This interview follows an outline that I’ve sent Dr. Allen about a week ago. Our first topic will be his background and early work prior to 1935 when he came of Crater Lake for one season.
I was born in Seattle in 1908. At my age of five, my father had been editor of the Seattle P.I…. and he was asked to come down to the University of Oregon to establish a department of journalism there in 1912. I was raised in Eugene and went to University High School. In 1926 I entered the University of Oregon as journalism major because I was the oldest son and naturally I went into journalism since my dad was head of the department. It was then a department, but later became a school, a very eminent school. I majored in journalism for two years but I took a course from Warren D. Smith there that “turned me on.” And after a trip back visiting various departments of geology all the way to the east coast. I decided that I wanted to become a geologist, and I changed my major. Graduated in ’31 and took a master’s degree on the geology of the Columbia River Gorge which has been my specialty ever since, particularly since I came back to Portland State University and started the department here in 1956. I’ve written two books on the Columbia River Gorge and served as a field trip guide for twenty years.
The 1935, job at Crater Lake came after spending three years working on my doctorate at Berkeley, which I didn’t complete at that time. Dr. Smith got me the job as ranger naturalist. He was there along with a very eminent group of eight scientists on the ranger naturalist staff that summer, a poet, a biologist, an artist, and three or four geologist. It was an instructive group of people; we had study sessions and worked together: it was very interesting.
Dr. Smith then got me a job at the end of the season with Rustless Iron & Steel and I worked for them for three years. I then joined the Oregon State Department of Geology and worked for them for nine years and finally went back and finished my Ph. D degree in 1944.
