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1886
January 1886 “I met Judge John B. Waldo, who asked me why I did not apply (for National Park protection) for the entire Cascade range. Taking it as irony, I made a factitious reply, which he assured me that he was in dead earnest and asked me to call at his office, which I did. We talked the matter over at considerable length and I was deeply impressed with his knowledge of the situation and the value of such a move. (From this meeting between Judge Waldo and Will Steel came the movement to establish and protect the Cascade Reserves that today are known as the National Forests.)
January 18 1886 Senator J.N. Dolph introduces legislation in Congress to set aside Crater Lake as a National Park.
January 21 1886 The Hon. Binger Herman introduces a bill in Congress to set Crater Lake and five townships aside as a public park. Senator Dolph’s “state park” bill passes the Senate, again in 1888, again in 1890 and also in 1892. The legislation is defeated each time in the House of Representative.
January 22 1886 President Cleveland signs a presidential proclamation withdrawing from settlement 50 section of public domain including diamond Lake and Mt. Thielsen, but the proclamation leaves out the east rim of the lake and Cloud Cap, due to a survey error that is later corrected.
May 28 1886 Ashland Tidings – To Survey Crater Lake – Capt. C. F. Dutton, of the U.S. geological survey, will send a party to Crater Lake this summer to explore the mysteries of the region. He expects to have all hiis arrangements complete during the coming month, and to begin actual work about July 1st. Owing to the altitude of the lake, it will not be practicable to begin any sooner on account of snow and scarcity of grass for the animals used for transportation. Capt. Dutton will have a large boat and small skiffs transported to the lake and lumber will be taken there to build pontoons or scows for platform fronst which to take soundings. Stations will be fixed around the lake by means of which soundings can be taken on a network of lines so as to ascertain the general configuration of the bottom of the lake. Professor Condon, of Eugene, will be conferred with in regard to the scientific work of the survey. Wm. G. Steel, of this city, who has been so prominently connected with the effort to have the lake and surrounding country set aside for a national park, will be connected with the party. He is now in correspondence with the railroad and stage companies endeavoring to secure special rates for parties wishing to visit the lake. It is expected that quite a number of people will make a trip to that section this summer. (Oregonian)
June 12 1886 The Oregon Sentinel – Jacksonville reports that the two boats to be used by the U.S. geological survey in exploring Crater Lake are being built in Portland. One from which soundings will be made is twenty-six feet long, two feet deep and five and one half feet broad. The others are skiffs about fifteen feet long. They will be completed in about two weeks
June 25, 1986 Half Fare to Crater Lake. It is more than probable that those tourists who will visit Crater Lake this summer will have the benefit of half fares over the Oregon and California railroad. They will pay full fare to Ashland or Medford, and when they arrive at the lake, W. G.Steel will furnish them with a certificate, upon which they can return to Portland free of charges. He will not be located at one specific spot, but will sounding on the lake, and can be easily found. From Ashland, a person can go by stage to Fort Klamath, which is twenty-two miles from the lake. Leaving Medford and following up Rogue River, the distance of eighty-five miles over an excellent wagon raod, and the scenery is superb. The large boat to be used in the sounding by Mr. Steel’s party will be finished tomorrow, and all the necessary apparatus will be shipped from ehre on or before June 28t th.. (Portland News)
June 26 1886 The Oregon Sentinel – Jacksonville – reports that the three boats intended for use in sounding Crater Lake are finished. The sounding apparatus is being made at Smith Brothers and Watson’s, and will be fitted to the boats. This done, they will be brought down to Ball’s boathouse at the foot of Stark Street, Monday morning where the public may inspect them. On Tuesday they will be shipped south. The road from Medford to the Lake is blocked for miles by fallen trees, so a contract was made to carry the boats by wagon via Linkville and Forth Klamath. This will take about 10 days. The boats have to be lowered from 1000 to 1500 feet to the surface of the water and tackle for that purpose will taken along. The party will be absent until September. The article first appeared in the Oregonian.
