Crater Lake lies inside a caldera created 7,700 years ago when the 12,000-foot (3,700 m)-high Mount Mazama collapsed following a large volcanic eruption.

Dutton's team carried a half-ton survey boat, the Cleetwood, up the steep mountain slope and lowered it 2,000 feet (610 m) into the lake.

On 22 May 1902, President Theodore Roosevelt signed a bill making Crater Lake the United States' sixth national park.

The idea of building a guest lodge at Crater Lake was first raised by Steel shortly after the park was established.

[5] In 1909, Steel finally convinced a Portland developer, Alfred Parkhurst, to build a lodge on the rim above Crater Lake.

Neither Parkhurst or the project's architects R. N. Hockenberry & Company had experience building structures in a demanding environment like the Crater Lake rim site.

In addition, building materials had to be trucked to the site over very poor park roads, and the construction season was limited to only three summer months.

For example, the exterior was covered in tar-paper and the interior walls were finished with a thin cardboard-like wallboard called "beaver board."

The views of Crater Lake and the surrounding peaks of the Cascade Mountains kept a steady flow of visitor coming to the lodge.

The new landscape included hundreds of indigenous trees and shrubs that helped blend the lodge structure into its surroundings environment.

The National Park Service continually pushed the lodge operator to upgrade the facility, but little was done to maintain the structure beyond basic utilities maintenance and required fire safety measures.

In 1988, the National Park Service approved a plan to rebuild the lodge as part of the comprehensive Rim Village redevelopment program.

[7] In the spring of 1989, just before the lodge was to open for its summer season, structural engineers advised the National Park Service that the Great Hall was unsafe.