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1967
April 20 1967 Donald Spalding, enters on duty as Park Superintendent, transfers in from Platt National Park.
Platt National Park: est. 1904 – 1976 decommissioned. One square mile – 900 acres. Nation’s seventh National Park. Now part of the Chickasaw NRA. Preserved several grand sulfur springs.
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 Campground. An engine fire destroys a heavily loaded station wagon in Mazama Campground.
July 11 1967 A Hood River, Oregon 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.
July 14 1970 MT – Man Charged With Trapping Squirrels – Dr. Herbert C. Morse, a veterinarian from Hood River, was arraigned this morning before U.S. Commissioner Frank J. Van Dyke on a charge of trapping and having in his possession four golden mantle ground squirrels. The squirrels were reported to have been trapped in the Lost Creek Campground of Crater Lake National Park on July 11. Dr. Morse was cited by Park Ranger Larry Smith near his trailer at the campground. Smith arrived at the campground, about 11 miles from the Parks’ Headquarters, after a telephone call had been received from other park visitors.
Smith stressed the importance of visitors notifying park officials if they believe that a regulation is being violated.
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 sledgehammer to knock holes into the boat’s sides and bottom.
October 2010 – Owen Hoffman writes: Larry, That was the old Naturalist’s reseach boat that was owned by the NPS. In the summer of 1967, it was deemed unusable and beyond repair.
It was sunk to make room for the OSU Boston Whaler, which had been recently lowered into the lake by sliding it down over banks in late Spring of 1967, to use the NPS boat house on Wizard Island for winter shelter and storage.
The old Naturalist’s research boat was featured in the 1966 edition of “America’s Wonderlands” by National Geographic. It was photographed in the vicinity of the Phantom Ship with Bruce Black’s wife and daughters on board.
In 1967, our professor of limnology at OSU, Dr. Jack Donaldson, used the OSU Boston Whaler to tow the Naturalist’s research boat from its boathouse out into deeper waters where it was sunk. The boat was sunk by Park Ranger Larry Hakel. He used a sledge hammer to punch holes through the weakened hull of the boat. Doug Larson and I went along to watch and help as needed. Doug took photos.
The boat was last observed peacefully at rest on the lake floor by Mark Buktenica, who was inside the submersible Deep Rover. This happened sometime in 1988 or 1989.
Letter to the authors from Dr. Doug Larson, October 18, 2010
Hi Larry, Here are some photos that I took at Crater Lake in the summer of 1967. That summer, the Park Service decided to get rid of a boat that was stored on Wizard Island. Apparently the boat had been given to the Park Service years earlier to haul tourist around on Crater Lake. According to Dick Brown, Chief Park Naturalist, the boat had been used to smuggle alcoholic beverages from Cuba to Florida during the Prohibition Era. The boat was intercepted by the Coast Guard, confiscated, and later given to the Park Service.
Because of the unusually dry weather and high fire danger that summer, the Park Service ruled out burning the boat on Wizard Island. Instead, they decided to have it sunk in about 300 meters of water along a transect roughly halfway between Wizard Island and Crater Lake Lodge.
Photo 1 shows the boat parked on the shore of Wizard Island near the entrance of the shed where it had been stored, apparently for many years. Before the boat was towed out to the Lake, we filled the bottom with rocks.
Photos 2 shows us towing the boat toward its final resting place. The towboat is the OSU research vessel, a Boston Whaler powered by two 35 HP outboard motors. Owen Hoffman, grim-faced and wearing the red hardhat and orange sweatshirt, sits in the stern. Jack Donaldson, barely visible and wearing a plaid shirt, far left, operates the research Rod Cranson’s head, inside of the tan-colored hard had, appears in the lower right-hand corner of the photo.
Photo 3 shows the crew preparing the boat for sinking. Note that the engine, a 12 or 16-cylinder job, has been left in the boat to help keep it submerged on the Lake bottom. Four people are shown in this photo. The person nearest the camera and wearing a tan hardhat and olive-green shirt is Naturalist Ted Aurther. Next to him, with his back to the camera and wearing a red hard hat, is a Park Service employee, Larry Hakel. The third person, wearing a red hardhat and orange sweatshirt is Owen Hoffman. The fourth person, whose straw hat is the only thing showing, is Jack Donaldson. Both Hoffman and Donaldson are leaning well into the boat.
Photo 4 shows four or our crew making final preparations for sinking. The person wearing the tan-colored hardhat and blue sweatshirt is Rod Cranson. Own Hoffman, red hardhat and orange sweatshirt, holds the rope tethered to the tourist boat. Jack Donaldson, straw hat and plaid shirt, watches Larry, wearing no hat, preparing to perforate the tourist boat’s hull with a sledgehammer.
Photo 5; Holes appear in the tourist boat’s hull as Larry swings his hammer. Rod Cranson captures this destruction with his camera. Photos 6,7 and 8 show the boat steadily sinking. I show these last three photos when I give talks about our research at Crater Lake. I say that there are days for limnologists on the lake when everything seems to go wrong. . Best regards, Doug.
December 14 1967 A sailplane originating from Seattle, attempting to set a 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 sailplane in a chase car out on Highway 97 and contacted Park officials after learning of her husband’s location by radio. Up drafts from Mt. Rainier had given the sailplane an exceptionally high starting elevation, but a down draft from Crater Lake brought the plane down.
Seattle Glider Pilot Crashes
December 15 1967 The Daily Review? Hayward, California
CRATER LAKE NATIONAL PARK, Ore. (UPI) – A Seattle pilot crash-landed his glider on the east slope of Crater Lake Thursday while attempting to set a long distance soaring record from Rainier, Wash., to Mt. Shasta, Calif. The pilot, Cecil M. Craig, apparently was not injured. He brought the craft down on a field of deep powder snow between the rim of the Lake and Scott Mountain.
Craig was spotted by Rex Morehouse, a Klamath Falls pilot. A sleeping bag and rations were dropped in the area. Rescue parties in three snow cats were expected to reach Craig today.
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.
Visitation 1967 499,375 visitors
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