Craters of the Moon Historic Context Statements

Recreation and Tourism in the Craters of the Moon Region, 1924-1942:
THE TOURIST EXPERIENCE AT CRATERS OF THE MOON

For all of its promotion as a scenic wonder, Craters of the Moon had seen only informal tourist development by the 1920s. No grand hotels adorned its landscape. Only a crude road penetrated its interior. Claims of boosters aside, getting to and through the lava wonderland proved to be something of an adventure. In the years prior to the monument's establishment, adventuresome sightseers drove wagons and automobiles to the "Valley of the Moon" for picnics and group tours of the volcanic country. The primitive auto trail, which had been carved through the lava, traversed but a small section of the rugged landscape, and most tourists covered the country on foot, relying on local explorers to lead them through the wonders. By the early 1920s, the road had been slightly improved, and more importantly, increased publicity attracted more tourists, thanks largely to Robert Limbert's expeditions and promotional literature. [59]

In 1924, the year the National Park Service began its management of the monument, motorists could turn into Craters of the Moon from the Idaho Central Highway and find a rough road leading through the lava formations, but few other amenities. To encourage tourism and to enhance the tourist's experience at the new monument, the National Park Service relied on the informal guide services that were already a common practice. In May 1925, the bureau took steps to formalize this service. At that time, Park Service Director Stephen T. Mather appointed Samuel Paisley as the monument's first custodian, and granted him the right to operate an exclusive guide service to augment his meager salary. Paisley offered walking tours, which reflected the limited development of a road and trail system in the monument. It was around this same time that the agency turned down a proposal to run auto stages in Craters of the Moon because of the poor road conditions. [60]

In addition to Paisley's official services, Robert Limbert continued his own guided trips. In the summer of 1926, for instance, Limbert led a group of Seattle mountaineers to the "lost valley," the mythical Indian sanctuary in the lava wilderness. Though significant for being Limbert's last publicized trip, the mountaineers' expedition attested to the monument's appeal to urban dwellers interested in "roughing it" during the 1920s. Craters of the Moon beckoned to these modern adventurers. As a typical newspaper account stated, the "Black desert has a weird call." Though difficult to fathom, the call seemed to be "uttered by the grandeur of tremendous desolation. The call that savage Indians responded to, ages ago." This was the same call that "modern men surrender to, when they gird themselves for strenuous effort, draw on their high-topped, steel bound boots and surge forth into the unknown, seeking the paths their ancient brothers trod ages past and gone." [61]

Pressured by local commercial clubs, political leaders, and the Union Pacific Railroad to provide more services for tourists, the Park Service awarded Limbert a permit to operate a saddle and pack horse concession in January 1927. Limbert and several associates organized Craters of the Moon Tours. They acquired horses, printed brochures, and planned to operate from a ranch near Martin. For all of these preparations, no record of the business' operation exists at this time. Auto tourists may have been satisfied to see what they could of the monument from atop their machines than the backs of horses. Located several miles outside the monument, the business also may have had trouble attracting customers. Finally, it is possible that Limbert abandoned his Craters of the Moon concession in order to devote more time to developing auto tours from the Sawtooths to Craters and to Yellowstone, and to promoting tourism in the Sawtooth Mountains, particularly his hotel in the Redfish Lake area. [62]

Motorists who enjoyed nature by the road could also rely on travel logs and guide books to aid them in their visit to Craters of the Moon in the 1920s. Pulvers road log of the "Idaho Central Forest Highway," for example, illustrated the route to Craters of the Moon, "Idaho's Newest Playground," for motorists en route to or from Yellowstone National Park. It was only natural, according to the brochure, that tourists drive the Idaho Central because it was the "direct route" through Idaho to Yellowstone, the bonus for the tourist being Craters of the Moon, "one of the most phenomenal attractions in North America" located on the highway. With descriptions and map of the lava wonders, the log suggested that seeing Craters by car was not just worth the drive but part of the driving experience. [63]