June 28 1886 Portland News – Surveying Boats
The boats to be used by the surveying party to Crater Lake will be on exhibition this evening at Hall’s boathouse, foot of Stark Street. The sounding apparatus is fitted into the larger of the three. It consists of two heavy ash timbers projecting over the stern, with a pulley over which a line runs from a windlass midship, taking the wire or cord, as the case may be, from a reel placed in the bow. On the end of the journal of the pulley is a speed indicator, showing the number of resolutions made by the pulley and thus the depth of the water is determined. Mr. W.G. Steel has named this sounding boat “Cleetwood.” No such word exists in any language, and it has a peculiar and interesting origin. Some time ago, while on his way to San Francisco, Mr. Steel dreamed that he was in the company of his father, and that they both saw the heavens. In the dream they worked their way through the winding streets of an ancient city, where Mr. Steel asked: “Will, do you want to see something beautiful?” “Yes,” was the answer. Mr. Steel waved his hands above his head., and commended his son to look. Instantly the heavens became filled with golden arrows, which Mr. Steel, JR. upon inquiry, learned was “Cleetwood.” And thus it came to pass that a boat was provided with this name.
July 1 1886 Will Steel reports – On the first day of July I boarded the train for Ashland, where I met Capt. Dutton and we were joined immediately by Captain Geo. W. Davis, one of the most eminent engineers of America and ten soldiers. On the 7th we started for the lake, preceded by Capts Dutton and Davis, who were followed by a four-mule team bearing a first-class lap streak boat, which in turn was followed by three double teams, horsemen and pack train. Of the largest boat, the Cleetwood, we all felt justly proud, as it was certainly a beautiful model, four-oared, twenty-six feet6 long, and competent to ride almost any sea.
When passing through Phoenix the typical and irrepressible critic came to the surface in the shape of a lean, lank, awkward, ignorant country boy of say, eighteen summers. With hands in his packets he aided the single suspender delegated to hold his breeches in place and when shifting monstrous chew of tobacco over his tongue, informed his audience of a half dozen small urchins that that ‘ere boat won’t live in Crater Lake a half hour if a storm comes up. It aint shaped right. Jist see for yerselves how swaybacked she is. It must have been made by some feller as never seen a boat before. This brings to my mind the fact that a critic is a person who finds fault with something which is he is densely ignorant.
The entire distance from Ashland – 97 miles – was accomplished by slow easy marches. Every precaution being taken to guard against mishap and no incident occurred of special importance. Soon after reaching the foothills we encountered sliding places and short turns in the road. As the wagon containing the Cleetweek was top-heavy, and coupled twenty feet long, it was impossible to turn on an ordinary curve, hence it became necessary at time to drive as far as possible and then let 10 or 15 men lift the hind end of the wagon around by main strength. When a sliding place was reached the men would hang on the upper side or attach ropes to the top and hold it, thus preventing an upset.
On Tuesday we succeeded in reaching the foot of the last grade, and on Wednesday morning began the ascent. Here was the rub, the hill was long, very steep, sliding, rocky and filled with roots and stones, added to which were great banks of snow packed solid by constant thawing. Progress was slow and tedious with a roadway having to be cut in places while men with picks, shovels and axes dug up the rocks, cut down trees and shoveled snow besides building up or cutting down the side of the pathway. At ten o’clock on Wednesday, the boats were landed on the walls of the lake, having traveled 110 miles with hardly a scratch to mar the paint.
(Reported in the MMT January 1, 1928)
July 1 1886 Will Steel writes: On the first day of July in 1886, I boarded the train for Ashland, where I met Capt. Dutton and we were joined immediately by Captain Geo. W. Davis, one of the most eminent engineers of America and ten soldiers. On the 7th we started for the lake, preceded by Capts Dutton and Davis, who were followed by a four-mule team bearing a first-class lap streak boat, which in turn was followed by three double teams, horsemen and pack train. Of the largest boat, the Cleetwood, we all felt justly proud, as it was certainly a beautiful model, four-oared, twenty-six feet long, and competent to ride almost any sea.
