Chapter Five:
Selling Sequoia: The Early Park Service Years (1916-1931)
(continued)
Use: Improving Concessions
|
Upon assuming directorship of the new National Park
Service, Stephen Mather faced one of his trickiest duties: designing a
comprehensive concession policy and implementing it in his new charges.
There were two options availablecompetition and monopoly. Mather
chose monopoly as a way to maintain quality and prevent abuse of park
scenery and resources. When the director turned to Sequoia and General
Grant, however, he found problems. A variety of operators controlled
hotel, dining, transportation, photography, and other services, and each
service was small-time and marginally profitable. Mather was reluctant
to expel loyal and established businesses, but as long as the situation
persisted, development of Sequoia, and implementation of his policy
would go abegging. [43]
In 1920, the problem of ejecting a loyal business
solved itself when Mrs. Kenney decided to abandon her lodging
operations, which she had operated with her now-deceased husband since
1914. But, upon studying the situation at Sequoia, Mather found that the
difficulty of access to the park severely limited customer numbers.
Small-time operations like those of Kenney or the Sequoia National Park
Stage Company could make a small profit scraping by with limited
infrastructure or investment. But, a larger-scale monopoly, committed to
aggressive modernization and expansion could scarcely hope to survive
let alone make substantial improvements. What Sequoia and, incidentally
General Grant, needed was a company willing to hold the concession until
the Generals Highway reached Giant Forest. Mather chose a company with
an established concession operation and some capital to spare, the
Yosemite National Park Company controlled by Harry Chandler of Los
Angeles and A.B.C. Dohrmann of San Francisco. The two men formed a
subsidiary company called the Kings River Parks Company and commenced
operations at the beginning of the 1920 season in Giant Forest, at
General Grant, and outside the parks in Kings Canyon at the old
Kanawyers site. [44]
From the beginning Giant Forest became the focus of
plans for improvement and the source of most revenue. There, in the
first two seasons the new concessioner built modern cabins, enlarged the
dining room, and added bath, laundry, and toilet facilities. The
following year saw a new lunch room and more housekeeping cabins which
brought the capacity at the Giant Forest Lodge up to 234. These
improvements however, were insignificant compared to what general
manager Theophil Fritzen planned. For a projected investment of nearly
two million dollars, Fritzen envisioned a seventy-six room hotel at
Beetle Rock, 125 cabins nearby in the Camp Kaweah area, and 775 new tent
cabins and cottages at Soldier's Camp about two miles from Giant Forest
Lodge. In all, the three developments at the lodge, Soldier's Camp, and
Kaweah areas would house more than 3,000 people with additional
structures for 800 employees. This was a scale of operation that would
make Sequoia National Park one of the greatest tourist attractions in
the western United States and easily accomplish the NPS goal of creating
public recreation grounds in the parks. [45]
Unfortunately for the company, with progress on the
Generals Highway maddeningly slow, financial survival became a more
immediate concern than any vast expansion. Over the period from 1920 to
1924, the Yosemite National Park Company was forced to stake its
expensive subsidiary more than $108,000. More alarming was that the
amount increased each year until 1924, when a new manager undertook
severe and unpopular austerity measures. Efforts at bringing local
businessmen into the operation to prop it up until the Generals Highway
could be completed failed due to competing projects in the San Joaquin
Valley. In desperation, the Yosemite National Park Company leased its
southern operation in Sequoia during 1925 and abandoned it entirely the
following year. For five grim years the company had done Mather and the
Park Service a favor by consolidating the concession operations in
Sequoia and General Grant and by considerably improving the physical
plant. However, by the time the long-awaited Generals Highway finally
arrived, the Yosemite National Park Company had had enough. It had
retired to its popular and lucrative northern park, financially bruised
and somewhat wiser by the lesson. [46]
Determined to install a single, consolidated
concession operation at the two southern Sierra parks, Mather turned
finally to an old friend, Howard Hays. He promised Hays ready government
cooperation and sure profits when the road reached Giant Forest. In
response, Hays formed a company with the lengthy name of Sequoia and
General Grant National Parks Company. Hays had come west shortly after
the turn of the century and taken a job with one of the concessions in
Yellowstone National Park. During that time he had become friends with
Mather and Albright. After stints as a tourism promoter for several
major railroads and with the National Railroad Administration, where he
coordinated projects with Albright, Hays had bought out his old employer
at Yellowstone. He had operated that concession until 1924 when health
problems forced him to sell.
