Crater Lake Special Events Log

The Smith Brothers' Chronological History of Crater Lake National Park

1960

June 1960

"Information Building" or (I.B.) changes name to "Exibit Building" or (E.B.). The building will become the "Visitor Center" 20 years later.

David Morris, future superintendent of Crater Lake National Park begings his NPS career as a seasonal fire guard. Lived in the Ranger Dorm which is now the Steel Center. (See: October, 16, 1991)

June 18, 1960

The new 1.1 mile Cleetwood Cove Trail opens. Thus begins years of stabilizing projects attempting to keep the trail from eroding into Crater Lake.

John Towne, Lodge employee, swims 5 3/4 miles across the Lake, to within 1/2 mile of the Cleetwood boat dock. The can of grease was lost so the Lake was swum frease-less and Towne became too cold and had to be pulled from the water. (Oral story to the authors.)

(Some time during the 1960's) While dumping garbage at the Park's garbage dump, the truck driver would take his girlfriend along so they could walk around the pit area and observe the many bear feasting on garbage. Glenn Happell, Lodge manager, secretly tied a fish underneath the truck. While the couple was out of the truck taking their walk, so many bears had gathered around the garbage truck, the driver was prevented from getting back to his truck. (Oral story from Glen Happell.)

October 12, 1960

Sleepy Hollow quarters #42 is extensively damaged as the results of two large Hemlock trees blown down during the Columbus Day wind storm. Many trees were blown down in the Park and across the state. This storm is remembered as one of Oregon's greatest natural disasters.

Nov. 27, 1960

Larry Ralph Peyton, the 19 year old son of Ralph and Karen Peyton, Crater Lake Lodge owners, is found stabbed to death in his car which is 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 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, along a highway, west of Portland. (The murders were eventually solved 10 were so years later, but not conclusively.)

Season 1960 Visitation: 330, 398

1961

March 30, 1961

W. Ward Yeager enters on duty as Park Superintendent.

June 28, 1961

Work begins on the rebuilding of the road from Annie Springs to Rim Village. Completion is set for the fall. (The project ends up taking four years.) Contracts set the expenditure at $433,205. The new Mission 66 program in the Park calls for $5,966,199 to be spent on construction projects for 1972. $4,492,140 will be spent on buildings and utilities, with $2,474,093 to be used building roads and trails.

July 1, 1961

Long-time seasonal, Larry Smith, of Phoenix, Oregon, begins work is a seasonal maintenance laborer, transferring to the Ranger Division and Law Enforcement in 1964.

July 9, 1961

The Medford Mail Tribune reports that erosion causes Bear Rock, a teddy bear shaped landmark near Discovery Point, to fall into Crater Lake.

Aug. 14, 1961

The Oregon Journal reports that the park service has programmed $350, 000 to purchase and remodel the Lodge into a Visitors' Center. "The new improvements will not be completed until 1963."

Aug. 16, 1961

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

Aug. 26, 1961

The pilot of a Navy Crusader jet parachutes into the Lake and is rescued from his small inflatable boat by Ranger Glen Kaye. The jet, after completing a short circle of the Rim, goes into a gentle downward glide and destroys itself near Timber Crater. The exploding jet starts a forest fire. The Lake had been covered by a heavy overcast, when suddenly, looking skyward, the members of Ranger Kaye's boat tour group witnessed the parachut ing pilot burst through the clouds. Being a Navy plane, the pilot was well equipped for water landings. The pilot's wing buddy, buzzed the Lake, shortly afterward, making sure the rescue had been successful. The two Crusaders had taken off minutes before from Kingsley Fiels in Klamath Falls, when one of the jet's fuel lines shook lose, spilling fuel and causing the flame out.

Summer 1961

Rock Falls from cliff near Discovery Point, completely destroying the travel trailer being towed by two lady school teachers.

Summer 1961

Litter patrol pickup destroyed by fire when the driver allows the rear wheels of the truck to drop into a fire pit of the Park's garbage dump.

