History

Crater Lake sits on what used to be Mount Mazama, a mountain formed over 400,000 years by repeated volcanic eruptions.

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History Details

Crater Lake sits on what used to be Mount Mazama, a mountain formed over 400,000 years by repeated volcanic eruptions. The mountain's final eruption, 7,700 years ago, was so voluminous and intense that the top of the volcano collapsed in on itself, leaving a gaping hole or caldera. Over the course of 750 years, the caldera filled in with rainwater and snowmelt, until the rates of evaporation and seepage balanced with rate of inflow, leaving roughly five trillion gallons of pure, blue water. The explosion is believed to have created 100 times as much ash as the explosion of Mount St. Helens in 1980. Its scattered remains have been found as far away as Nevada, Yellowstone, and British Columbia. The Makalak Indians, who have used the area around Mount Mazama for hunting and religious vision quests for over 10,000 years, almost certainly witnessed the explosion that created the caldera. In Makalak lure, the explosion of Mount Mazama happened as a result of battle between the gods of the above world and below world. In 1853, John Wesley Hillman became the first white man to see the lake. He was leading a gold-mining expedition when he stumbled upon the lake, which he dubbed Deep Blue Lake. The area's next European visitor, William Gladstone Steel, came in 1885. Steel spent the next 17 years petitioning the government to turn Crater Lake into a National Park, which it became on May 2, 1902, when President Theodore Roosevelt signed off on Crater Lake as the nation's sixth National Park. Crater Lake Lodge opened in 1915 as part of an effort to attract wealthy visitors to the park. Rim Drive was opened in 1918.

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