fits the “Old Man” quite closely.

Summer                1928       Crater Wall Trail completed in front of the Cafeteria and store plaza at Rim Village.  The trail was known to locals as the Kiser Trail.  Several housekeeping cabins have been constructed along with wide sidewalks along the Rim and 17 miles of Park roads are black-topped.  “The Park now has 21 miles of paved roads.”

“At the Rim a new road was completed and oiled distributing traffic to the new Cafeteria and cabin group, to the campground and to the hotel.  On each side of the boulevard area is an 18 foot parking strip and along the Crater is a wide promenade for pedestrians.”

Summer                1928      Bill Elhart, of Medford, recounts that as a 6 year-old in 1928, he and his mother witnessed the dynamiting of Victor Rock in preparation for the building of the Sinnott Memorial Overlook. Bill’s mother was rowing him over to Wizard Island in a row boat. They were about half way across the channel when the blast resounded through out the caldera, spaying the Lake with rock fragments. (Recounted to the author in 2002)

The Sinnott Memorial is architecturally significant because it was the first National Park Service building constructed specifically as a museum and the first structure built in Crater Lake National Park using rustic stone masonry construction.

The structure was designed by landscape architect Merel S. Sager, a pioneer of the rustic style of park architecture. To ensure a spectacular view, Sager chose a site on Victor  Rock, 900 feet above the lake. Construction of the observation station began in the fall of 1930. During construction, Sager spend hours in a rowboat on the lake, ensuring the  building blended perfectly into the caldera cliff. As a result, the building provides a spectacular view of Crater Lake and surrounding caldera and mountains, but is virtually invisible from the lake below. The building was finished the following summer. It was dedicated on July 16, 1931. Horace M. Albright, the director of the National Park Service,  attended the dedication ceremony along with William Gladstone Steel and many other  dignitaries. Once it was open, the public quickly made it one of Crater Lake’s most popular viewing areas.

Prior to the Park’s centennial in 2003, the Sinnott Memorial Building was completely renovated and the museum exhibits updated. The new exhibits cost $425,000, and include easy-to-understand displays with a video program that shows how Mount Mazama was created, how the mountain collapsed, and how the lake formed.

Season                   1929    Superintendent Thomson stressed the inadequacy of the park ranger force. He observed: Park protection was inadequate due to limited ranger personnel. One ranger and eight temporary rangers hired only for the travel season can not possibly protect an area of 249 square miles, particularly as their energies are almost entirely consumed in handling well over 100,000 visitors who enter through five stations and circulate over a road system of 67 miles. Ranger personnel is so inadequate that we don’t know what goes on in the Park except upon the roads. There is no patrolling [sic], no reconnoisance [sic], no protection against poaching. [6]

Season                  1928       Visitation: 113,323 visitors.

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