When passing through Phoenix they typical and irrepressible critic came to the surface, in the shape of a lean, lank, awkward, ignorant country boy of say, eighteen summers. With hands in his pockets he aided the single suspender delegated to hold his breeches in place and when shifting a monstrous chew of tobacco over his tongue, informed his audience of a half dozen small urchins, that ‘ere boat won’t live in Crater Lake half an hour if a storm comes up. It ain’t shaped right. Jist see fer yerselves how swaybacked she is. It must have been made by some fellow as never seen a boat before.” This brings to my mind that fact that a critic is a person who finds fault with something which he is densely ignorant. (Mr. Steel relates that the boat the “Cleetwood” was successfully launched in the lake seven days afterward.
The ‘Cleetwood’ dream
In July 1886, the Dutton Expedition spent three weeks measuring the depths of Crater Lake in a boat named for a dream.
November 25, 2012
By BILL MILLER for the Mail Tribune
William Steel closed his eyes and began to dream.
Though his father had died years before, they were once again walking side by side. The winding streets through this ancient city were narrow and strange, yet father and son seemed to know exactly where they were.
William Steel wasn’t finished with the Cleetwood. He returned to the lake in 1888 and, determined to get photographs and sketches from the water’s surface, built a raft and floated to where the Cleetwood had been sunk.
“All day long I worked alone,” Steel said, “but I got the boat.”
Before he left, he once again sank the Cleetwood, this time along the western shore of Wizard Island, but her location was to remain a secret.
Steel had kept her rudder, and in 1929 he promised to give it to the park once a park museum was built. When the Sinnott Memorial Museum opened in 1931, the rudder and the sounding device that had been rediscovered in the lava field on Wizard Island that same year became permanent exhibits.
To see where the Cleetwood was launched, look to the steep edge of the caldera that drops to the water between the Sinnott Memorial and the Crater Lake Lodge.
His father stopped.
“Will,” he said, “Do you wish to see something beautiful?”
Waving his arms above his head, he commanded his son to look up.
The sky was filled with golden arrows piercing through the air.
“What is this? What is happening?” asked Steel.
“This is Cleetwood,” his father said, and instantly Steel woke up.
He had never heard this word before, but he knew it would always be a beautiful memory, and someday he would find a use for it.
In the spring of 1886, Captain Clarence Dutton was ordered by the United States Geological Survey to lead an expedition to Crater Lake. Dutton knew of Steel’s interest in the lake and asked him to arrange for boats and sounding gear to measure its depth.
On July 1, Steel boarded a train and left Portland with three boats, bound for Ashland.
“Of our largest boat, christened the ‘Cleetwood,’ ” Steel said, “we all felt justly proud. It was certainly a beautiful model, four-oared, 26 feet long and competent to ride almost any sea.”
Because the road from Medford was believed blocked by fallen trees, the original plan had been for the team of men to take the longer route to the lake through Klamath Falls, north to Fort Klamath, and then northwest to the lake, but after careful deliberation, Dutton decided to take the Rogue River route instead.
To protect the Cleetwood from possible damage, she would swing freely from chains attached to a sturdy framework mounted in a wagon.
On July 7, they left Ashland and 41/2; hours later made camp in Medford. The next morning they headed north, meeting the Rogue River in the foothills.
“The entire distance from Ashland — 96 miles,” Steel said, “was accomplished by slow, easy marches.”
A week later, the expedition arrived on the rim of the lake and prepared to lower the boats.
“They were carried to the lowest place to be found in the cliffs,” Steel said, “probably about 850 feet, vertical measurement, where the canyon descends at about an angle of 35 or 40 degrees.”
The boats were lowered one at a time with four men guiding them down as they dodged rock slides and a few small boulders.
The Cleetwood was placed in a large crate, keel up, attached to a sled, and slowly lowered down. It took 15 men eight hours to get her to the water.
For three weeks they rowed around the lake examining the caldera and making 168 depth readings. They were amazed when their instruments told them its deepest point was 1,996 feet, making it the deepest lake in the United States. (Current figures show the actual depth at 1,949 feet).
With the expedition finished, they had one last problem — what to do with the Cleetwood and the other boats.
“It is impossible to lift them to the top of the cliffs,” Steel said.
