On May 22, 1907, articles of incorporation of the Crater Lake Company were filed with the Oregon Secretary of State. Its incorporators were Steel (president and principal owner), who had recently closed his real estate business in Portland, Charles L. Parrish, and Lionel Webster. This company, holding 250,000 shares of stock, acquired the rights granted by the Department of the Interior to Steel, the privileges to extend for five years. Other privileges in the future were expected to include the construction and maintenance of hotels and pleasure resorts, placement of boats on the lake, commencement of stage lines to the park, and sale of assorted merchandise.
By the end of July 1907 a tent city had been established by Steel on the rim of Crater Lake, accommodating fifty people. At this camp visitors could obtain meals and feed for their horses. A site for the company s future hotel was chosen “on the divide over which the road from Klamath reaches the lake’s brim.” A spring “on the mountain side above” would furnish water for the hotel. Plans were formulated by the company to build “an elevator down the precipice leading to the water’s edge, so that tourists can avoid taking the 1,500-foot climb from the water to the hotel.”
By August some thirty tourists were visiting the lake daily and taking their meals at Steel’s camp, but sleeping accommodations were so limited that most of them were unable to spend the night. As a result of the limited services, however, visitation increased to 2,600 for the season, the highest recorded number to date.
Arant also made improvements in the park during 1907 to enhance the visitors’ experiences. The trail leading to the water’s edge was repaired, and trails to Glacier Peak and Mount Scott were planned, with the latter being opened before the end of the summer. [9]
Congressional appropriations for Crater Lake had ranged between $2,000 and $3,000 per year from 1902 to 1907, thus hampering park development and effective administration of the reservation’s resources. In 1908, however, the park received an appropriation of $7,315, a figure close to the annual requests Arant had been submitting for several years. With these funds the superintendent was able to initiate a number of park improvements designed to enhance the quality of the visitors’ experiences in the park and contribute to more effective management of the reservation.
Arant used the increased appropriation to hire H.E. Momyer of Klamath Falls as the first seasonal park ranger in August 1907. Momyer would work as a seasonal ranger for the next eight summers until 1915 when he received appointment as the first permanent ranger in the park.
The increased appropriation enabled Arant to make some of the improvements in the park that he had been advocating for several years. These projects included installation of a hydraulic ram for pumping water to the superintendent’s office and residence and digging a ditch to carry off the waste water from the ram for irrigating the surrounding grounds. Two temporary structures were erected for the use of workmen, some twenty miles of roads and trails were improved, the barn, which had been damaged by wind or lightning, was repaired, and two miles of fence were constructed to enclose pasture and meadow lands. The roofs of the park buildings were renovated with three-fourths pitch in order that snow could slide off rather than pile up and crush them. This roof innovation was important in that average annual snow depth levels had been found to reach 6-8 feet at the south boundary of the park and 12-20 feet in the vicinity of Anna Spring.
In May 1908 Superintendent Arant was given direct authority to grant or refuse permission to drive loose stock through the park. Prior to this time permits had to be granted by the Secretary of the Interior, thus “causing considerable inconvenience and sometimes delay to the stockmen, and unavoidable annoyance to the superintendent of the park.” While three permits were issued in 1908, only one was utilized by the permittee–that being Henry Gordon who drove a herd of 250 head through the park in May en route to Fort Klamath. [10]
While the condition of Crater Lake National Park left much to be desired in the view of Superintendent Arant, the improvements that he had completed during the first six years of the park’s existence made it an increasingly popular place to visit. In 1908, for instance, he estimated that park visitation, including both campers and passing sightseers, for the tourist season was 5,275–approximately double the total of the previous year.
