In 1927, Benjamin Loomis built a museum on his choice property situated between Manzanita Lake and Reflection Lake. He named it the Mae Loomis Memorial Museum in honor of his only daughter who had died seven years earlier at the age of 21. Loomis described his daughter as a great lover of nature who had been happiest when rambling through forests and among mountains. With no other offspring, Loomis and his wife Estella felt it was their duty to the public to build a museum for the preservation of his photograph collection. On February 4, 1929, Benjamin and Estella Loomis signed the deed granting their 40-acre tract together with their museum and seismograph building as a gift to the national park. The donation became possible only after the act of Congress of January 19, 1929, extended the boundaries of the park to include the Manzanita Lake area.

The museum building was constructed of native stone and reinforced concrete, with 20 skylights set into the dome-shaped roof. The interior consisted of a main hall devoted primarily to geologic exhibits, including photographs that Loomis had made of the eruptions, and a smaller wing containing a series of exhibits showing wildlife groups. The small seismograph building, located near the front of the museum, was made of different types of igneous rock. Inside, visitors could watch a seismograph in operation under glass as it recorded the earth’s slightest movements, its pendulum-mounted needle inking tremulous lines across a perpetually revolving spool of paper.

The Loomis Museum was an extraordinary gift to the national park. When the land and the buildings were deeded to the government in February 1929, few other national parks had museums and not one of these had been built and donated by private individuals. The gift of the museum vaulted Lassen Volcanic National Park into the first tier of parks with scientific and educational programs.

Credits and Sources:

“Little Gem of the Cascades: An Administrative History of Lassen Volcanic National Park, http://www.nps.gov/lavo/learn/historyculture/upload/Lassen-Volcanic-National-Park-Administrative-History.pdf, Accessed June 29, 2015.