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THE SEA OF SILENCE
…The plan is now to build, have the government build, a drive around the lake, so that all these points may be considered in a single day from a carriage. And a great hotel is planned! And a railroad must be made to whisk you through the life-and-vigor giving evergreen forests of Arden. Well, so be it, if you must so mock nature and break this hush and silence of a thousand centuries, but I shall not be here. No hotel or house or road of any sort should ever be built near this Sea of Silence. All our other parks have been surrendered to hotels and railroads. Let us keep this last and best sacred to silence and nature. That which is not worth climbing to see is not worth seeing.
From the “Sea of Silence”
By Joaquin Miller
Sunset, September 1904
(The Steel Scrapbook, Vol. I
WILLIAM GLADSTONE STEEL is a native of Stafford, Monroe County, Ohio, born September 7, 1854. His father, William Steel, reformer, was born in Biggar, Scotland, August 26, 1809, and died in Portland, Oregon, January 5, 1881. He came to the United States with his parents in 1817 and settled near Winchester, Virginia, but removed soon afterward to Monroe County, Ohio, where from 1830 to the Civil War he was an active worker in the “underground railroad,” of which he was one of the earliest organizers. During these years large numbers of slaves were assisted to escape to Canada, and in no single instance was one retaken after reaching him. At one time the slaveholders of Virginia offered $5,000 for his head, when he promptly addressed the committee, offering to bring it to them if the money was placed in responsible hands! He acquired a fortune as a merchant, but lost it in 1844. From 1872 to his death he resided with his sons in Oregon. In the early days of the antislavery movement Mr. Steel was the recognized leader of the Abolitionists in southeastern Ohio. He was at one time a candidate of the Liberty Party for Congress, and in 1844 circulated in eastern Ohio the great petition, whose signers agreed to vote for Henry Clay if he would emancipate his one slave (Appleton’s Cyclopedia of American Biography, Vol. V, page 659). The mother of our subject, Elizabeth (Lowry) Steel, was a native of Virginia, and her ancestors were among the Dutch colonial settlers of Pennsylvania.
The educational advantages of William G. Steel were very meager, being confined to the district school five miles distant, to which he walked daily, until the family removed to Portland in 1872; he then entered the high school, where he was a student for eighteen months. After leaving school he was apprenticed to Smith Brothers, iron manufacturers, to learn the trade of pattern-making; he served three years and then engaged in newspaper work, filling various positions until the fall of 1879, when he went to Albany, Linn County, and established the Albany Herald for the purpose of carrying the county for the Republican Party, which effort was unsuccessful. In the summer of 1880 he sold his paper and returned to Portland. Here he and his brother David began the publication of the Resources of Oregon and Washington, but the enterprise, being supported by Henry Villard, was discontinued upon his failure. Mr. Steel then secured a position as substitute letter carrier in Portland and was promoted to the position of Superintendent, which he filled until the Cleveland administration. He next engaged in the real estate business, and in 1891 the firm of Wilbur & Steel was formed. In 1889 Mr. Steel and C. Heald projected the railroad from Drain, Douglas County, to the mouth of the Umpqua River and Coos Bay.
Since 1875 Mr. Steel has been deeply interested in explorations of the mountains, and in 1885 his attentions were drawn to Crater Lake in Klamath County. Visiting the spot, he was so deeply impressed with the beauty and grandeur of the surroundings that he immediately took steps toward having the place set aside as a national park. During the summer of 1886 the United States Geological Survey was ordered to examine the lake. Boats were transported by rail a distance of 343 miles, carried 100 miles into the mountains, and then launched over a cliff 1,000 feet high; this difficult task safely accomplished, the soundings were made, and it was found that the water measured 2,008 feet deep; the lake is six by seven miles in extent and is entirely surrounded by cliffs from 500 to over 2,000 feet high. Another of Mr. Steel’s conceptions was the illumination of Mount Hood, which was first attempted July 4, 1886, but not successfully accomplished until July 4, 1887. This effort resulted in the organization of the Oregon Alpine Club in October 1887. He is the author of the beautiful little volume entitled “The Mountains of Oregon”; he is deeply interested in the natural resources and beauties of the state, and in the preservation of her early history.
Rev. H. K. Hines, An Illustrated History of the State of Oregon, 1893, pages 588-589
Will Steel writes:
I went to Oregon in 1872 with my parents and immediately began seeking the sunken lake I had read about in Kansas. For nine years this search continued, before I found anybody who had ever heard of it. There were no railroads; it was not until 1885 that I was successful in getting there. To me the first view was overwhelming. As I looked about, there were no claims of any sort on any of the land. A deep sense of personal responsibility overcame me and I determined to save it for future generations. How, I did not know, but the idea of a national park appealed to me. A petition to the president was prepared, asking that ten townships be withdrawn from the market, until the legislation could be secured for a national park. President Cleveland granted the petition. Senator Dolph introduced a bill in the Senate to create Crater Lake National Park. February 2, 1888, the senator wrote to me that the opposition was overwhelming and suggested that the lands be given to Oregon for a state park. I objected and told him if such a bill was introduced, I would come to Washington and exert myself to the utmost to defeat it, which had the effect of the senator dropping the entire matter. For 17 years I persisted and finally a bill passed both houses and on May 22, 1902, President Roosevelt approved it and Crater Lake National Park was really on the map!
The present road from the hotel to the Easterly side of the park, a distance of 13 miles to Kerr Notch, has numerous bad curves and two long, heavy grades. This road passes through forest, out of sight of the lake, in an uninteresting region and has no attractive features for strangers, except on outlook, which is attainable elsewhere. No money should be spent in improving it, for the reason that it is only a matter of time when a road will be built inside the rim, from the hotel to the base of Kerr Notch, on a four percent grade, a distance of four miles instead of the 13 as of the old road. A tunnel should then be bored from the water to the rim road on a grade of five or six percent and the debris used to fill in along the shoreline, for parking, turning, boathouses, or other conveniences. At present less than 20 percent of visitors climb down to the water, but with such a road, the sick, the weak and the halt will go, then take boats over the lake in a daze of bewildering sensations, as they view the surroundings.
This is not all. There is probably not a spot on earth of equal size, that will thrill visitors equal to this. Long after the season opens, the rim road is closed, for the reason that back of the Watchman great drifts of snow remain, 40 or 50 feet deep, whereas, if the road over that mountain was abandoned and a new one constructed directly in front of it, it would be, possible to open the rim road with the beginning of the season, to say nothing of the trill of passing directly above the lake, 1,500 feet, and yet with absolute safety, behind stone walls.
However, the crowning glory of the park will consist of an automobile road to the top of Mount Scott, 9,000 feet high, from which one beholds Central Oregon, to the Pacific Ocean. Walls will encircle the summit, where 200 cars or more can park with perfect safety and the occupants enjoy the entrancing thrills of mountain climbers without their hardships and dangers.
Then will come a road inside the rim, near the water, crossing to Wizard Island and up to its crater and encircling it. There inspired thoughts of reverence for the God of Abraham will sing His praises and depart in peace, evermore also singing the praises of this wonderful lake and its environs.
Crater Lake, Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow
STEEL POINTS Junior
By William Gladstone Steel (1854 – 1934) August 1925 – age 71
Stafford, Ohio
August 8, 2006
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