Crystal Recreation Area - Klamath County, OR
N 42° 34.557 W 122° 05.187
10T E 574972 N 4714130
This historical marker is located within the Crystal Springs Rest Area in Klamath County, OR.
Waymark Code: WMFYVZ
Location: Oregon, United States
Date Posted: 12/19/2012
Views: 1
Visitors to the Crystal Springs Rest Area are welcomed with two points of interest: One, a kiosk by the Volcanic Legacy Scenic Byway program that highlights the local flora and fauna that this region in Klamath County is part of. And two, a sign that highlights a site that was once Crystal School, established in 1893 but now just a memory, after having burned down in 1945. The historical sign says the following:
CRYSTAL RECREATION AREA
SITE OF ORIGINAL CRYSTAL SCHOOL ESTABLISHED IN 1893 BY D. G. BROWN. DEVELOPED AS A RECREATIONAL AREA BY THE WINEMA NATIONAL FOREST AND KLAMATH COUNTY PARK BOARD. KLAMATH COUNTY HISTORICAL SOCIETY.
There is a website by the Klamath County Historical Society that mentions this school and says the following:
Crystal#18 -- 1893-1943
The school district #18 in Klamath County originally comprised the area from about Four-mile Spring on the North to Rock Creek (Denny Creek) on the South and from the mountain to Klamath Lake.The building at Crystal was erected in 1893 by D.G. Brown and Ben Peterman at the head of Crystal Creek. The lumber was brought in by barge from the Rufus Moore Mill on Link River. Its square nails had come in by freight from San Francisco in 1892.
Miss Farrar of Klamath Falls was the first teacher, the term ending at Thanksgiving time. Teachers to follow were Mary Johnson, Jessie Rose, Allen Holt, John Stuart, Austin Holt and Annie J. Stockwell who became Mrs. Gilbert Brown. Miss Stockwell graded the school in 1900. Later, a two year high school was added. District #18, being large, operated several schools: one at Crystal, one at Odessa, and a school building on skids was moved with the camp of the Pelican Bay Lumber Company in the area. The Crystal, Odessa, and Pelican Bay schools were administered by a single board of directors.
Doris Ady Peyton who taught a six-month term at Crystal in 1922 says it took her all day to reach there from Klamath Falls. At daybreak, she took a train to Chiloquin, and traveled by sled the rest of the way to the home of Mrs. Fred Brown where she boarded. There were 11 children and 1 teacher. One family furnished 10 of the 11 pupils, so when that family moved over the week-end, school closed temporarily. Later it reopened and continued until 1943 when it closed because there were only five children in the area. The Crystal building burned in 1945.
(The site of the school is noted as having been repurposed as a picnic site in a June 1970 article of the Herald and News. As of this writing in 2012, a hand water pump remains at the site, just north of the picnic site and along the east edge of the Westside Road.)
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This rest area is along the way to Crater Lake National Park, a very popular stopover for visitors from all over the world. I was also able to located an online biography of Daniel Gilbert Brown, the establisher of Crystal School and can be read in more detail here.
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