CRATER LAKE —

One hundred years have passed since a rustic lodge was built atop a stark cliff that overlooks the deepest lake in the United States.

The Crater Lake Lodge has a century’s worth of stories to tell. Yet, according to park historian Stephen Mark, it’s lucky it has lasted this long.

“When it was built,” said Mark, “there was no foundation, no basement, nothing to keep the lodge from collapsing in heavy snow years. In fact, when the lodge opened in 1915, it was nowhere near finished. So it had to be cabled through the winter.”

That hasn’t been necessary since the lodge was reconstructed from 1989 to 1995. The Crater Lake Lodge is considered one of the great national park lodges of the Western United States, along with such other icons of early-20th-century architecture as Yellowstone’s Old Faithful Lodge, Yosemite’s Ahwahnee Lodge and the East Glacier Lodge in Montana.

Coming a year ahead of the centennial of the National Park Service, the 100th birthday party of the Crater Lake Lodge will be an occasion to remember. Scheduled in the building’s Great Hall on Aug. 25 — nearly two months after the anniversary of the actual opening date (June 28, 1915) — the reception will, indeed, include a birthday cake.

The only other date set aside on the summer-season calendar is a June 12 appearance on KPTV’s “Good Morning Oregon” television program. “I’m working on scheduling a couple more events,” said general manager Mike Keller.

Natural splendor

Keller came to Crater Lake a couple of years ago with Xanterra Parks & Resorts, the company that operates the concession at this national park and several others, including Yellowstone and Glacier.

“All the great lodges of the national parks are unique,” he said. “Their proximity to the natural wonders that surround them give visitors the ability to appreciate the splendors each national park provides. The Crater Lake Lodge sits atop the rim, above one of the largest volcanic calderas in the world.”

That caldera was the legacy of Mount Mazama, which geologists say once stood more than 12,000 feet above the surrounding landscape. About 7,700 years ago, it erupted in one of the greatest volcanic eruptions known to man. Smoke, ash and molten rock were thrust into the atmosphere with such force that a toxic cloud extended all the way across Canada to Greenland. Then the great peak collapsed into itself.

At first, this steaming caldera, 6 miles across, was a barren wasteland of lava and pumice rock, with cliffs rising 3,900 feet above its deepest point. As centuries passed, the crater filled with water from rain and snowmelt.

For thousands of years before the arrival of white Europeans, the native Klamath people revered the mountain and its lake. Their legends told of its creation in an epic battle between heaven and hell. They never lived on the mountain but visited for private religious ceremonies and prayers to their gods.

The first white men to see the lake were gold prospectors who looked over its rim in 1853. They were more interested in mineral wealth, but their stories about a “deep blue lake” intrigued others who followed. Scientists mounted research expeditions in the 1870s and 1880s, and in 1902 Crater Lake was established as the fifth national park in the U.S.

Today, Crater Lake is recognized as the deepest lake in the United States — 1,943 feet at its maximum — as well as the purest: It is possible to look straight down into the lake to a depth of more than 400 feet. No streams flow in, so there is no accumulation of silt in the waters. Natural evaporation and minor seepage through cliff walls keep the lake level consistent.

Construction story

Mark has been the park historian since 1988. He was already at Crater Lake when the lodge was closed in the spring of 1989. He watched the rehabilitation work begin in the fall of that year; he saw it completed five years later, before the lodge’s reopening in May 1995.

And he knows the full story of the construction of Crater Lake Lodge.

“The original lodge was a big Portland suburban house design,” Mark told me, as we sat amid stacks of books and papers in the library of the park’s administration building.

Mark said William Steel, a tireless conservationist whose efforts led to the creation of Crater Lake National Park in May 1902, believed a lake-view lodge would attract more visitors to this location — which, at the start of the 20th century, was far more inaccessible than it is today, requiring a journey of many miles over crude, unpaved roads.

But the promise of eight months of winter didn’t help him find a builder. The average annual snowfall on the crater’s rim, 7,100 feet above sea level, is more than 540 inches (over 45 feet). No developer wanted to commit to the work, especially given the limited seasonal window for construction work and the reality that laborers would be lured from summer agricultural work only with the promise of substantial pay.

Finally, said Mark, “Will Steel recruited his Portland real estate pal, Alfred Parkhurst, who adapted a house design as an automobile lodge.” He began building on a site that was a mere field of pumice, with only a scattering of forest. He oriented the building with “open arms to the elements,” Mark said, practically inviting snowdrifts to gather upon the building.

Because the cost of construction rapidly mushroomed, Parkhurst had to cut corners in interior design. When the lodge opened, the only electricity was provided by a small generator for a few hours each morning and evening. Tar paper and cardboard covered the walls, and until new annex wings doubled the number of rooms in 1923 and 1924, there were no private bathrooms. But even those guest rooms were not completed until the 1930s.