Summer 1961

Future Crater Lake Superintendent, Al Hendrix, visits to Park and takes a boat. Young Hendrix was "particularly impressed with the clarity of the water". (See: January 31, 1995)

Summer 1961

Chief naturalist Dick Brown of Medford resident Gene Parker discovered a growth of Pacific Silver fir in the northwest corner of the Park. Four of the firs grow within the boundary of the Park.

Summer 1961 and 1962

Susan Twight, being the Park's only female Interpreter Ranger, receives extra attention as visitors wonder if she is an airline stewardess. (The Army-type cap did not help the image.) Frequently Suzanne was asked, "What are you?" These types of questions left Suzanne "feeling rather like a new species of insect which had just undergone examination and classification."

Sept. 13, 1961

$297,000 is programmed to acquire the Lodge by the NPS. The new building is to be converted into a visitors center, with construction starting of July, 1963, with completion by July of 1967.

Nov. 25, 1961

E. P. Leavitt, 76, Park Superintendent for 1937 to 1952 dies in Central Point. At this time he has served the longest of any employee within the National Park Service: 46 years. (See March 15, 1952)

Season 1961 Visitation for 415,568, a new record.

1962

January 21, 1962

Record low temperature of: the minus to 21 degrees.

February 13, 1962

Lodge Concessioners, Peyton and Griffin want to match the money with they will receive from the sale of the Lodge and put it toward construction of a new hotel. They are adamant that the new building should have a view of Lake since they are giving up a site with in a view.

June 1961

Marion Jack, science teacher from Medford, begins his long, seasonal or it Crater Lake. Marion supplies the Park's Horse patrol for two decades. Marion figures there are pictures of him "all over the world."

1962

June 25, 1962

Rescue off Garfield Peak of an injured hiker.

July 1962

Two articles about Crater Lake and its formation, entitled "Crater Lake Summer", appeared in the National Geographic.

Aug. 30, 1962

Natural death occurs in Mazama Campground.

Summer 1962's

$21,000 is spent on reconstruction of the Sinnott Memorial Overlook. The rustic log construction is replaced with aluminum trim, a rock strewn roof and rough sawn cedar boards.

Construction begins on the Lodge Company's new 100 for boat house on Wizard Island. The government constructs a steel pier at Cleetwood Cove. The upper side of the Rim Wall is blasted to obtain film material, which is quickly washed away during winter storms. The blast site has been unstable ever since.

A two-year project rebuilding the ten mile South Entrance road begins as the melting snow retreats .

Season 1962 Visitation: 592,124. A new record because of the Seattle World's Fair.

1963

January 1963

Two men ski around a Rim in ten hours.

January 31, 1963

The least amount of snow recorded on the ground for a season, with only 44 inches of measurable snow.

August 1963

Due to the low snow year, seasonal Ranger Vic Affolter is able to investigate Scoria Cone Cave. Normally a large snow plug locks the entrance to the crater cave . The investigation reveals a hole extending down to the heart of the cone. The hole is approximately 200 feet vertical from the north side and approximately 100 to 135 feet semi-vertical to an 80 degrees slope on the south side.

August 2, 1963

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

August 7, 1963

Fatal heart attack.

Summer 1963

The old, 1920's and 30's wooden utility shops, across from the new maintenance shops are torn down.

Paul Fritz becomes the Park's last Landscape Architect, and ('63 -- '64) working on the vegetative frustration of the new road cuts and the areas around the new buildings in Steel Circle. PauI eventually becomes involved in the establishment of Redwood's National Park where he discovers the world's tallest rate. The discovery is covered by article National Geographic.

Summer 1963

A woman passengers killed when a families travel trailer runs off a road in the Pumice Desert and the car flips. The children become hysterical when they hear the news of their mothers death over the Ranger radio while being transported to the hospital. Chief Ranger Buck Evans Institute to strict policy of keeping the car radios turned down the presence of family members.

October 1963

The Park's old stand-by generator, near Steel Circle, is replaced with a much larger one from Death Valley National Monument.