Motoring tourists could also find information in Robert Limbert's Unknown Places in Idaho. Written for the Union Pacific Railroad in 1927, the guide was aimed at an audience "seeking a land of adventure and romance," a land where "new discoveries and features of unusual interest can be found and explored at every turn of the trail." Featuring several pages on the "remarkable region" of Craters of the Moon, the guide described ways to reach the monument from railroad connections at Shoshone, Hailey, and Arco, and recommended an extended trip of several days within the monument to see the "fantastic formations and other incomparable sights." Limbert's tours, best conducted by saddle horse, included such features as Indian Tunnel, Natural Bridge, Echo Crater, Blue Dragon Flow, the Spatter Cones, the myriad lava flows, caves (some filled with ice), waterholes, Indian mounds, Vermillion Canyon, and petrified bear tracks. Accompanying the text of these real, and in some cases imagined, features was an illustrated map which showed the monument's road system, campground, headquarters, and principal features. In 1928, Harold T. Steams' Guide to Craters of the Moon National Monument appeared replacing Limbert's work. Steams' book was the first official and for a long time the definitive handbook describing the monument's geology, natural history, and human history. [64]

By the late 1920s and early 1930s, more than seven thousand tourists were visiting Craters of the Moon a year. Although Limbert recommended a stay of three to five days in the monument, most visitors followed, it seems, the advice of the Pulvers travel log and made Craters an interesting side trip on their driving tours of other scenic wonders. Most tourists saw the monument from the front seat of an automobile, and, for a time, many received these brochures and other travel information from the Craters of the Moon Travel Association. The association formed in 1929 and was composed of businessmen from towns along the Idaho Central Highway, namely Arco, Carey, Hailey, Fairfield and Mountain Home. The group was devoted to promoting travel to the monument for those driving to and from Yellowstone National Park and the Pacific Coast. The association erected signs directing the way to Craters of the Moon. The association also built roadside information booths along the approaches to the monument, and printed descriptive road maps which it distributed from these booths and other points along the way. In cooperation with the Idaho Chamber of Commerce, the travel association stationed a representative at the chamber's office in West Yellowstone to promote travel to Craters of the Moon. A large sign advertised the monument, and the representative encouraged interested tourists to take the route west through the Craters country. Monument officials reported that the association's efforts were noticeably successful. However, the travel association determined it was too expensive to post someone in West Yellowstone and discontinued the service in 1932, which also seems to have been the end of the group's formal existence. [65]

What auto tourists experienced, however, remains mostly to our imaginations. Some sense of what auto travel to the monument was like can be extrapolated from the field trip logs of Edward F. Rhodenbaugh, a geology professor at Idaho State College. Rhodenbaugh led class field trips to Craters of the Moon throughout the 1920s--a time when just getting to Craters was an accomplishment in itself. On one trip in early June 1925, he set out with his students from Pocatello and drove nearly 150 miles to the monument by way of Idaho Falls. Most of the trip was over rough dirt roads that traversed the sagebrush desert. In places the surface turned "sandy and soft," and at times to nothing more than wagon tracks. When Rhodenbaugh met up with the Blackfoot to Arco road, he was elated. But as he pulled into Arco, the skies opened and rain fell, muddying roads and adding to the task of changing flat tires caused by the poor driving surfaces. Heading west from Arco, the professor encountered "terrible mud," and more flats slowed his progress as the rain continued to fall. Near dusk, he came across a cinder-surfaced section of highway near the Martin townsite, which eased travel considerably. But finding no place to camp there, he drove another seven miles to the monument's headquarters, excited to have arrived safely, twelve hours later. Rhodenbaugh's group spent a full day in the monument, inspecting its features while it rained and hailed. The geologist and crew set up makeshift windbreaks from canvas to shelter them from the weather, and sat by their campfires to ward off the cold as they repaired tires for their return trip. [66]

Contending with poor road conditions and inclement weather typified Rhodenbaugh's driving experience, mostly because he traveled to the monument in late spring. [67] Even when the roads were dry, motorists faced tough driving conditions. During the hot summer months, dust boiled up through the floorboards of Model-Ts nearly blinding drivers as they approached the monument over a tortuous, unsurfaced highway that hugged the edges of the lava flows.

