sided shelter and washstand constructed for their convenience. Regrettably, pollution soon rendered the Willamette unsafe for swimming. The shelter remained in place and was enclosed on all sides in the 1950s. It is known today, just east of that concrete whale, as the Lamb Cottage. Today’s morning users of the south bank bike path sometimes spot (now illegal) overnight campers awakening on the cottage porch, probably unaware of the structure’s original purpose. Another camp to grace Skinner Butte Park was a Civilian Conservation Corps work crew headquarters located there during the Depression. During World War II a housing complex for returning veterans was built off Cheshire Street, later used for married student housing. Most of this was gone by 1963. An entire book could be written solely about the history of Skinner Butte and Park. The hill was grazed by cows and replanted with trees by volunteers. It has sported at its summit a water reservoir and a University of Oregon telescopic observatory, eventually dynamited to bits. UO Webfoots/Ducks also constructed a series of giant “O’s” on the butte, several of which were similarly blasted, dismembered and hauled away by Oregon State Beaver fans too delinquent to buy a vowel. Even more contentious were the many crosses erected on Skinner Butte, starting with the fiery symbols planted by the Ku Klux Klan in the 1920s and ending with the politically hot saga of the 51 foot concrete cross illuminated there between 1964 and 1997. Eugene Skinner may have encountered an occasional bear near his cabin but in 1968 you could see one there for sure. That’s because a bear was the last remaining animal in a zoo of sorts that developed in Skinner Butte Park from 1953 through the 1960s or later. The bear had been joined for a time by monkeys, raccoons, birds and other species. Proposals made over the years to enhance the Skinner Butte summit included possible addition of a tramway, tennis courts, an ice rink, or the Oregon Museum of Science and Industry, as 14
well as a brainstorm to top it with a 100 foot beacon. In 1951 the Eugene Recreation Commission considered (but quickly rejected) the idea of putting the city jail atop the butte. Police in the 1990s might have appreciated that jail when a rash of illegal behaviors and arrests on the butte led city government to announce the permanent closure of the summit road, a decision later rescinded after citizen input and a volunteer clean-up campaign. In 1971 a downsized replica of the Skinner cabin was built, currently displayed north of the butte at an elevation lower than the original - this made possible by modern flood control measures. But in 1888 another residence went up on the Butte’s south side, one which overwhelms any Skinner cabin, real or replicated.
The “Castle on the Hill,” Then and Now In that year Dr. Thomas Winthrop Shelton and Adah Lily Lucas Shelton built their sumptuous Victorian Queen Anne Revival style “Castle on the Hill.” It was later passed on to daughter Alberta, married to Robert McMurphey. Idaho Cogswell, sister of Lizzie Miller of the 1910 Melvin Miller Park donation, produced children from two marriages, including Eva Frazer and Celeste Campbell. As a child, Eva Frazer was friends with the neighboring McMurphey children and often played in the “castle.” Eva went on to study medicine and practiced for 25 years in Madison, Wisconsin, with her husband, Curtis Johnson. After Alberta McMurphey died in 1949, Eva Johnson was able to purchase her childhood dream home. She and Curtis returned to Eugene to set up practice. Curtis Johnson died in 1966 and for a time Eva rented out parts of the mansion to university students, most of whom, presumably, would never again inhabit housing as majestic as that of their college days. In 1975 Eva Johnson arranged for the Lane County Historical Society to receive the home after her death. She was in no hurry 15