"Sen. Mitchell omitted no opportunity to strike at the reserve and was... trying to embarrass Cleveland. The matter assumed national importance and became a bone of contention in officialdome, and for a time looked as though all laws for the protection of forests would be repealed. The president was harassed by consenting parties and no one could fortell the end." (Steel, 1932)

1896

August 1896

"Late in August, the Mazama's visited Crater Lake and I accompanied them. While in Ashland I received a telegram from the (forest) commission, asking me to return to Portland and accompany them to Crater Lake. I continued with the club until we got to the Lake, then, at six o'clock Friday morning I left for Medford, 85 miles distant, walked and arrived in time to catch the North bound five o'clock train Saturday, arriving in Portland Sunday morning, where I conferred with the commission, then we returned to Ashland, where I fitted out and we went to Crater Lake over the Dead Indian road. We spend the night at the Lake and returned to Medford by the Rogue River Road." (Steel, 1932)

August 21, 1896

The Mazama, an Oregon mountain climbing club, meet in solemn conclave, at Crater Lake for the purpose of giving " the mountain that swallowed itself" a name. It had occurred to several members of the club that the destroyed mountain had no name. They proposed the name of their club, which has since been generally accepted. The name comes from a term applied to the mountain goat and antelope in Mexico about 300 years ago. The meeting of the executive council was held in the crater of Wizard Island, at which time it was decided to set aside August 21 of each year as Mazama day. On that date, 1896, Fay Fuller, the first historian of the society, and the first white woman to climb Mt. Rainier, christened the "Phantom Peak of Yesterday Year" as Mt. Mazama by breaking a bottle of crystal water from the bluest lake in the world against a rock on the rim. That night an awesome spectacle was enacted as the crater on Wizard Island was illuminated. Hundreds who watched from a distant Rim, near where Sinnott Overlook now stands, will carry that memory and their hearts forever.

August 22, 1896

The Lake's first water guage is installed by the Mazamas. A copper pocket is fastened to the upper part of the gauge which contained a record book in which visitors were asked to note the height of the water. The gauge was broken off during the following winter.

August 27, 1896

From the Journals of John Muir: Met Sargent and Abbott at Ashland, and we immediately set out for Crater Lake, we three and the driver. The grades were steep and our horse feeble-one spotted roan with the colic and nervous debility, and the other grass-soft and balky-and the spring wagon shackly but tough. Abbott wanted to turn back... but the team driver said it would soon be all right. Ash on the stream side, also alder and oak, the Kellogg and the white oak, and with maple, grapevine and clematis, and glossy dark green simlax climbing thirty feet up the alders. It was soon dark, and we saw the Douglas and yellow pines and the Murray pine in the starlight. Our astonished horses and driver ran point-blank against a clean-shafted Pinus ponderosa... When we arrived at Hunt's we found them gone to bed and, but we drove into a cow corral and I build a fire. The wife arose and goodnaturedly gave us an 11 o'clock supper". I'm going to double you fellows up.", said she. Tough!

August 29, 1896

From the Journals of John Muir: Camped six miles north of Klamath on a pumice plain. Firewood was scarce; Sergent and I made a fire between two young contorta pines. Chat and Jersey mosquitoes.

August 30, 1896

John Muir arrives at Crater Lake with the National Forestry Commission, including Charles Sargent, director of the Arnold Arboretum; William Brewer of Yale; Arnold Hague of the U.S. Geological Survey; General Henry Abbott of the U.S. Engineer Corps; Alexander Agassi, marine biologist, member of the U.S. Coast Survey; Gifford Pinchot, practical forster, and Silas Diller. The sky was clouded, but the commission started for Wizard Island anyway.

From John Muir's journal; The Lake walls of thirty to ninety degrees slope descended to the shore, where the slope averages 35 degrees... Crater Island is a fine symmetrical volcano and comparatively recent. The sky in the evening was clouded, but we started for the Island. Halfway over it began to thunder and white caps broke into our overloaded boat. We turned back to the shore at the nearest wooded point, and build a fire to dry our drentched clothing. Pinchot and I went a hundred feet up a ridge and made a fire on a flat rock. Arnold Hague in the boatman and Sargent stayed down on the shore. After the rain, it was too late for the Island, so we rowed back to the foot of the trail and climbed up to the camp; rather tired but none the worse-rather better for the exercise... . Heavy rain during the night. All slept in the tent except for Pinchot

August 31, 1896

John Muir and party leave on a wet and drizzly morning, heading for Grants Pass. Muir writes in his journal: A wet morning, drizzly, large drops from the hemlocks overhead. Mr. Diller put his head in the tent and talked until we got up. Then we went out to the Lake. It was still full of mist, the trees gradually vanishing in the gloom, producing a weird effect. We had glimpses of the farther shore, the Rim laden with glacial detritus. Started off in the cold drizzle... Found fire desolation nearly everywhere..

Summer 1896

J. S. Diller reports finding a broken off tree floating upright in 37 feet of water near Wizard Island. The trunk was broken off just above the water level and the roots could be seen through the clear water on the bottom as if the tree grew where it was standing.

Hillman Peak, first named Maxwell Peak, for an early explorer, renamed Glacier Peak and then finally to Hillman Peak by William Steel.

Jesse Sarvish Barton, age 15, Carves his name and the date into a Mountain Hemlock, located near the present Visitors Center in Rim Village. The kid got into trouble because he used a surveying tool to do the carving and he broke a tool. Barton was in the Park because his dentist father was working on a surveying crew.(Reported by Ranger Wanda Naylor, 1980)

While the Mazamas were camped at Crater Lake, over 200 Klamath Indians were also in camp on the Rim."since which time they visit the Lake without fear."

Meals are provided at the lower campground at Government Camp, for $1.00 per day, two miles below the Lake Rim.

Rep. Tounge introduces into the House, a Crater Lake National Park bill. Much vandalism is discovered in Lake.

September 25, 1896

W.W. Nickerson of Klamath Falls, has requested by Steel and Diller, installs a copper bolt 50 feet to the west of the Mazama water gauge and an elevation of 5.75 feet above the level of the water.

Late in 1890s

Josephine Schrinscher, a teenager, spends the night on Wizard Island. Claims to be the first white lady to do so. (??)

1897

J. S. Diller's first account of the geology of Crater Lake appears in the National Geographic volume 8. Diller estimates that the level of the Lake, during the summer, drops 0.0125 feet each day.

1897

Will Steel travels to Dyea, Alaska, during the gold rush, where he organizes mail service and establishes an express service to carry gold dust and money to and from the Yukon gold fields. Steel returns to postal work in Portland in 1900.

Winter 1897-98

E.I. Applegate "suspects" that Crater Lake was frozen over when the temperatures at Fort Klamath reached minus 42 degrees F.

1898

August 1898

Earl Cleveland in G. W. Edwards bicycle from Portland to Crater Lake, Ashland, Klamath Falls, and back to Portland. Trip totals 989 miles.

(Next stop 1900)