The Mazamas was the recipient of a wholly unexpected and valuable object this week. Some of you may recall that back in 1910 the Mazamas sent Claude E. Rusk to Denali, then known as Mt. McKinley, to find out the validity of Dr. Frederick Cook’s claim of making the first ascent. A brief version of that story is available here. As part of that expedition, Rusk’s party was to place on the summit of McKinley a summit register and container. Long story short, Rusk never made it to the summit and the register and container were lost to time. Until last week, that is.
Out of the blue, we got a phone call from a woman saying that she had something she thought we might be interested in. After several missed calls and left messages, we finally connected with her. As she began to describe what was sitting in front of her it began to dawn on us what she had in front of her was the original summit register and container that was intended for the summit. Not only that, but it also was in pristine shape, still contained the actual register book, and was inscribed! We agreed it was something we wanted and she posted it to us that day.
What arrived in the mail the following day was beyond our imagination. As you can see from the photos above, the summit register, while small, is a thing of beauty. Originally a cigar or cigarette holder, it was modified to hold a small leather notebook. Overall it’s in excellent condition and while hard to read due to oxidation, the small brass plaque on the cover reads, “Mazama Record Box Mt. McKinley 1910.”
Of particular interest are the five pages of inscriptions in the front of the register. The first four pages are either the original introduction to the Pacific Monthly article recounting the trip handwritten by Gertrude Metcalf, or a transcription of that introduction. It’s page five that contained information not found anywhere else. Page five contains a list of everyone who gave money to fund the expedition. We’ve known that the Pacific Monthly magazine helped fund a large portion of the trip in exchange for publication rights. What we didn’t know was that many prominent Mazamas also gave to the effort. Among those giving included Martin Gorman, John Long, and Charles Sholes. In addition, we didn’t know that the US Government contributed free passage on the Revenue Cutter Tahoma for the four members of the Mazama expedition.
The surprise came in the amount given by two individuals. Former Mazama Presidents Rodney Glisan and Henry Pittock (through the Oregonian) gave a combined $1150 to the effort. These two donations equal over half of the money raised and are the equivalent of over $28,000 today.
We are grateful to the donor and her family for not only holding on to this valuable object for so many years but also for making sure it found its way back to the Mazamas.