The trip, however, rewarded motorists with views of this lava landscape. First impressions had a lasting effect. The "thrill of seeing the black, rough cinders and a jagged horizon line of torn and jumbled rock towers belongs to that first trip," Rhodenbaugh recalled. "One's first impression is that of bareness, desolation, waste," wrote Norah D. Stearns, who accompanied her husband on his geological explorations of the monument in the 1920s. Driving to Craters of the Moon from Arco "along the dusty roads," she recorded in an early brochure, one is suddenly aware of this strange landscape. "Smooth cones of black cinders and dark yawning crater-bowls sparsely covered with vegetation are intermingled with masses of bare rock." "When driving into this spell-bound fragment of the universe," she playfully warned, "let the driver keep his eyes on the road. Too much scenery brought me woe." So overwhelmed with the sights in this "unique bit of chaos tucked away in a little corner of Idaho" that she veered off the road and sank into the deep, soft cinders. [68]

Norah Stearns' writings give provide a sense of what early tourists may have experienced when they visited the monument. After leaving the highway, drivers negotiated the rugged road past North Crater Flow and stopped at Cinderhurst Camp on the saddle below Paisley Cone. There they found a registration booth, custodian's cabin, outhouses, some limber pines for shade and maybe a picnic, and the cool waters of Registration Waterhole, a rarity in the arid lava country. From here, they could press on to see the volcanic wonders, or, if they desired, set up camp. [69]

Camping formed an important tourist activity and had an allure all its own in the monument. Photographs from Harold Steams' explorations, for example, showed a "picturesque camp" on the slopes of Inferno Cone--a canvas tent pitched in front of a Model-T like a Bedouin in the desert. It was an experience that left a distinct impression on the camper. Norah Stearns noted that after camping in the lava country for a time she was struck with the "stillness and lifelessness...of this strange place." "I always seemed to be gazing out of the door or window in a troubled, puzzled way," she said. "Something was strange! Perhaps this area is indeed an 'unfinished corner of the universe where the chaos of the primeval world still exists." [70]

With a similar fascination for the uniqueness of this country, she described hiking through the lava formations as an activity for the curious and suggested it as a way to better understand this mysterious country. Most tourists saw the monument on foot at some point, picking their way through aa and pahoehoe flows where an "hour's trip afoot over either lava seems like a long day's hike. You always find yourself picking out the smoother pahoehoe or the loose cinders of the cones for a path." The whole encounter very often "chewed up" heavy leather boots. Like others, Stearns was fascinated with the numerous lava formations--from ice caves to deep craters--and the myriad colors shimmering in the desert sun. She summarized eloquently the impression an extended stay in the monument made. As she viewed the snow-clad Sawtooth Range and Pioneer Mountains to the north and infinite lava fields to the south, she said, these mountains "give one a sense of security as belonging to one's own world, yet the lavas black and barren as they are, have a weird charm. The mountains seem to be a symphony, the lavas a rhapsody!" [71]

Driving through the monument was also an option for the tourist. The monument's loop drive--a dirt road improved over the years--wound around rugged aa and over smooth pahoehoe flows at the base of cinder cones for up to seven miles; it connected features such as Big Craters, the Spatter Cones, caves, and Devil's Orchard--a popular picnic spot, it seems, from the early 1920s. The intrepid motorist could extend his trip by driving over the rough wagon road south from Inferno Cone to Echo Crater, a favorite base camp of explorers and geologists which offered access to the southern reaches of the monument.

