The petitions circulated by Steel were signed by some 120 citizens of Oregon, including political, business, religious, and civic leaders. The two leading signatures were those of Congressman Binger Hermann and Governor Z.F. Moody. The signatures were consolidated into one petition which was forwarded to President Grover Cleveland on December 21, 1885. It read in part:
The Crater Lake is located in Olamath County and State of Oregon, and is one of the natural wonders of the United States, if not of the world. It is a portion of the unappropriated vacant domain of the government, and in the opinion of your petitioners should be set apart and reserved from future disposal. . . .
The limits herein asked to be reserved are valuable for neither agriculture or minerals.
Therefore, your petitioners ask that the following area containing said lake and its approaches be set apart and reserved from future settlement or other appropriation by the government, and kept and reserved as a public park for the people of the United States, to-wit: Townships 27, 28, 29, 30 and 31, in ranges 5 and 6, east of the Willamette Meridian . . . . [3]
The land requested for the park incorporated a 12- by 30-mile area, including Diamond Peak and Mount Thielson.
The campaign by Steel led in part to a petition submitted by the Oregon state legislature to Congress in January 1886, requesting passage of an act setting aside Crater Lake and 4-1/2 townships of land surrounding it as a national park. The petition urged that a law be enacted
setting apart from the public domain as a public park or pleasure ground for the benefit of the people of the United States, and reserving from public sale, settlement or occupancy Townships 27, 28, 29, 30 and the north half of Township 31, in Ranges 5 and 6, east side of the Willamette Meridian. . . . [4]
Similar memorials were forwarded to Congress by the Portland Board of Trade, Portland City Council, and various town and county councils throughout Oregon.
In response to the petition Oregon Senators John H. Mitchell and Joseph N. Dolph and Representative Binger Hermann were persuaded to seek favorable concurrence in the matter. Steel went to Washington himself and met with Secretary of the Interior Lucius Q. C. Lamar and President Grover Cleveland, convincing them that a mandatory first step should be the withdrawal from the public domain of five townships of land surrounding and including Crater Lake. Impressed by Steel’s sincerity Secretary Lamar on January 30 recommended to President Cleveland “the temporary withdrawal from settlement or sale under the laws of the United States of the tract of land, surveyed and unsurveyed, comprising what is or would be townships twenty-seven, twenty-eight, twenty-nine, thirty, and thirty-one south, in ranges five and six east of the Willamette meridian in the State of Oregon.” The withdrawal was recommended in “view of pending legislation looking to the creation of a public park, from the lands of the United States, surrounding and including Crater Lake.” The following day (February 1) Cleveland issued an executive order to that effect, and the Commissioner of the General Land Office was instructed to inform “the Register and Receiver of the proper land office by telegraph” of the order. [5]
