Bruce W. Black Oral History Interview
Above photo by Bruce Black
Interviewer: Stephen R. Mark, Crater Lake National Park Historian
Interviewee and Date: Bruce W. Black and wife Barbara, September 27, 1988
Interview Location: Bruce Black’s residence in Corvallis, Oregon
Transcription: Transcribed by Darci Desharnais Gomolski, 1994
Biographical Summary: Bruce Black served as the park’s chief naturalist from 1959 to 1963. Although this was a relatively brief period in a long career which spanned more than 30 years, those four years were important ones in Crater Lake National Park. Many of the changes to park facilities and operations wrought by Mission 66 occurred at that time, and a number of these are still apparent more than a generation later.
Most of this interview is captured on the following transcription. Some explanatory field notes and subsequent correspondence are in the park’s history files.
Materials Associated with this interview on file at the Dick Brown library at Crater Lake National Park’s Steel Visitor Center: taped interview; some additional notes and correspondence in file. Slide taken of him and Mrs. Black at time of interview, also portrait in the photo file.
To the reader:
Bruce Black served as the park’s chief naturalist from 1959 to 1963. Although this was a relatively brief period in a long career which spanned more than 30 years, those four years were important ones in Crater Lake National Park. Many of the changes to park facilities and operations wrought by Mission 66 occurred at that time, and a number of these are still apparent more than a generation later.
Most of this interview is captured on the following transcription. Some explanatory field notes and subsequent correspondence are in the park’s history files.
Stephen R. Mark
July 1994
