• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

By Root 4117 0

They filled its pages with geographical data and called it The Resources of Oregon and Washington. The Pacific Northwest was a densely forested geological wonderland, and the Steel brothers wanted to inventory the far-flung natural resources. Their articles were aimed not at tourists but at mining companies, timber titans, and fish-canning outfits, which were just starting to cast an eye on the region. The brother’s business partner, Chandler B. Watson, had visited Crater Lake in 1873 and was full of its praise. Remembering the story about Crater Lake in the newspaper that had wrapped his sandwich, and always game for a fun week-long trip, Steel traveled 250 miles to the remote site, arriving on August 15, 1885. He wanted to see its reported splendor with his own eyes; it proved to be the turning point of his life. Captain Clarence E. Dutton of the U.S. Army would likewise become bewitched by the lake.

Journeying back to downtown Portland from Crater Lake, Steel developed plans to create a national park out of the “awe-inspiring temple.” Gripped by the lake’s spellbinding blueness, for the next seventeen years he became a monomaniac on the subject. Intensive cultivation of new conservationist tactics became his focal point. Tall and balding, with the physique of a downhill skier, Steel was extremely well liked in Portland’s social circles. Although he wasn’t a first-generation Oregon Trail pioneer, he was treated like one, receiving invitations to all the important civic functions and town hall meetings in the Willamette valley. Officially, Steel was superintendent of postal carriers in Portland, a job which allowed him to rub elbows with everybody of consequence in town. He was respected for his self-control, and his status was enhanced by his ambitious brother George, who had married money and became postmaster. Marshaling data about how the new Yellowstone National Park was attracting tourists from the east coast to Wyoming and Montana, Steel also consulted with lawyers and judges to learn the ropes of the legislative process.9 “To those living in New York City,” he boasted, “I would say, Crater Lake is large enough to have Manhattan, Randall’s, Ward’s, and Blackwell’s Islands dropped into it, side by side without touching the walls, or, Chicago or Washington City might do the same.”10

After diligently doing his homework, Steel spearheaded an effort to have two bills concerning Crater Lake National Park introduced in Congress. There was a rumor in Portland that homesteaders and developers wanted to acquire Crater Lake so as to log the surrounding tracts of mountain hemlocks, white bark, red firs, and lodgepoles, and even sweeping pockets of ponderosa pine. Steel’s first plan of action was to have the U.S. government reserve the townships around the lake to prevent exploitation or settlement. If that could be accomplished, the next step was to have the U.S. Geological Survey map and scientifically analyze the enthralling terrain. Then, very quickly, perhaps within the year, a national park could be established.

Never one to let a lag develop between his musings and action, Steel boned up on the law and traversed the countryside to find support. He was successful in persuading the U.S. Geological Survey, headed by Powell, to make a complete inventory of Crater Lake. For approximately a month Captain Dutton, accompanied by an able party of geologists and soldiers, lived along the shores of Crater Lake, an area, according to the New York Times, rarely seen by white men. The Times recounted in vivid detail the hardships endured by Captain Dutton’s survey team: donkeys pulling canoes for more than 100 miles up snowbound mountain ridges; pulley ropes dropping the boats down sheer cliffs; measurements of depth taken with the most advanced nautical equipment available west of Denver. After surviving the howling winter winds, Dutton sent Powell a detailed letter about their findings. He declared that as a result of more than 150 soundings aimed at surveying the lake’s bottom he believed the depth was 2,005 feet, making Crater