To the reader:
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. Explanatory field notes which summarize these conversations, along with subsequent correspondence, are in the park’s history files.
Stephen R. Mark
August 1997
Crater Lake National Park, National Park Service, Crater Lake, Oregon 97604
