1885. Standing on the rim he suggested to Professor
Joseph Le Conte that an effort be made to induce the national government
to save it from defacement and private exploitation. Returning home they
prepared a petition to President Cleveland, who promptly withdrew ten
townships from settlement pending a bill before Congress to create a
national park. Congress refused to pass the bill on the ground that
Oregon should protect her own lake. Then Steel began an effort, or
rather an unbroken succession of efforts, to interest Congress. For
seventeen years he agitated the project at home, where he made speeches
winter and summer all over the State, and at Washington, which he
deluged with letters and circulars. Finally the bill was passed. Crater
Lake became a national park on May 22, 1902.

Mr. Steel's work was not finished. He now began just as vigorous a
campaign to have the lake properly stocked with trout. It required years
but succeeded. Then he began a campaign for funds to build a road to the
lake. This was a stubborn struggle which carried him to Washington for a
winter, but it finally succeeded.

During most of this time Mr. Steel was a country school-teacher without
other personal income than his salary. He spent many of his summers
talking Crater-Lake projects to audiences in every part of the State,
depending upon his many friends for entertainment and for "lifts" from
town to town. He was superintendent of the park from 1913 to the winter
of 1920, when he became United States commissioner for the park.

The attitude of the Indians toward Crater Lake remains to be told. Steel
is authority for the statement that previous to 1886 no modern Indian
had looked upon its waters. Legends inherited from their ancestors made
them greatly fear it. I quote O.C. Applegate's "Klamath Legend of La-o,"
from _Steel Points_ for January, 1907:

"According to the mythology of the Klamath and Modoc Indians, the chief
spirit who occupied the mystic land of Gaywas, or Crater Lake, was La-o.
Under his control were many lesser spirits who appeared to be able to
change their forms at will. Many of these were monsters of various
kinds, among them the giant crawfish (or dragon) who could, if he chose,
reach up his mighty arms even to the tops of the cliffs and drag down to
the cold depths of Crater Lake any too venturesome tourist of the primal
days.

"The spirits or beings who were under the control of La-o assumed the
forms of many a