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1964

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 an international cross-country ski race.  The trophy had originally had been planned to be donated to the American Ski Association, but the U.S lacked world class skiers during the 1960’s.

1964      Crater Lake is classified as a natural area which means that the Park will reflect as little evidence of human activity as 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 LaGaurdia, visits the Park and turns in a lost report for his son’s missing coat.

August                   1964       By Larry Smith – September 5, 2019 – One evening while I was on night patrol my patrol car was

in the shop for service so they issued me a pickup. A young black fee collector from the South had asked if he could ride with me. As I pulled up in front of the Admin Building at about 10:00 pm  I got a whispered  radio call from my brother, Lloyd, and Chuck Lamb,that they had heard several shots from a high powered rifle just outside their cabin, which was about 200 feet from the entrance station, back in the woods. Lloyd and Chuck were calling me from beneath their bunk beds.

So I took off at a high rate of speed driving north. The young guy with me was rather startled at the sudden action and radio call.

The radio in the pickup was a handheld set that sat in a pocket hooked to the dash.  The antenna had to be plugged in.

After we reached the West Rim I tried to reach Lloyd and Chuck several times, but there was no response.

So, ever the faster I drove.

After the shooting stopped, Lloyd’s and Chuck’s  ranger bravery took over and they pulled the pistol out of the station’s cash box. The Bond Company required that a gun be kept in the cash box at all times, but we were under strict order never to use it. (I remember one time a North Entrance ranger did fire the gun just to see if it worked. It did. He was talked to.)

Lloyd and Chuck crept out to an old patrol car that the station used for transportation.  The cabin was on a slight hill, so with one pushing and one steering they crept down the slight hill to the North Entrance Road, started the car, turned on the lights and Roared out onto the highway. Hoping to surprise the shooters.

Meanwhile I kept calling and calling. No answer. Found out later the antenna wire had dropped out of the radio and onto the floor.

As I pulled up to the North Entrance Station I encountered our two rangers standing in the middle of the road in front of a giant moving van with two black drivers, from the South, sitting inside. Completely lost. Not knowing where they were.

The story:  They were told that when leaving home there were many wild animals out West. So they took their trusty rife with them.  Through a series of driving errors they ended up at the North Entrance of Crater Lake National Park. Not understanding where they were, they stopped and then remembered that in the movies, if lost the Mountain Men would fire their rifles. And help would come.

Boy did it!  Within a few minutes they had 4 rangers surrounding them.

After they got their emotions under control and we talked down their terror, we led the drivers up to the Pumice Desert turnout and turned the truck around. They got out their maps and we showed them their route. Were they ever off track!  We bid them farewell and they proceeded on.

Summer                1964      A futile four-year attempt to drill for water at the North Entrance Station and Cleetwood Cove parking lot is begun.  $44,000 is spent drilling down below the Lake level at Cleetwood and 300 feet below the level of Diamond Lake, but the wells remained dry and only blow cold air.

Summer                1964       Three seasonal rangers working in the Park are named:  Marion Jackson, Marion Jack, and Marion “Jack” Wirth. The Park’s personnel director is named:  Marion Anderson.

Summer                1964      Construction begins on the Lodge Company’s new 100-footboat house on Wizard Island.

Letter from Ken Miller of Portland, Oregon – June 1, 2007 – kdmiller44@comcast.net

The construction of the new boathouse began and finished during the summer of 1964. I was a part of the crew that built the structure. We got the materical to the Island by sliding pallets of lumber down a snow slide into the lake. Why we didn’t slip and die I’ll never know! The steel rails for the boat trolley were carried down the Cleetwood Cove Trail. What a lot of work. We built the building to store a new boat (also lowered over the side) called the Fisher.

The “Fisher”, a former tuna bait boat, was lowered over the Crater wall.  The excursion boat is named for Don Fisher, the first superintendent of Lava Beds National Monument.

Thank you for putting this history all together. I haven’t finished reading all of it, but I have bookmarked it and will visit it again and again.  Ken Miller

Summer                1964      Rescue of two persons over the Rim and one person down in Annie Creek Canyon.

Summer                1964       94 Clark’s Nutcrackers are banded by 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 to towed back up the slope, with a flat tire being the only damage.

Summer                1964      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 troublemakers.  Chief Evans issues “riot” axe handles to all patrol rangers the following week, “just in case this happens again.”

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

September 3         1964      Ranger at Crater Lake Transferred – Reno Evening Gazette?Reno, Nevada

KLAMATH FALLS, On.—The transfer of Lou Hallock, chief ranger at Crater Lake National Park, to an assignment at Death Valley national monument in California has been announced by the park service. The change will become effective Sept. 15.

Hallock, who has been with the park service for 18 years, is a graduate of the University of Connecticut He was with the U. S. forest service in New England before becoming chief ranger at Carlsbad Caverns in New Mexico. He was transferred to Lassen National Park, then to Yosemite and five years ago came to Crater Lake.

Hallock will replace Chief Ranger Ted Ocston at Death Valley. No successor to the Crater post has been named.

Fall                         1964       Six new, flat roofed, housing duplexes are completed in Steel Circle.

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

December 23       1964      The most amount of precipitation to fall in one single day:  7.13 inches of rain.  The previous single day’s 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 flooded for three miles to Park Headquarters.

Season                  1964      Visitation: 494,057

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