In the late 1920s, the National Park Service realized that tourists needed some facilities to make their trips to the monument more enjoyable. Just getting to the monument, as described by Edward Rhodenbaugh, was difficult enough, and once in the remote and parched landscape of Craters of the Moon, visitors could expect little protection from the lava country's harsh environment. Few would have argued, it seems, with Rhodenbaugh's comment that a cabin of some kind was needed at Craters in the future. For this reason, the Park Service contracted with Jo G. Martin and John R. Wright of Arco to build Crater Inn and sell "gasoline and oil, lunch goods, cold drinks, and the usual line of accommodations furnished to tourists and sight-seers." The log inn, three log guest cabins, and a log gas station were completed in the fall of 1927, adding to the comforts of the motoring public. Together the log buildings composed a rustic scene familiar to national parks. Especially evocative was the lodge itself; its lava-stone chimney leaked smoke in the chilled, high desert air, and a set of mule deer antlers hung from its eaves.7 [2]

Crater Inn symbolized the belief of monument supporters and Park Service officials that comforts would both enhance the tourist experience and attract still more tourists to the monument. In this way, Crater Inn played an important role in tourism during the late 1920s and early 1930s. One of its most important functions was supplying water to thirsty visitors. Having hauled the water from Martin, the concession owners provided the service for four years after the monument's waterholes suddenly dried up in the summer of 1927. Located near the monument's entrance, Crater Inn became the center for tourists, especially during these "dry years." Visitors congregated at the inn for refreshments, food, and relaxation after their drive to or tour of the volcanic wonderland. Advertising the opening of Crater Inn, Martin proudly announced that "Comforts Come to Craters of the Moon." A new experience awaited the monument tourist. "Cabins and a lunch service," he said, "free the visit to the lava formations from inconvenience and hardship." The structures, he stated, reflected a common form and made use of materials from the surrounding environment. "All the buildings are of logs and of that type of construction which the early pioneers found suited to the Idaho climate. The roofs are covered deeply with the black cinders of the region," he added, "resulting in a remarkable coolness in the summer." Visitors could find a "hospitable retreat" in the large hall, with open fire place, and rest before or after seeing the sights. Once inside, tourists could buy groceries, lunch goods, and cool refreshments stored in the natural refrigeration of the "underground passages" of the cinder beds. [73] For the guests who desired overnight accommodations, the small guest cabins were furnished with bed springs, mattresses, bedding, and wood stoves, but no running water or indoor toilets--all for the price of $1 to $1.50 per person a night. [74]

Further attesting to the importance of Crater Inn, the Park Service designed and relocated the monument's headquarters and campground across from the concession in 1927 so the new water system could serve everyone. Bureau officials also hoped that this new configuration would aid the monument's small staff in attending to the public's needs. [75]

Once the water arrived (1931), the concession owners anticipated that improvements such as toilets and bathing facilities would turn the operation into a "first rate establishment." An upgraded concession would raise the level of the monument's importance to the general public, they believed. As Martin declared, the "popularity of the place will catch up with its real merit as one of the most interesting scenic phenomena in the world. People will not come in large numbers or stay very long where they are uncomfortable or subjected to hardship. We hope to relieve that at Craters of the Moon and profit accordingly," he concluded. [76]

Park Service officials shared these beliefs as exemplified by the campground and headquarters relocation, as well as the piping of water to the site. Another step in this direction was the construction of a log comfort station in the campground in 1934, and with it the monument's first flush toilets and showers--amenities that would "add greatly to the comfort of the public," noted Albert T. Bicknell, the monument's custodian. [77] Funded by the Public Works Administration and built by local contractors, the comfort station was part of the New Deal work projects to improve the monument for tourists in the 1930s. Road and trail improvements were also part of these projects. Park crews created a single entrance, widened, straightened, and graded the highway crossing the monument as well as the loop drive leading through it. With better road conditions and access to volcanic features, auto tourists no longer had to worry about sinking into soft cinders that sucked cars in like quicksand and were free to enjoy the scenery. The Park Service also toyed with the idea of extending the road system along the Great Rift to expose motoring sightseers to more of the monument's wonders, but various administrative and preservation concerns scuttled the plan. The monument's "informal" trail system also benefited from the programs. Without good trails tourists were likely to get "lost in the maze of lava flows" and miss seeing some of the monument's more spectacular features. Thus construction crews built and surfaced new and existing trails to popular features near the roadside so tourists could examine the sites with greater safety and ease. [78]

