THE STONE WOMAN OF CRATER LAKE:

"The Lady of the Woods/Stone Lady of Crater

Lake", Crater Lake National Park, Oregon.

Photograph ca. 1999, by Steve Marks,

National Park Service.

"The Lady of the Woods/Stone Lady of Crater

Lake", Crater Lake National Park, Oregon.

Photograph ca. 1920, by Alex Sparrow,

National Park Service.

About a mile and a half from the lodge at Crater Lake National Park atop Mount Mazama, in Oregon, the nude figure of a woman is carved in relief in a large lave boulder. The story of the “Stone Woman of Crater Lake” was told on Jefferson Public Radio (Southern Oregon University) and has been published by Dennis M. Powers in a story he titled “Trail Leads to Mysterious Stone Woman of Crater Lake”.

Crater Lake, Oregon. Public domain.

 “Reports of a sculptured stone woman began filtering into Crater Lake National Park headquarters during the winter and spring of 1917. Workers located the figure on the lake’s rim, about a mile and a half from the lodge.  The nearly full relief of a nude figure was chiseled out of a lava boulder, its legs bent and one arm over its head as if shielding against danger. The news media reported the discovery with headlines such as “Mummy Woman found in woods” and “Ancient figure of woman discovered.”   

Crater Lake, Oregon. Public domain.

 The curator of archaeology at a California museum went so far as to speculate that it could be a petrified human body or a lava-filled cavity resulting from mud enveloping the body of a woman. The mystery was resolved four years later when Dr. Earl Russell Bush, official surgeon for the U.S. Engineers, revealed he was the sculptor. He said he had been stationed at the park in the summer of 1917 and had spent 14 days in October carving the figure. He had pledged his staff to secrecy.   A trail constructed in 1930 leads to the “Lady of the Woods,” where she sleeps surrounded by trees in view of those who can find her. “(Powers, episode 2393).

This “curator of archaeology at a California museum” was our old friend Samuel Hubbard, who found the dinosaur petroglyph and the man fighting the elephant petroglyph at the bottom of Havasupai Canyon, and identified the so-called “Moab Mastodon” as a wooly rhinoceros (to say nothing of his other amazing discoveries).

The full story of the creation of this carving had been printed in an article entitled “Stone Woman of Crater Lake No Longer Mystery” on October 24, 1923, in The Fresno Bee, and reprinted by the Crater Lake Institute in Crater Lake National Park News (www.craterlakeinstitute.com).

Vandalism photo, 2014, Crater Lake National Park.

Of course, were Doctor Bush to do something like this today it would be considered felony vandalism, but that was another time. Modern vandalism has hit Crater Lake National Park in the form of a blue-haired face painted on a boulder overlooking the lake at an elevation of about 9,000 feet. Federal agents have confirmed other painted images “in Yosemite, and four other national parks in California, Utah and Oregon. The images appear to come from a New York state woman traveling across the west and documenting her work on Instagram and Tumblr.” (http://www.cbsnews.com/) Because of its age the Stone Lady qualifies as rock art, but this painted face is just bad – definitely vandalism, certainly not art. Shame on whoever did this!

NOTE: I want to thank Mary Merryman, Curator of Museum Archive and Collections, and Steve Mark, Historian, of Crater Lake National Park, Oregon, for their help and cooperation in preparing this post. Our tax dollars are well spent.

REFERENCES:

http://www.cbsnews.com/

Jefferson Public Radio, Southern Oregon University.

National Park Service.

Stone Woman of Crater Lake No Longer Mystery, The Fresno Bee, Sacramento Bureau, Fresno California, October 24, 1923.

www.craterlakeinstitute.com.