Lassen Volcanic National Park guide · 2 min read
Lassen Peak Awakens: The 1914 Eruptions
The last eruptions of Lassen Peak stretched from 1914 to 1921. The largest blast came on May 22, 1915, when the volcano opened a crater about 1,000 feet wide and ash drifted more than 200 miles away.
Researchers still treat the volcano as active and keep watching the area for change.
The 1914 eruptions drew national attention, and Benjamin F. Loomis, a local businessman, photographed them. One of his pictures, dated June 14, 1914, catches ash climbing from a snowy summit. Tall conifers line the base of the peak, and an open-top Ford Model T sits in the foreground. A number two scratched into the car door shows where the shot falls in his series.
The Devastated Area lies about 10 miles from the Northwest Entrance, and it shows the effects of the eruption up close. The trail starts from the middle of the parking area and runs a short way into the forest. Its half-mile loop has a hard surface and offers views of Lassen Peak and the mudflow it left in 1915. Exhibits along the way offer audio descriptions that switch on as you approach, and the trailhead has accessible parking and vault toilets.
Lassen Volcanic National Park was founded in 1916. It took in two earlier national monuments along with the land around them. Among the world's plug dome volcanoes, Lassen Peak ranks among the largest. That makes it one piece of a fuller set, since the park holds every kind of volcano on Earth: plug domes, shield volcanoes, composite volcanoes and cinder cones.
The Atsugewi lived in this country long before settlers arrived. They viewed the mountain as a store of fire and water, and they expected it might one day explode. In the mid-1800s, travelers heading for the Sacramento Valley used the peak as a landmark. Peter Lassen, a Danish blacksmith who made his home in northern California in the 1830s, often helped guide them. Lassen Peak carries his name.
