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As a sixteen-year-old farm boy in southeastern Kansas William Gladstone Steel (a biographical sketch of the early career of Steel may be found in Appendix A), who would later be known as the “Father of Crater Lake National Park,” dreamed of visiting the lake, his curiosity being stimulated in 1870 by having read newspaper accounts of its discovery and scenic grandeur. In 1872 he moved to Oregon with his family, but it was not until 1885 that he managed to reach the lake. Accompanied by a friend, J.M. Breck, Steel took the Oregon & California Railroad to Medford, where he caught a stagecoach to Fort Klamath. The two travelers met Captain Clarence E. Dutton, then on leave from the U.S. Army for detached duty with the U.S. Geological Survey. Dutton was in charge of a small military party escorting Joseph LeConte, a geologist from the University of California, on a tour of the Pacific Coast mountains to examine volcanic phenomena. Steel would later find both Dutton and LeConte to be sympathetic allies in his campaign to preserve Crater Lake as a national park.

Steel, in company with Breck, Dutton, and LeConte, walked the 20 miles to the lake from Fort Klamath, arriving at the rim on August 15. In an article published in the March 1886 issue of The West Shore, a literary magazine in Portland, Steel described his feelings and reactions as he viewed the lake for the first time:

Not a foot of the land about the lake had been touched or claimed. An overmastering conviction came to me that this wonderful spot must be saved, wild and beautiful, just as it was, for all future generations, and that it was up to me to do something. I then and there had the impression that in some way, I didn’t know how, the lake ought to become a National Park. I was so burdened with the idea that I was distressed. Many hours in Captain Dutton’s tent, we talked of plans to save the lake from private exploitation. We discussed its wonders, mystery and inspiring beauty, its forests and strange lava structure. The captain agreed with the idea that something ought to be done–and done at once if the lake was to be saved, and that it should be made a National Park. [1]

Steel’s party had brought a canvas-bottomed canoe from Portland, in which they paddled over to Wizard Island for a short exploration. After staying in the area for several days they left with a determination to preserve the lake and its environs from private exploitation.

Upon returning home from their visit to Crater Lake, Steel and Breck began a campaign to establish a national park at Crater Lake. Breck wrote a letter describing the lake and its beauty which was reprinted in regional newspapers. During the fall Steel sent some 1,000 circular letters at his own expense to virtually all the large newspapers in the United States, asking the editors to support the idea of a national park encompassing Crater Lake. He also wrote to every newspaper editor and postmaster in Oregon, urging them to circulate petitions addressed to President Grover Cleveland, requesting that such a park be established. [2]

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 Klamath 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]

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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]

Earlier on January 18, 1886, Senator Dolph introduced a bill (S. 1111) providing for establishment of a park or reserve that would include both Crater Lake and Diamond Lake. The bill would “set apart from the public domain in the State of Oregon, as a public park for the benefit of the people of the United States, townships twenty-seven, twenty-eight, twenty-nine, thirty, and thirty-one, in ranges five and six, east of the Willamette meridian . . . within the limits of which is Crater Lake. . . .”

The bill further provided that the land was to be

reserved and withdrawn from settlement, occupancy, or sale under the laws of the United States, and dedicated and set apart forever as a public park or pleasure ground and forest reserve for the benefit of the people of the United States.

The park or reserve would be under the custody of the Secretary of the Interior whose duty it would be

to cause adequate measures to be taken for the protection of the timber from the depredation, the punishment of trespassers, the removal of unlawful occupants and intruders, and the prevention and extinguishment of forest fires.

It would be unlawful for anyone to establish settlements or residence in the reserve or to engage in mining, lumbering, or other private enterprise. Violation of the provisions of the act would be punishable by a fine of $1,000, imprisonment of not more than one year, and liability for all damages arising from any destruction of timber or other property. Anyone participating in cutting or removing timber from the reserve would be required to “pay a fine of triple the value of the logs or timber at the place of delivery thereof, and shall be imprisoned not exceeding twelve months.” The President would be empowered to employ the military to execute the provisions of the bill. [6]

A similar bill (H.R. 5075) was introduced in the House of Representatives by Congressman Hermann on February 1, 1886. This bill contained language similar to that of S. 1111, but expressly stated that the public park or reserve was designed “for the protection and preservation of the game, fish, timber, natural wonders, and curiosities therein, and the said reserve to be known as the Crater Lake National Park.”