Crump Lake is a shallow lake in the Warner Valley of eastern Lake County, Oregon, United States. The lake covers . It is the largest of the Warner Lakes system. The lake is named for pioneer rancher Thomas Crump. Crump Lake is owned by the Oregon Department of State Lands. Much of the land around the lake is administered by the Bureau of Land Management and the United States Fish and Wildlife Service. The lake and the surrounding wetlands support a wide variety of birds and other wildlife. Recreational opportunities on or near Crump Lake include fishing, bird watching, and camping.
Geography
Crump Lake is located north of the unincorporated community of Adel, Oregon at the southern end of the Warner Valley in south-central Oregon. The valley is approximately long and wide. Most of the valley is in Lake County, however the north end of the valley extends about into Harney County. It is an alluvial basin containing numerous lakes, remnants of a single great lake that covered the valley floor up to deep during the Pleistocene epoch. Today, steep cliffs rise above a chain of endorheic lakes including Crump Lake, known collectively as Warner Lakes. The valley has two regions commonly referred to as South Warner Valley and North Warner Valley. The two areas transition between Crump Lake in the south and Hart Lake to the north at a point where the valley narrows to about in width.
There are numerous lakes in the Warner Lakes chain. Starting at the south end of the valley, the Warner Lakes are Pelican Lake, Crump Lake, Hart Lake, Anderson Lake, Swamp Lake, Mugwump Lake, Flagstaff Lake, Upper Campbell Lake, Lower Campbell Lake, Stone Corral Lake, Turpin Lake, and Bluejoint Lake. The valley slopes toward the north. As a result, the elevation of Crump Lake is higher than Bluejoint Lake. Ultimately, the Warner Lakes system has no outlet so its waters eventually evaporate from the lake surfaces and associated wetlands.
History
Native Americans used the Warner Valley's lakes and wetland for thousands of years before the first white explorers arrived. There are ancient Native American petroglyphs near Crump Lake, some are estimated to be 12,000 years old. The Greaser Petroglyph Site, located approximately southeast of Crump Lake, is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
In 1867, General George Crook decided to build a fort in the Warner Valley to prevent Indian raiding parties from passing through the area. To get his wagons across the wetlands, he directed a bridge be built across a narrow, marshy channel between Crump Lake and Hart Lake. Forty soldiers of the 23rd Infantry Regiment under the command of Captain James Henton were assigned the task. The bridge was constructed between 16 May and 24 July 1867. Known as the Stone Bridge, it was actually a quarter mile long causeway constructed by hauling basalt boulders and smaller rocks from the slopes of nearby Hart Mountain and dumping them into the marsh. Today, the Stone Bridge across the Warner wetlands still exists. It is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
Crump Lake is named for Thomas Crump (1854–1939), a pioneer rancher who settled near the lake in the 1890s. In 1959, a well drilled on the Crump Ranch approximately southwest of the lake created Crump Geyser. Water from the geyser drains into a wetland channel that feeds into the lake.
Originally, there was a small island near the center of Crump Lake used by nesting water birds. During a drought period in the 1950s, the island was scoured away by heavy equipment being used to unearth Native American artifacts. In the 1990s, the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife attempted to restore the island, but wind and wave action quickly eroded it away again. In 2008, the United States Army Corps of Engineers built a nesting site at the location of the original island. It was specifically designed to resist erosion and the surface was covered with sand and gravel to create nesting habitat for Caspian terns. Since its completion, the new island has become a successful nested site for terns and other water birds.
In 2015, the Oregon Department of State Lands closed Crump Lake to the public because several years of drought had dramatically reduced the lake's water level. The closure was intended to protect the lakebed from looting by cultural artifact hunters. This temporary closure was lifted in October 2016, as state officials determined water levels to be improved.