Season 1963 visitation: 475,684

1964

Emil Nordeen, donates his Fort Klamath-Crater Lake ski trophy to his native country of Sweden during the winter Olympic Games in Sun Valley. Nordeen's gift will be used as a perpetual trophy to be awarded to the winner of the international cross-country ski race. The trophy had originally and been planned to be donated to the American Ski Association, but the U.S. lacked world-class skiers during 1960s. The Swedes soon forget about their promise until the trophy is spotted in recognized in a store window.

1964

Crater Lake is classified as a natural area which means that the Park will reflect as little evidence of human activity is possible.

May 10, 1964

Richard A. Nelson enters on duty as Park Superintendent.

July 1964

The Park's Medford offices are permanently moved, from the Federal Building to Crater Lake. For the first time the Superintendent is required to live in the Park year-round.

Son of former New York Mayor, Fiorello LaGuardia, visits the Park and turns in a lost report for his son's missing coat.

Summer 1964

A futile four-years attempt to drill for water at the North Entrance Station and the Cleetwood Cove parking lot has begun. $44,000 is spent drilling below the Lake level at Cleetwood and 300 feet below the level of Diamond Lake at the North Entrance, but the wells remain dry and only blow cool air.

Three seasonal rangers working in the Park are named: Marion Jackson, Marion Jack, and Marion "Jack " Wirth. The Park's personal directors named: Marion Anderson.

Summer 1964

Rescue of two persons over the Rim and one person down in Annie Creek Canyon.

Summer 1964

94 Clark's Nutcracker's are banded by the Neal Bullinton and Donald Payne.

Summer 1964

A woman driver, momentarily distracted by the sudden view of Klamath Lake, drives her car over a soft pumice cliff above Munson Spring. The woman is trapped in the car for three hours, while Park crews attempt to safely secure the car from sliding any further. Using a cable and tow truck, the woman's car is towed back up the slope, with a flat tire being the only damage.

Summer 1996

Brief riot on Rim caused by drunken visitors. Chief Ranger Buck Evans is knocked to the ground as he attempts to subdue one of the trouble makers. Chief Evans issues "riot" axe handles to all patrol rangers the following week, "just in case this happens again."

Summer 1964

Fire lookout, Roy Neuburger, reports in National Parks Magazine, (August, 1964 issue) that during the summer of 1964, Mt. Scott Fire lookout averaged 9 visitors daily with a high of 81 hikers in one day.

Fall 1964

Six new, flat foofed, housing duplexes are completed in Steel Circle.

Three bear cubs are shot and killed near South boundary by airmen from Klamath Falls. The violators fined $50.

December 23, 1964

The amount of precipitation to fall in one single day: 7.13 inches of rain. The previous single days record had been set at 5.40 inches of rain. Snow blocking the Rim Village parking lot caused a large "lake" to form. When punched through by snowplows, the water flppded for three miles down to Park Headquarters.

Season 1964 visitation: 494, 057

1965

April 22, 1965

Superintendent Richard Nelson dies of a stroke in Medford hospital after collapsing in the lobby of the Headquarters Building.

June 28, 1965

Leonard Volz,( Mr. Clean), enters on duty as Park Superintendent. Superintendent Volz was often spotted out in the field personally picking up roadside trash.

June 1965

Bill Elhart of Ashland, begins six years of driving bus for Crater Lake Lodge. (65 -- 71) During his six-year summers at Crater Lake, Bill drove 1,080 Rim tours in the Company's 15 passenger stretch Pontiac limo. Driving daily round trips to Ashland, Bill racked up 136,080 miles.

July 1965

A seven-year old boy wanders away from the family campsite at Lost Creek Campground. 60 men spend the rainy night looking for the boy. He is rescued the following morning from a thicket of pines where the boy and crawled, after first chasing out bedding down deer.

July 15, 1965

Sewer construction begun on a $40,000 trunk line connecting Rim Village with the ponds in Munson Valley.

Summer 1965

Sewer lagoons constructed behind Steel Center.

