To the reader:
Larry Smith can be credited with initiating the first effort to compile the park’s history in an easily digestible format. It started as an extension of a report type that the NPS once called an “important event log,” but continual growth and refinement soon brought about The Smith Brothers’ Chronological History of Crater Lake National Park. This and other topics of mutual interest led to an interview in Jacksonville, at a time when I was still getting oriented with what has transpired at the park over the past four decades.
The interview also marked the beginning of his unflagging assistance which continues to the present. He and his brother Lloyd have contributed to park programs in many ways, most recently as volunteers in the Friends of Crater Lake. Our correspondence since this interview is extensive, and touches on many topics pertaining to history at Crater Lake and the surrounding area. Copies of those letters, along with related source material, are in the park’s history files.
Stephen R. Mark
(Crater Lake National Park Historian)
September 1997