On the eve of World War II more than twenty thousand tourists were visiting the monument. They stopped at Crater Inn, picnicked and camped, drove the loop road, and hiked to the lava wonders. Most of them, however, experienced the volcanic landscape in a short period of time, but one event was sure to draw a large crowd for a good part of at least one day a year. Opening Day celebrations attracted hundreds and sometimes thousands to the monument every year. A celebration of the monument's establishment, the annual fete had its origins in the outings and picnics Arco residents held as early as 1912. The celebration was thrown in the late spring, held in the headquarters area, and featured speeches by local community leaders and officials from Idaho and the Park Service. Other attractions included food, music from the Arco band, tours of the monument, and the Sheriff's Posse Dash--a parade of mounted riders down Sunset Ridge and across nearby cinder fields.

For a time it seemed that winter sports would provide a substantial tourist draw to the monument. In the late 1930s and early 1940s, downhill skiing and other winter sports activities grew in popularity at the monument. Local residents discovered that the snow-covered cinder cones provided ideal conditions for skiing, and in 1941 the Arco Civic Club asked the National Park Service for permission to build a winter sports facility on the northeastern slope of Sunset Cone. The club felt that the cone's proximity to the highway and the eastern boundary, as well as its lack of scenic qualities compared to the monument's main features, would not interfere with the area's mission. In fact, the resort supporters believed, a ski area would increase the monument's popularity. At first they hoped the Park Service would build the facility for them, but when the agency refused, they offered to install their own ski lift and lodge. Although the ski resort's promoters just wanted to find "a place to get out for recreation," the Park Service denied the group a permit by stating that no developments should impair the monument's scenic values. In this respect, there could be no visible impact to the monument's resources. After each season, all structures would have to be removed, making it virtually impossible to run the operation. [79] (A ski area was eventually built on Blizzard Mountain north of the monument. Never a profitable operation, it seems, it has run sporadically since its construction.)

No matter the popularity of the Opening Day celebration and the potential of winter sports, tourism never seemed to realize its full potential at Craters of the Moon, at least in the sense of the grand hotels. Craters of the Moon, a broiling desert of lava, was thought of less as a place to retreat to than as a place to pass through. The history of Crater Inn showed this reality all too well. The modern automobile and highway may have contributed to opening up this out of the way region, but they also contributed to the monument's wayside appeal. Crater Inn may have offered shelter from this shadeless environment, but most tourists could marvel at the monument's features in a few hours and still have time to reach the hotels, cafes, and other services Arco and other gateway towns offered just a short drive away. Realizing little revenue from meals and lodging, Crater Inn's original as well as succeeding owners were unable to modernize; sometimes they could not even pay their permit fee. By 1940, the operators added more guest cabins, it seems in a final hope that things would turn around. But the overall condition of the structures was primitive, unsightly, and rundown. Hardly the "dignified accommodations" Crater Inn's first owners envisioned for the monument, Crater Inn was in 1950, according to Superintendent Aubrey F. Houston, "an eyesore, and substandard in every way." Although more than 100,000 tourists visited the monument by the mid-1950s, the concession offered little incentive for them to stay longer than the time it took to see the sights. [80]

Considered more a relic of the past than an asset to the future, Crater Inn closed its doors in the late 1950s. The Park Service decided to leave tourist amenities, such as lodging and meals, to gateway towns like Arco and eliminated the service during the Mission 66 redevelopment program. In 1958, the last of Crater Inn's structures were auctioned off and removed from the monument, ending an era of catering to the comforts of auto tourists. [81]