Twelve year old son of Naturalist Ranger Ed Paine, nearly hangs himself after he slips on a Sleepy Hollow boulder with a rope tied around his neck. Quiick thinnking by other children instituted a rescue by the boy's mother who admistered mouth-to-mouth. Mrs. Paine had seen a demonstration earlier on a children's TV program. The boy was unconscious for 12 hours. Young Paine graduated from college as a Merit Scholar and is now a practicing lawyer.

Season 1965 Visitation: 480,478

1966

Winter 1966

(or late 1965) Ski legend, John Day, of Medford, invites the Italian National Team coach and his two top skiers to Oregon for a training clinic. They ended their visit by skiing the Rim of Crater Lake in a record six and one-half hours. At age 55, John Day tried out for the 1964 U.S. Cross-Country team but was turned down. In 1966 John founded the Oregon Nordic Club. After Day had mastered the Norwegian techniques of skiing, he entered the grueling 60-mile Hardanger Katjulen ski race, finishing it in 17 hours. The John was 46, his doctors told him he would never walk upright again due to the severe arthritis in his back,. He decided to prove them wrong. Eventually he climed to six major peaks in Washington state in nine days over 250 major peaks. (information from John Lund)

June 15, 1966

Gerald Reh and Ray Vincent kidnap a bear near Annie Spring. While being pursued by a Ranger Jack Worth, the two men toss the cub from their speeding car. The two are fined $425 for "molesting park animals and speeding." The mother bear, from whom the cover stolen, becomes a dangerous pest in Mazama Campground during the summer and is eventually "destroyed", by park rangers, along with her young cubs.

August 1996

NPS director George Hertzog visit to Crater Lake leads to an appraising of the Munson Valley buildings in anticipation of turning them over to the concessionaire for day use and overnight visitor use. The Steel Circle apartments are converted into motel units. (Please see Administrative History, chapter 17, Planning and Development at Rim Village by S. R. Mark for more detail)

Summer 1966

Record accent of Cleetwood Lake Trail by Ranger Owen Hoffman in 7.5 minutes. Owen was a champion runner from San Jose State and had his eye on Olympic position. Eventually work is as a nuclear scientist and as a private consultant.

Two housing units are constructed in Steel Circle. The new sewer lagoons are enlarged.

Construction (on Wizard Island) began on a new Lake launch, the "Herron", named for Paul Herron, Crater Lake boat operator for 27 years.

Sept. 1, 1966

NPS director Hertzog the visits the Park and stays overnight in the Lodge. An agreement is made for the NPS to buy the building. The plan is to reduce the Lodge to a low-profile structure to the height of the exterior masonry and walls.

October 1966

Mary Olson, age 35, Crescent City, later of Grants Pass, is attacked by large six foot black bear at Rim Village in front of the cafeteria. Several visitors had been feeding the bear, when it suddenly walked up behind Mrs. Olson, striking her across the face, cutting her face and tearing out her right eye. The injuries required 52 stitches to repair the damage.

Nov. 23, 1966

Appraisal is done to the concession and NPS buildings and Rim Village and Munson Valley, so that Peyton can ascertain the value of the NPS property at Park Headquarters. Peyton is willing to trade his Rim Village property for much of Munson Valley. He hopes to use the proceeds from the sale of the Lodge to finance this new development. Development of the new two-story visitor center is planned to be accomplished by 1970.

Season 1966

50th anniversary of the National Park Service and the completion of Mission 66 program. (See 1956)

The travels survey conducted at Annie Spring Entrance indicates that 45 % of all park visitors are from California, 29% from Oregon, 9.4 % from Washington, 1.4 % from Arizona, 1.3 % from Illinois, 1.1 % from New York, 1 % from Michigan, 0.9 % from Texas, 0.8 % from Ohio and 1.5 % are from Canada.

Visitation: 552,531

1967

April 20, 1967

Donald Spalding, enters on duty as Park Superintendent, transferring in from Platt National Park.

July 1967

Jack Applegate, grand nephew of Capt. O.C. Applegate, visits the Park to climb Applegate Peak.

Loops F and G are added to Mazama Campgroound. An engine fire destroys a heavily loaded station wagon in Mazama Campground.