They decided to sink them with rocks “where no vandal could, and no responsible person would, raise them.”
Steel’s dream would lie there “month after month, season after season” until, perhaps, Congress would make the lake a national park.
“Then the resurrection trumpet will sound and the Cleetwood will awake,” Steel said. “So must it be!”
The dream of a national park came true, but the Cleetwood lives only in dreams and memories.
Writer Bill Miller lives in Shady Cove. Reach him at newsmiller@live.com.
July 2 1886 Crater Lake observations – from the Tidings – The Portland News of last Friday says, “Three boats for the Crater Lake surveying party have been finished and the sounding apparatus, which is being made at Smith and Watson’s iron works, will be fitted into one of them today. On Monday the boats will be brought to Ball’s boathouse, at the foot of Stark, and on that evening those who desire to inspect them may do so. Tuesday the boats will be loaded on the train and taken to Ashland. Captian Dutton has made a contract for the hauling of the boats from Ashland to the lake, via Linkville and Fort Klamath, a distance of about 120 miles. On arriving at the lake the next thing in order will be lower the boats to the water over craggy and irregular cliffs 1,000 to 1,500 feet high. If the cliffs were perfectly perpendicular the task would be a much easier one, but as it is it forms the hardest part of the trip.”
Thursday’s Oregonian had the following: “Yesterday the boats built here for use of the United States Geoldetic Survey in measuring Crater Lake were hauled down to Ball’s boat house, foot of Stark Street, where they attracted much attention. The principal boat is twenty-six feet long, five feet six inches beam and two feet depth. It is a very substantial lap streak boat (Adjective. Having overlapping hull planks), built of oak and spruce and almost fit for a life boat. W. Ingate Hall was the builder. This has the apparatus of making soundings. The lead line is of piano wire, 2000 feet long, and the lead weighs forty pounds. The wire is wound on a reel near the bow, and then passes over what may be called a tension wheel or drum, two feet in diameter, placed amidship. Two beams project over the stern, and between these there is a wheel whose axle turns the works of an odometer. This is a watchlike instrument for noting the number of revolutions made by the wheel and thus the length of the line paid out. The reel and the tension drum have a crank, and it requires a great deal of muscle to lift a forty-pount lead that is sunk a quarter of a mile or more in the water. The two other boats are fine skiffs, respectively fourteen and fifteen feet long. They will start south this morning.”
July 4 1886 Steel’s “Cleetwood” Party leaves Portland by train headed toward Crater Lake. Captain Dutton and ten soldiers arrive in Ashland to begin loading the Cleetwood boat off of its railroad car.
Crater Lake and its surroundings needed to be examined in greater depth, so Dutton headed a government-sponsored expedition during the summer of 1886. He needed civilian assistance for the procurement of boats and supplies, so Steel landed that job (he and Breck had hauled a canvas vessel to Crater Lake in 1885) and oversaw construction of three boats in Portland. The largest, Steel named the “Cleetwood” because of a dream he had had while traveling. In the dream, his deceased father joined Steel and both of them saw the heavens. As Steel’s father waved his hands above his head and told his son to look, the sky became filled with golden arrows, called “cleetwood” in the dream.
July 7 1886 Steel picks up his boat, the Cleetwood, from the boat builder and makes final preparations for the Lake’s exploration. Steel arrives in and soon leaves Ashland with 35 men and 65 horses and mules and the 26 foot Cleetwood, and two skiffs for a difficult 85 mile trip through the mountains to Crater Lake.
July 9 1886 From the ROGUE COURIER, “Three boats for Crater Lake, furnished by the government, passed upon a freight a few days ago.”
July 13 1886 The Cleetwood Party and Will Steel reach foot of grade leading to Crater Lake.
July 14 1886 Steel’s party begins ascent to lake, arriving on the Rim at 10:00 a.m.
July 15 1886 The launching of the boats commences. The first skiff is lowered into the Lake at 3:00 p.m. and the second by 6:00 p.m.
July 16 1886 Final preparations are made for lowering the Cleetwood.