Mather's desperation and elaborate promises finally
convinced Hays, who saw an opportunity to implement plans like those of
former manager Fritzen and to build Sequoia and General Grant into
large, famous and profitable tourist resorts. He signed a twenty-year
contract in the spring of 1926 and three years later brought in his
brother-in-law, George Mauger, to manage the operation. These two men,
Hays and Mauger, would operate the parks' major concession for the next
forty years. During that time they would vastly expand and update the
infrastructure. However, they would do so amid an atmosphere of steadily
growing hostility, as the Park Service changed its attitudes toward the
scale and location of concession tourism in Giant Forestgoing to
the heart of the promises with which Director Mather had lured Hays back
into the national park concession business. [47]
After assuming the concession operations with a
secure, long-term contract, Hays surveyed the facilities he had to offer
incoming visitors. In Sequoia, the two principal areas were at Giant
Forest, specifically Giant Forest Lodge near Round Meadow and the Glen
Ridge Camp along the eastern side of the new road. Giant Forest Lodge
contained a moderate-sized dining room, a lunch counter, ten two-room
cabins, thirty tents, an office, and assorted maintenance structures. At
Glen Ridge, which was universally described as ugly and dilapidated,
there were another thirty-three tents. Near the lodge was a store and
the buildings of the smaller concessioners like Lindley Eddy. At General
Grant, always a small time afterthought despite substantial visitor
numbers, a few tiny cabins and tent tops clustered near a small store
and lunch counter. General Grant boasted few attractions compared to its
larger southern neighbor. It was popular with residents of Fresno and
other San Joaquin Valley towns, but these tourists often made only day
visits or camped on their way to Kings Canyon. [48]
Upon completion of the Generals Highway, Hays moved
quickly to exploit the publicity and overhaul his company's holdings. In
his first two seasons, 1926 and 1927, Hays ordered replacement of the
thirty tents at the lodge with sixty-eight new shingle and tent-top
cabins, nearly tripling the overnight capacity of this popular complex.
In addition, he replaced most of the tents at Glen Ridge while moving
them across the road at the request of Colonel White. In late fall 1926,
the concessioner moved the lunch counter to the new Giant Forest Village
and commenced construction of a store and gas station. As part of an
agreement, small independent operations like the post office,
photography studio, and barber shop also moved. Across from the Village,
Hays received permission to develop a new complex of housekeeping cabins
near Beetle Rock to be known as Camp Kaweah. By the end of the 1927
season fifty units were in place along with a washhouse, office, and
bathhouse. A dozen more would follow in 1928. Finally, the company built
two additions onto the Giant Forest Lodge dining room and added a large
new hot water system and bathhouse, as well as some warehouses and
sheds. In the first two seasons alone the visitor capacity, or so-called
"pillow count" of Giant Forest rose more than 100 percent and occupied
vastly improved accommodations.
Elsewhere in the parks, the Sequoia and General Grant
National Parks Company exercised considerable caution. At General Grant
the miserable tents were replaced with four duplex redwood cabins. At
Hospital Rock, Hays opened the Buck Eye Store to cater to campers and
hikers in the foothills areas. To his dismay, Hays assumed the
transportation concession as well, and it proved to be a burden for some
years to come. When he took over managerial duties, George Mauger
expressed considerable interest in the backcountry, and for some years
the major concession company operated a pack station catering to those
who would ride into the park's new wilderness. [49]
By 1930 the company boasted an imposing complex in
the Giant Forest area. At Giant Forest Lodge, eighty-five new redwood
and bungalow (tent-top) cabins could house more than 250 guests and
employees. Two offices, a writing room, several bathhouses, a dining
room and a variety of subsidiary structures crowded nearby. At the new
Glen Ridge Housekeeping Camp twenty-six tents and a few employee cabins
remained. At Camp Kaweah sixty-three cabins and tents lined the western
side of the Generals Highway across from Giant Forest Village. In
addition, Hays and Mauger had received permission to open a new
"auto-camp" at Pinewood where another thirty cabins had just been
completed or were under construction. [50]
There was every indication that this tremendous
buildup at Giant Forest would continue until the area reached a capacity
rivaling that planned by Theophil Fritzen and the old Kings River Parks
Company. However, two events combined to dramatically halt company
progress. One was the shocking crash of the stock market in 1929 and the
ensuing Depression. No one could be sure how far the Depression would go
and in that climate, Hays decided on a cautious program. The company had
made a profit each year, but those annual profits rarely exceeded
$10,00. [51] There was money to be made in
the concession business, but it certainly was not a high-profit venture.
With so little financial cushion and with the very future of tourism in
doubt, caution was an intelligent man's choice. The second event was
perhaps even more shocking. In early 1931, Hays proposed a small
addition to the Giant Forest Lodge. Colonel White refused on the grounds
that the company should not be in the sequoia grove in the first place.
For the first time, someone had actually rejected a move to bring more
tourists to the park's major attraction. At first Hays was nonplussed,
then he was angry.
|