Crater Lake Historic Resource Study

X. Construction of Government Buildings and Landscaping in Crater Lake National Park (continued)

O. Construction Activity Tapers Off

When the first PWA allotments were allocated to the NPS in July 1933, Vint's Branch of Plans and Design (renamed earlier in 1933) employed 16 people. The architectural portion was augmented quickly, and by 1935 the branch contained 120 professionals. The buildings funded during the first two major PWA allotments had been designed or sketched prior to July 1933. From that time on the new staff was faced with design responsibilities. Vint himself had no time to instruct each person personally in park architecture after 1933, and it was increasingly difficult for the pre-FDR veterans to exercise control over all the new architects.

The National Park Service rustic architecture program declined due to changing economic and social conditions. During the period from 1925 to 1935 the NPS had grown immensely, adding new responsibilities along with new field units. Enlarged professional staffs were created and park visitation skyrocketed. Although the Service attempted to implement on as large a scale as possible its internally-conceived philosophy of park architecture, it could not keep up with the demand for park facilities, even with the aid of the CCC and PWA programs. After 1935 the PWA program ceased to be the dominant force in park development. The CCC continued to serve, but as the number of enrollees dropped over the next few years, so did the productivity of the camps. There was, however, a rise in the level of regular appropriations to somewhat counter the decline of the emergency programs. Park funding dropped after the 1939 fiscal year and was low for the duration of World War II. As park visitation increased again after the war, pressure also grew to be more efficient in the function and design of park structures. The NPS was reorganized in 1937 and regionalized into four parallel geographical units. The Branch of Plans and Design was moved to Washington, D.C., and portions of Vint's staff were distributed among regional offices. Resident landscape architects were left in the parks. The decreased centralization of the branch made it more susceptible to external influences, such of those of the new "modern" architecture that espoused simplicity and structural honesty in line with changing economic conditions and new building materials. The romanticism of NPS rustic architecture was slowly rejected as a feasible building technique for the modern age It required a great amount of labor on the part of skilled and unskilled workmen as well as professionals, it required frequent inspection during construction, it often produced excessive maintenance problems, and it became increasingly difficult to replace structural parts that were damaged.

In the postwar years, construction appropriations for park development were held to a minimum due to heavy financial demands on the government. Increased postwar travel, rising visitor facility demand, decreased development funding, and increased outside influences meant that the NPS building program of the late 1930s was of uneven quality. Residences and utility buildings emphasized efficiency and functionalism, which resulted in unexceptional frame houses with rustic siding and stone veneer foundations. These late 1930s residences still present in many western parks showed little concession to setting. The new philosophy was not a total rejection of non-intrusive design in parks, but was a redefinement of the concept, arguing that harmony with nature could also be achieved by a more modest functionalism. Simple design and efficiency became not only the philosophy of the outside architectural world, but also an NPS budgetary requirement.

No major building construction took place at Crater Lake in 1940, although the three staff cabins were finished and a new comfort station at park headquarters was completed. (This was converted to a sign shop [Bldg. #037] in 1954). Three years later a new boat house to house the government-owned launch was built at a more practical location on Wizard Island. A new hospital building was in process of construction to replace the leaky tents being used by the park physician. [65]

By 1945 the hospital building was practically finished. The first floor was to serve as the hospital unit, with a physician's office and treatment rooms. The second floor would be the physician's living quarters. [66] This structure was still incomplete in 1948, and Superintendent Ernest Leavitt was recommending that the first floor be converted to living space due to a critical housing shortage at the park. Changed conditions in park operation's made the completion of the structure as a hospital building of doubtful value. Now, only a first-aid room was considered necessary for emergency use and for the accommodation of patients awaiting transportation to hospitals at Medford or Klamath Falls. [67] The infirmary is now used as seasonal quarters.

The opening of the Willamette Highway on July 17, 1940, brought an influx of visitors to the park via the north entrance, causing congestion, delays, and confusion. Originally, tents had been used as checking stations. A temporary checking kiosk was constructed and began operations in July 1940, which helped ease the problem. A similar station was erected at the east entrance road to speed up car checking. It was planned eventually to make these stations permanent. [68] In 1946 a request was made for temporary checking kiosks at the south and west entrances of the park. [69] Work on these started in June 1947.

Also in 1947 water was piped in to the Community House on the rim, a hot water heater and sink were installed, and a large wood-burning air heater was set up so that the structure could be used by skiers as a warming hut, for ski waxing, and as a lunch room. A lunch wagon was scheduled to run to the park on weekends and holidays during the winter. [70]

In 1949 the Crater Lake School Association was organized to handle the education of three school-age children and five pre-schoolers. The commissioner's office in the administration building was to be used as the schoolroom. In this same year, four comfort stations were built, at Kerr Notch and Lost Creek campgrounds. A new north entrance checking station kiosk was built to replace the one built in 1941 and wrecked in a accident the previous fall. [71] It was moved on site July 1. This was considered an important station because it handled a large number of incoming visitors as well as all northbound vehicles entering from the south and west. In 1950 rehabilitation work on the mess hall at park headquarters was continuing. Sills, floor joists, and the lower end of the studs were replaced in the dining room and kitchen and sub-floors relaid. Changes in wiring and in the sewer and water systems were also being made. [72]

In 1951 eight Sleepy Hollow cabins were rebuilt and four remodeled. After several years of limited budget, the NPS in the mid-1950s finally obtained sufficient funding to allow the resumption of park development on a significant scale. As the demand for facilities bloomed, a flurry of activity began during the Mission 66 program, a long-range plan to update development and management of the national parks and enhance visitor enjoyment. Projects were scheduled for completion upon the Golden Anniversary of the Service. The Mission-66 building program of the mid-1950s reflected the utilitarian outlook that had started emerging among park designers just before the war. Occasionally when a structure was to be added to an area where pre-war rustic structures existed, an attempt was made to erect new rustic buildings. Generally the effort was unsuccessful, due to problems in finding skilled labor and because of the high cost. It became apparent that implementation of the rustic architecture philosophy was feasible only within a park system of limited size and scope. New employee housing at Crater Lake, comprising three modern two-story duplexes, was a result of the Mission-66 program, as were a new community school, finished in 1964, and a new shop and equipment storage building, constructed during 1963-64.

Illustration 57. Cabins in Sleepy Hollow residential area.