The Depression era brought landscaping and tree planting to Rim Village (as the lodge district is known), courtesy of the Civilian Conservation Corps. But during World War II, the park and lodge closed.

Falling down

When the Crater Lake Lodge reopened to increased business in the late 1940s, the ravages of time and neglect were showing their effects. “The fourth floor had never been finished, because of the winter cable placement and the fear of someone falling,” Mark said. “And not only did the kitchen wing have no exits; you would have had to be an acrobat to use any of the fire exits.”

Floors and ceilings were sagging, and the walls were stretched by cables that tried to keep them from bowing under the weight of snow. Cracks in the stone masonry were widening. What Mark now calls “a Band-Aid approach” failed to bring the building up to safety standards.

When the National Park Service took ownership of the lodge in 1967, it realized it didn’t have the resources to give it a proper restoration. Public opinion, however, quashed a proposal to demolish the National Register of Historic Places building, so a team of engineers were retained to monitor the structural integrity of the lodge.

Before the 1989 lodging season, the engineers determined the lodge could no longer safely remain open — that a collapse was impending.

The original development project, Mark said, called for the construction of a hotel (with underground parking) to be completed before rehabilitation of the old lodge was to begin. “But that was ‘DOA’ in ’92,” he said. “The Park Service was forced into rehabbing the lodge earlier than the plan called for.”

For two years, planning and design focused on re-creating the appearance of the lodge’s 1920s exterior and public rooms. By 1991, contractors had determined that most of the building would have to be gutted. “Only about 10 percent of the original materials were reincorporated into the way the building looks today,” Mark said, “and most of that was stonework and decorative wood elements.”

Reinforced concrete and structural steel elements were added “to keep the building where it is,” Mark said. New safety systems and utilities brought the property up to modern standards. Rooms were reconfigured, and an employee dining room was added in the new basement. The lodge was completed in fall 1994 at an expense of more than $15 million and reopened to the public in May 1995.

But Mark is hesitant to refer to the Crater Lake Lodge as a building that’s celebrating its 100th birthday this year.

“What you see is actually a new building, made to look old,” he said.

The lodge today

Those who visit Crater Lake today approach the lodge by a half-mile “driveway” that extends off West Rim Drive. The road passes the 1921 Kiser Studio (now a visitor center), a cafeteria and gift shop (built in 1928), a trail to the Sinnott Memorial Overlook (1931), a community house and a comfort station. There’s parking beside a broad meadow that invites snowshoe expeditions during the winter season.

On our visit this month, a few days after the lodge opened for the 2015 season, we drove through a short circular entry drive where we were greeted by a bellman, who helped us unload our luggage and led us to the front desk.

We found that the comfortable registration area, flanked by one of several fireplaces in the building, was a good place to get oriented.

To our right was the Great Room — a traditional gathering place for lodge guests — and, beyond that, the Dining Room. During a cold, drizzly two-day stay, we spent substantial time in these two areas. The Great Room, with its rustic furnishings and roaring fireplace, was ideal for reading, talking with other guests, enjoying a pre-dinner glass of wine and listening to afternoon lectures by resident park rangers.

Double doors opened to a concrete terrace where Adirondack chairs invited us to relax and enjoy the view of the spectacular lake, its stark walls still fringed with snow despite this having been the driest winter on record here. A 1.7-mile trail to the summit of nearby Garfield Peak began just off the terrace; during a break in the precipitation, we marched about the first half-mile of that to get a photographic perspective on the lodge’s setting.

The restaurant beckons with fine dining, three meals a day. As in the Great Room, the décor is highlighted by slabs of pine bark that cover the walls, perhaps lending a sense of camping in the great outdoors. But the food is anything but campfire fare. From hearty pancakes-and-eggs breakfasts to dinners of Alaskan halibut and elk chops with a huckleberry-walnut glaze, the food is a visual and culinary treat — though not an inexpensive one.

To the left of the registration area are offices, a small museum nook of lodge history and two elevators that carry guests to the 73 guest rooms.

“No two guest rooms inside the lodge are alike,” said Keller, the general manager. “Each room is unique in its size, orientation and views it provides.”

Our queen room, in a corner of the fourth floor, had windows facing to both the north and west and a sitting area with a bay window that extended above the lake with a fine view toward Wizard Island. Our bathroom panorama was no less stunning, as we could soak in a solitary claw-foot tub while embracing the sight of the deep-blue lake below.

Room rates begin at $169.99 for a ground-floor room and climb to $294.99 for a loft unit. There are no TVs or phones, and cell-phone service is spotty, but the lodge does offer Wi-Fi connections. If you require a shower, request one when you make your reservation, as many rooms have only bathtubs.

The Crater Lake Lodge is indeed a historical treasure. But I think I prefer it in its contemporary form, knowing that I have certain modern amenities along with modern safety provisions.

— John Gottberg Anderson can be reached at janderson@bendbulletin.com.