Castle Crest Wildflower Trail: Cultural Landscape Inventory, Crater Lake National Park, National Park Service

Owens, Erica

Castle Crest Wildflower Trail is a landscape that includes a meadow below Castle Crest Ridge and a 0.41 mile interpretive trail that loops around the clearing. The site is located a 0.25 mile east of Park Headquarters at Munson Valley. Originally built in 1929, the trail was meant to provide visitor access to and interpretation of one of the most abundant wildflower displays. The wildflower meadow or “garden," is bowl‑shaped – enclosed on the north and east by Castle Crest Ridge towering 2,000’ above, and on the south and west by low moraines. Five springs create moist conditions within the meadow that support a prolific wildflower community. The period of significance of Castle Crest Wildflower Trail is 1929‑1938, beginning with the date the trail was constructed, ending at the date the last major documented changes were made to its alignment. This landscape is associated with the events of early National Park Service (NPS) educational program development of the 1920s and 1930s. It is an example of popular techniques used to interpret a park’s natural resources during this period, incorporating both a self‑guided nature trail and a wildflower garden. The Castle Crest Wildflower Trail is significant as the first trail and wildflower garden planned, constructed, and used specifically for interpretational purposes as part of Crater Lake National Park’s educational program. The Castle Crest Wildflower Trail was built as part of the educational program at Crater Lake. The early development of this program was highly influenced by Dr. John C. Merriam, who was appointed in 1928 by the Secretary of the Interior to a committee to study educational possibilities of the national parks. From 1928 to 1945, Merriam developed the educational program at Crater Lake, using the park as experimental grounds for program development. Merriam intended Crater Lake’s educational program to become an example for all parks to follow. Merriam established the interpretational foundations of the education program by determining the park’s interpretive theme: the processes of volcanism and its influence in the creation of the Crater Lake landscape. During this time, eleven nature trails were built specifically for interpretation purposes. These trails were differentiated from bridle trails and fire access trails in the park master plans. The Castle Crest Wildflower Trail, built in 1929 to access and interpret the Castle Crest meadow was the first of these interpretative. The Castle Crest Wildflower Trail was not only connected to the early development of Crater Lake’s education program, it was also a local manifestation of a greater NPS educational movement. Castle Crest Wildflower Trail, originally called the “Castle Crest Garden,” is one example of the wild flower displays that were created in several national parks in the 1920s and 1930s. Wildflowers were typically displayed at the parks using two main techniques: 1) a cut flower display, labeled and maintained at the park’s museum, naturalist’s office, or lodge, or 2) a labeled wildflower garden. These wildflower gardens were usually created by either transplanting native flowers to a designed garden site or into an existing meadow to increase the density and variety of blooming plants. Alternatively, some wildflower gardens made use of existing meadows by simply adding paths. In all cases, the flora was labeled to facilitate plant identification by visitors. Crater Lake’s Castle Crest Wildflower Trail was one of the first wildflower gardens created in the national park service.

Castle Crest Wildflower Trail: Cultural Landscape Inventory, Crater Lake National Park, National Park Service

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