July 17 1886 At 7:30 a.m., the Cleetwood begins its decent behind the present Lodge, on what will become known as the Garfield Trail. Fifteen men work 8 hours to launch the boat. Wizard Island is visited by both the Cleetwood and the two skiffs. The lowering of the Cleetwood: Weighed 900 pounds and was 26 feet long, constructed of spruce and ash. Cleetwood Canyon, located behind the present Lodge, was named by William Steel because this was the location where the Cleetwood was slid down to the Lake.
For many years afterwards the anchor trees for the cables exhibited torn off bark
With the launching of the Cleetwood, soundings of the lake are begun under the direction of Captain Clarence E. Dutton, chief of the Geological Survey party. Captain George W. Davis spends the first day testing the effects of tension on the wire which is to be used in sounding the lake. Watchman Peak receives its name from the fact that “watchmen” were stationed on its summit in order to determine the positions of the survey boats using a map of the Lake.
Will Steel remembers the launching as: “On Saturday morning I stood on a snow bank with a watch in my hand and every man in his place. At exactly 8 o’clock I gave the word and all jumped to their positions and the serious launching was underway. For eight hours, without stopping to eat or otherwise, 16 men labored with every nerve strained in an earnest desire to do his best. Then we found ourselves at the foot of the canyon, with the Cleetwood’s nose projecting over an embankment 10 feet high, directly over the water, and not a foot of cable to be had. The oars were secured in the boat, a man sat in the stern bracing himself as best he could. With a single stroke the cable was cut, the boat shot forward and down and the man gathered himself up in the bow with blood upon his face and bruised all over, but the happiest man in Oregon, for, had he not driven the mules that drew the Cleetwood 100 miles into the mountains and finished the trip on the water? Was he the only man who ever went from Ashland to Crater Lake by boat.”
July 18 1886 A circuit is made of the lake. The survey crew spends noon at Cleetwood Cove, and 2:00 p.m. at the Grotto
July 19 1886 Sounding of the Lake commences. Topographer Mark B. Kerr works on a map of the Lake and of the surrounding country. After 168 soundings are made, the maximum depth of the lake is determined to be 1,996 feet. Dutton declares the Lake to be the deepest lake in the country and the second deepest in the world.
July 1886 William G. Steel names Dutton Cliff for Captain Clarence E. Dutton. Captain Dutton had charge of the U.S. Geological Survey crew, which made the first official survey of the Lake during the summer of 1886. Kerr Notch is also named for Mark B. Kerr, chief engineer for the Cleetwood expedition. Kerr, an Englishman, pronounced his name, “CAR”.
Steel writes of his feelings of being at Crater Lake: “While at the lake in 1885, I had a strong desire to go out upon its surface under favorable circumstances, but had no boat. As soon as they were launched in 1886, I began watching for a favorable opportunity and about the time of the full moon I slipped out of camp one night, pulled out near the center and stopped for an observation. There was not a breath of air stirring and reflections were as perfect as it could have been in a plate glass mirror. The walls were clearly outlined above the water and below were inverted, but just as clear. Upon yonder a full moon floated in the air and down below it was just as clear and beautiful. The North Star was clear above and below as were also the Pleasides. The Milky Way seemed clearer below than above. I was an atom in the center of an enormous sphere, looking up to the starry heavens and looking down at its counter-part. The shoreline and its reflection appeared as a great knothole, with creation above, the creation below. Did human eye behold such a sight? Why should I be favored? God in His infinite mercy permitted me to look out upon His glorious works as never man did before. Why should I not be grateful?”
August 1886 Senator Dolph and Representative Herman introduced identical bills to set Crater Lake aside as a “Public Park”. The bills are not reported out of committee.
August 5 1886 Dutton and Steel complete their work at Crater Lake. Lake depth determined finally at 2008 feet. Gaywas (Giowy’s) Rock named by Applegate. Later changed to Skell Head.
August 16 1886 Ten names are carved into a rock near the summit of Wizard Island: Annie Shipley, E.V. Patterson, Sam Hodges, Maggie Linn, Tom and Minnie Ross, R.E. Ross, E.R. Reames, Abe Ross, F. Lynn.
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