Although I do get inquiries from academics and press outlets from around the world researching President Roosevelt and others in his circle of influence, I also have nearly as many people reaching out doing research about members in their own families or items in their possession. I’ve had people reach out in the past year about grandmothers rumored to have sewn Alice Roosevelt’s wedding dress, dude ranch owning uncles who may have once gone on a ride with TR, and distant relatives of men who worked alongside Roosevelt in the state assembly. As a genealogist myself, I understand their urge to mark their family’s connection to historical figures and moments. Here at the Theodore Roosevelt Center, we take the extra time to identify each and every person mentioned as we catalog items in recognition of the importance of the lesser-recognized names in history.
We recently had someone reach out to us through an old blog post we did about a visit to Crater Lake to scan items related to TR to add to our digital library. The blog mentioned that among the documents found were letters from “the park’s champion, William Gladstone Steel.” The reader responded, asking why her relative W. F. (William Franklin) Arant, the park’s first superintendent between 1902 and 1913, was often ignored when talking about the park’s history.
The party sitting atop an overlook at Crater Lake National Park includes W. F. Arant, left, the park's first Superintendent. The man second from the left is often mislabeled as President Roosevelt, even though Roosevelt never stepped foot in the park. Later investigations have identified the true identity of this doppelganger as Frank Anthony Heitkemper, a Portland jeweler, on a fishing trip to the lake in the summer of 1907 with two unnamed friends.
While the Crater Lake blog the relative was asking about wasn’t trying to offer a park history, it got me digging into the case a bit to see about doing my part in adding more to the historic record on Arant. He is by no means absent from park history accounts, with entire chapters devoted to his administration (see below). Yet for the average member of the public who isn’t reading through extensively detailed books about NPS administration, Steel is indeed the only individual that ever gets mentioned, earning him the nickname “Father of Crater Lake.” As it turns out, the story of Arant and Steel goes much deeper and has the makings of a great drama, involving political dealings, forced removals, a fistfight, and a lawsuit that went all the way to the Supreme Court. This week's blog post is a little longer than normal to get through the whole story.
Both Arant and Steel were early proponents of Crater Lake, working for years to see the park’s national park status come to fruition. Arant, although born in Illinois, was an established Klamath County resident with local support and connections to area pioneers. Steel had more influence in Portland, Medford, and beyond, hosting influential men to the park in the 1880s and 1890s to lobby for their support for the park. The two men knew each other and corresponded occasionally.
Arant talking about Crater Lake in 1911. East Oregonian, September 8, 1911.
After Roosevelt created Crater Lake National Park on May 22, 1902, Arant was appointed the park’s first commissioner. For over ten years Arant successfully ran the new park. He worked on improving the old wagon road between Anna Spring and the south entrance, and later the section between Munson Valley to Rim Village. The old roads dated to the 1860s and needed regrading and widening to handle the increase in traffic. He also requested funds for a boat to bring supplies and people to and from Wizard's Island, located in the center of Crater Lake, in his second year.
Medford Mail, June 26, 1903.
In the earliest years, almost no money was set aside for infrastructure improvements, and Arant regularly wrote officials about the need for a larger budget and additional park staff. As the park grew and tourist traffic increased, especially as the automobile's popularity grew, Arant and others butted heads about whether funds should be used to improve existing roads in disrepair, or to build new roads and entrances to the park. Some people aligned with Arant and advocated slower growth that protected the natural wonder, while others, like Steel, were open to the idea of hotels and other development near the lake. A newspaper article from 1912 mentioned the park's busiest day that season, with sixteen automobiles and 100 total visitors on August 3. Arant's proposed budget for the 1913 fiscal year included money towards new ranger cabins, road improvements, sprinklers to keep the dust down, telephone lines, and other improvements to keep up with the park's growth.
Even before the election of Woodrow Wilson in November of 1912, rumors began to swirl that anyone working under Taft would be ousted from their post. The perceived lack of experience of Arant to deal with political players, and his disapproval of certain kinds of development in the park, caused those in power to push for his replacement. Doing much of the lobbying himself, Steel reached out to local and national leaders and businessmen, including Senator Jonathan Bourne, Secretary of the Interior Walter L. Fisher, and even to Arant himself. Alfred L. Parkhurst, president of Crater Lake Company, was also behind the attempt to appoint Steel, who was a friend and associate with a financial interest in Parkhurst's company.
In a letter from Steel to Senator Bourne, dated July 2, 1912, Steel urged Arant's replacement as superintendent:
"The Superintendent [Arant] is a man for whom I have a very high regard, and for whom I would do almost anything. He has been faithful to his trust, but the fact cannot be denied that he is not the sort of man needed if the park is to come into its own. I dislike very much to express such a sentiment, but feel that the needs of the park are above those of any man, and when a friend stands in the way of a proper development, he ought to give way."
He goes on to say that if a new man should be elected, he is willing to "make sacrifices" and step into the role, saying, "it is not the position of Superintendent that I want, but wholly a park management on a very much higher plane, which I believe I can bring to pass. . . ."
