Emmett Blanchfield Oral History Interview
Interviewer: Stephen R. Mark, Crater Lake National Park Historian
Interview Location and Date: At Emmett Blanchfield’s residence in Sacramento, California, March 7, 1995
Transcription: Transcribed by Chris Prout, August 1997
Biographical Summary (from the interview introduction)
Blanchfield, Emmett U. Forestry technician 1930, ranger-naturalist 1931; later became landscape architect for the U.S. Forest Service and California State Parks.
I knew of Emmett Blanchfield’s work as long ago as 1988, while on a visit to Mount Hood that summer. An old address frustrated my efforts to contact him until a historian who worked on the Historic American Buildings Survey project for Timberline Lodge contacted me. She gave me some valuable insights about the connections between National Park Service and U.S. Forest Service projects in the 1930’s, along with Mr. Blanchfield’s current location, during the course of our telephone conversation. Less than three months later I made my way to Sacramento in conjunction with other business and spent the better part of a day interviewing him.
Much of the interview is captured by the following transcription, but we also had riveting conversations over dinner the previous evening and met again for breakfast.
Materials Associated with this interview on file at the Dick Brown library at Crater Lake National Park’s Steel Visitor Center
taped interview; additional notes and correspondence in file along with manuscript concerning his work at Timberline Lodge on Mt. Hood. Donated a number of photos take at CRLA in 193 1. Slide taken of him at the time of interview. Explanatory field notes which summarize these conversations, along with subsequent correspondence, are in the park’s history files.
