Craters of the Moon Administrative History

Chapter 8:
INTERPRETATION

OVERVIEW OF INTERPRETATION AT CRATERS OF THE MOON

By definition, National Park Service interpretation seeks to "communicate the natural and historical significance of parks to the public." [1] Its function at Craters of the Moon has been no different. For more than six decades, monument managers have attempted to develop the visitor's understanding and appreciation of the area's natural and cultural environment. As with other management programs, the volcanic landscape, with its variety of features, plant and animal life, has been the main focus. Craters of the Moon's enabling legislation has dictated this thrust, thus relegating cultural interpretation to a lesser emphasis by comparison. The interpretive program at the monument has evolved slowly, reflecting both NPS trends and the monument's administrative development pattern. The first several decades witnessed primarily ad hoc management, as small and underfunded staffs attempted to meet the monument's educational needs. Mission 66 provided new facilities and expanded staffing, enabling interpretation to address both education and resource protection in the ensuing years; it allowed a formal program to emerge.

Such a program has performed a vital role in the monument's administration. Unlike park areas that showcase scenery and whose visitors are aware of why they are coming and basically what they are seeing, Craters of the Moon's scientific uniqueness has assigned interpretation a particularly important function. It must intellectually stimulate both the informed and lay visitor alike. Especially for the untrained visitor, it must convert the initial impression of the dark landscape's stark scenery into a greater understanding of the recent volcanism on display. Instilling an appreciation of the monument's geologic significance, its variety of colors, forms, and textures, enhances the visitor's experience and helps protect the volcanic environment.

The First Decades Of Interpretation

Beginning with Secretary of the Interior Franklin Lane's 1918 policy directive, national parks were to be managed for their educational as well as recreational values. [2] Director Stephen T. Mather created the Education Division in 1923, and his successor, Horace M. Albright, established the Branch of Research and Education in 1931. Both developments testified to the Park Service's commitment to science and education. At the park level, these advances contributed to visitor service programs in the form of guided hikes and tours, campfire talks, and museum exhibits. [3]

In its developing stages of administrative growth, Craters of the Moon lacked the required personnel and scientific research to carry out these programs to their fullest and convey to the visitor the monument's importance. The one-man operation in the 1920s and early 1930s concentrated on displaying the features more than it did on relating their scientific qualities. Providing access and guidance to the volcanic phenomena occupied much of the time and energy of the first several custodians. If visitors could not see the sites, then they could not appreciate them. Influenced by this basic premise, Custodian Paisley established a series of "firsts" in the form of guided and self-guided activities, giving structure to the monument's nascent interpretive program. Paisley created the monument's first "museum service" in the summer of 1925 when he constructed an "elaborate display of specimens from the Monument..." and erected the exhibit outside his headquarters cabin. For decades to come, this crude display case functioned as Craters of the Moon's sole museum exhibit and orientation device for visitors before they toured the monument. [4] Because of the area's low visitation, Paisley also personally assisted visitors in seeing the primary features, as part of his guide business, having laid out a "tour" of the monument along the primitive loop drive.

Although the rudiments of visitor services were set up in the latter 1920s, the Park Service was aware that more needed to be done than greet, direct, and accompany visitors through the monument. Civil Engineer Bert H. Burrell in his 1927 report, for instance, stated that the Craters of the Moon deserved a better trained staff, particularly in the position of custodian as well as in the position of ranger naturalists. With these changes, the engineer intimated that the monument could carry out an educational program. Chief Naturalist Ansel Hall believed as much when he related to Burrell that the Park Service could employ naturalists at the monument for the six-month season to conduct "educational work." [5] But upgrading the monument's personnel in terms of numbers and scientific training awaited several more years, as did any developments in an interpretive program. [6]

Until these changes took place, the Park Service relied on Harold Stearns' pamphlet, "A Guide to Craters of the Moon," to enhance visitor experience. When Yellowstone National Park Superintendent Roger W. Toll inspected Craters of the Moon in the fall of 1931, he observed that it was the only printed information available to the public. Published in 1928 and revised several times thereafter, the guide represented the geologist's extensive research on the monument's volcanic formations, a result of the surveys Stearns undertook in the early 1920s which helped to establish and later enlarge the monument. Toll believed that the geologist's guidebook, available for twenty-five cents, adequately met the visitor's needs. [7] What Toll could not know was that the interpretive program would rely on Stearns' booklet until well past mid-century, a reflection of the quality of the geologist's work and the monument's lack of staff, money, and research to produce a compariable document.

The first visitor center and museum at the Cinderhurst Camp,
erected by Custodian Samuel A. Paisley, seated on the left, ca. 1925.
(CRMO Museum Collection)

Interpretation And The New Deal

The Park Service's expansion during the New Deal augmented the monument's interpretive program substantially. Increased appropriations led to the creation of the first seasonal ranger position, and on July 22, 1935, G. Frederick Shepherd entered duty. His presence not only allowed Custodian Albert T. Bicknell to better supervise and protect the monument, but also enabled Bicknell to provide visitors with a more organized educational program. Shepherd's main duties were registering and handing out information to visitors as they entered the monument. Shepherd "was a good young geologist," according to Bicknell, who possessed special training in volcanology and helped inaugurate the monument's naturalist services. He gave naturalist talks to visitors hiking among the monument's features, and accompanied scientific groups on their inspections of the area's formations, all of which led to "a correct interpretation as to the age relationships of the lava flows and many detail problems." He conducted his own investigations of the monument's volcanic terrain as well, further increasing the understanding of Craters of the Moon. His most ambitious exploration occurred in October 1935 when he traversed the Great Rift from the monument to Minidoka. Shepherd, having previously established caches along the Great Rift, set out on October 6 and arrived at his destination on the 13th. Three days later he retraced his route by airplane to photograph the Rift. The week-long journey emulated somewhat Robert Limbert's 1921 exploration, namely in severity of route, yet unlike Limbert little information remains of his trip and how it aided the interpretive program. [8]