July 11, 1967

A Hood River veterinarian is fined $100 for trapping four golden mantle ground squirrels at Lost Creek Campground, after being cited by Ranger Larry Smith. Dr. Herbert Morse planned on starting a colony of the animals in an area round his home.

August 1967

Ranger Marion Jack apprehends a fourteen year old runaway boy who had been camping in Mazama Campground.The boy had hidden in the back seat of a new car, until after the dealership closed for the night. He then drove the car out and for some unknown reason selected to visit Crater Lake. A fourteen year old, with a new car and no camping equipment invited an investigation and eventually to a confession.

Ranger Marion Jack apprehends a thirteen year old runaway English girl at Annie Spring. The family was headed back to England after living in Portland for a year and visited Crater Lake for one last American camping trip. Unknown to her parents, the girl made arrangements for her boyfriend to pick her up at the Entrance Station, but he never showed. Confusing the search effort was that the rangers were looking for an English girl, not realizing that the girl had lost her accent during her stay in Oregon.

Boatman Bruce Kaye observes a black bear spending two days on Wizard Island.

60 Clark's Nutcrackers banded by Chief of Interpretation, Richard Brown.

August 29, 1967

The Park's old wooden Ranger boat is sunk near Wizard Island, after using a sledge hammer to knock holes into the boat's sides and bottom.

December 20, 1967

A new 30 year contract is executed with the expectation that the concessioners will embark on a $2 million development program for Rim Village and Munson Valley. The lodge is conveyed to the NPS.

Season 1967 Visitation: 499,375

1968

Winter 1967-1968

Record low snowfall of 365 inches. Lake level falls .11 inch, the first measurable decrease of the Lake's level during the winter months.

A new Ranger boat is slid down to the Lake, West of Rim Village. The boat was removed by hellicopter in 1972 and sold to Olympic National Park.

Winter 1968

A sailplane originating from Seattle, attempting to set a new world's distance record, narrowly escapes crashing into Crater Lake, and instead sets down 1/4 mile from the Rim, near Cloud Cap. The plane was air- lifted out by helicopter to Fort Klamath several days later. The pilot had to be rescued by rangers on snowmobiles. The pilot's wife had been following the the sailplane in a chase car out on Highway 97 and contacted Park officials after lerning of her husband's location by radio. Up drafts from Mt. Ranier had given the sailplane an exceptionally high starting elevation, but a down draft from Crater Lake, brought the plane down.

June 15, 1968

Two 17 year old teenage boys from Michigan are stranded on a cliff, 300 feet below Garfield Peak while attempting to climb down to the Lake. Attempts to rescue the boys from above fail because of the danger of knocking loose rocks.Immediate rescue by helicopter was impossible because of the lack of light, but two sleeping bags are tossed to the two stranded hikers in order to make their night more comfortable on the seven foot long ledge. The two are airlifted off the next morning. The boys refuse to pay the rescue bill of several thousand dollars, but try to cash in on their experience when the wire services send their story out national wide.

June 16, 1968

Elaine Davenport and Bruce Hanklen of Medford are married in the Community Building at Rim Village.

July 1968

Ranger Nancy Jarrell and a group of Park employees investigate the North Junction Cave. The cave had been uncovered when the North Road was built back in the 20's. For over 40 years the lava tube cabe had been covered over by planks. Nancy crawls and slithers 500 feet into the lava tube. After getting cold and wet, the group turns around. Nancy reports that the cabe showed no evidence of ending. The Park's road crew later plugs the cave's entrance with a truck load of rock.

July 28, 1968

The Douglas County Pelicans conduct the first organized SCUBA dive in Crater Lake. The Club dives to about 100 feet.

August 30, 1968

The body of murder victim, George S. Mear of Florida, is found by a family camped at Mazama Campground, while out searching for firewood. Mayor was apparently beat in instead to the outset Park, stuff in the sleeping bag liner and dumped just off the access road into 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 about 3 days and that he had been had eaten a Chinese dinner prior to his death. The stolen car, minus the 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 had been established and the case has not been solved.

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

Summer 1968