After receiving Steel’s reports on conditions at Crater Lake, Interior Secretary Fisher sent an inspector named Edward W. Dixon to Crater Lake in October of 1912 to examine conditions, procedures, and methods used at the park, and to interview staff. Dixon concluded,
"I found Mr. Arant to be a practical man with many years of mountain experience and familiar with all the territory lying within the park. While he does not, I understand, make any pretense to artistic attainments or to a knowledge of the science of botany, he is faithful and conscientious in the discharge of his duties and appears to take a wholesome interest in the welfare of this reservation, of which he has been superintendent for more than ten years last past. I consider Mr. Arant competent to perform the work now assigned him, and there is, in my judgment, no reason why a change in the position of superintendent should be made."
The only person that Dixon interviewed who seemed to have something unfavorable to say about Arant was Steel, who said that, although pleasant, Arant’s "previous training and environment had made him unfitted to superintend the Crater Lake National Park, though so far, there having been little for him to do, he had gotten along very well and had given general satisfaction. However, they contended that, under development conditions, he would not measure up to requirements."
Steel wrote Arant trying to convince him to step down, assuming Arant would support Steel’s replacing him. In a letter dated November 30, 1912, Steel warned Arant that a change was coming, and that rather than open the field up to those without the park's best interest in mind, that he should step down and let Steel take the reins. Although Steel earlier wrote about Arant's lack of support of development as the reason behind his impending ouster, here he brings his reasoning back to politics, despite the fact that both men were Republicans.
"I believe my standing with the Interior Department and with the Crater Lake project in general is such that, with your assistance, I can secure an immediate appointment, and that if made at this time, I could stem the tide against Democratic aspirants and prove of material assistance in the great development that will commence with the coming season...Please give this matter your immediate and earnest consideration, and if you feel as I do and will send your resignation to the Secretary, together with a statement that my long service for the Park is such that you believe my appointment to fill the vacancy would meet with general approval in Oregon, I feel satisfied that immediate action would follow by the Department."
Still unresolved in the new year, with Arant now home in Klamath Falls for the snowy off season, Steel hints at talk in the department about Arant's refusal to step aside quietly in a January 15, 1913, letter.
"First will say, the Department feels very friendly to you, and at the same time is anxious to do that which will be for the best interests of the Park. Conditions, however, are such as to place the Honorable Secretary in a very awkward position."
Steel tells Arant he has two options,
"for you to resign, or for Mr. Fisher to remove you, and to the latter course I feel there is positive objection, in that it is a manifestation of force that conditions do not seem to justify, for I feel that if you could but know the exact and all the conditions, you would not hesitate for one instant to send in your resignation, for you would not care to shoulder the responsibility of turning the office over to Democratic manipulation, and particularly as you would thus relieve the Honorable Secretary of embarrassment, and permit him to as he desires in the premises."
Arant replied to Steel the same day, noting:
"I have been giving the matters you mention some consideration but cannot quite understand how it is that in case of a vacancy and your appointment that you will not be disturbed by the incoming administration, but that if I do not resign, the position of superintendent of the park will 'descend to the pie-counter of the new administration' as you term it."
This back and forth went on for months, with the press getting in on the debate in May.
Oregon Daily, May 15, 1913.
Arant began work in early June, when the snow finally became manageable enough to get the park ready for the season. On June 13, the newly appointed U.S. Secretary of the Interior, Franklin Lane, formally requested Arant's resignation and appointed Steel to the superintendency effective July 1. Arant, ready and waiting for the move and armed with legal counsel, argued that he was in the classified civil service and refused to turn over possession of government property to Steel. Arant held his ground, and continued his work.
By July 21, a frustrated Lane called in U.S. Marshals to get the job done. With their property thrown onto the yard, Arant and his family members repeatedly came back into the superintendent's home and headquarters, only to be removed again. Arant left and returned with lawyers. After being removed 6 or 7 times, Arant was locked out by the Marshals. Although specific details are unknown, apparently the week earlier Arant also got into a fist fight with Mr. Parkhurst of the Crater Lake Company.
Oregon Daily Journal, July 23, 1913.
The ousted superintendent went to the Oregon Court of Appeals, and later the Supreme Court, dragging the case out for years. In 1919 it finally came to an end, with the higher court holding up a lower court's decision supporting removal. (Arant v. Lane, 249 U.S. 367 (1919)). While his ousting was not fair, it was legal.
Statesman Journal, September 11, 1917.
Park histories have been edited in recent years to acknowledge the ousting of Arant over what were likely political and financial motives. While Arant and his team named quite a few locations within the park during his administration, only a few remnants remain. Arant Point is still named after him, and Goodbye Bridge was so named in July of 1913, as it was the last project he worked on before being forced out. No longer extant, Camp Arant, pictured below, was also named after him and was the first lodge at Crater Lake. The name was changed to Anna Spring Camp after he left.
Image of Camp Arant from the Umpqua Valley Museums Collection.
For more information on the Arant-Steel case, read Congressional records on the matter as well as a history of Arant's administration years, and a full chapter on his dismissal.
While we do not have any Arant related material added to our digital archive yet, we do have letters from Steel, available here. As we come across more National Park Service material related to Arant we will share it. Our thanks to the family members who reached out in an attempt to bring awareness to Arant's story and his absence from Crater Lake's history as it is often told.
