Lake Roosevelt NRA: Administrative History (Chapter 8)

The Park Service museum program did not receive much funding until the Mission 66 years. The Museum Branch located in Washington, D.C., produced many exhibit plans for western units of the National Park System between 1956 and 1966, and this helped justify the reestablishment of the Western Museum Laboratory in San Francisco in 1957.

Mission 66 planners called the buildings that housed these exhibits "visitor centers" rather than "museums" to reflect their dual functions of providing both visitor orientation and area information at lobby information desks and traditional exhibits. Most of the exhibits used a narrative approach, with exhibits arranged to illustrate a series of related ideas. [37]

LARO's staff of the 1950s had a quite modest vision of interpretive facilities needed at the recreation area. In fact, the Chief of the Division of Interpretation on the national level recommended disapproval of LARO's Mission 66 prospectus because its proposed facilities and staffing were so inadequate. The proposal called for one naturalist and one ranger-naturalist through 1966, with no funding budgeted for self-guided trails, wayside exhibits, interpretive signs, or campfire circles. These deficiencies were corrected in the 1957 Statement for Interpretation. [38]

Mission 66 funded visitor centers, visitor-activated audiovisual devices, and amphitheaters and campfire circles Servicewide. The three visitor centers proposed for construction at LARO under Mission 66 were at Fort Spokane (also the proposed site of park headquarters at this time), North Marina, and Kettle Falls. In general, each was to interpret resources best suited to its locality, with little overlaps among the three and no overlap with Reclamation exhibits at the dam. Each would have orientation and information exhibits in a lobby with additional interpretive exhibits elsewhere. Topics covered would include geology, natural history, human history, the national park idea, and boating safety. The stories would be presented through audiovisual programs and static exhibits. The planners believed that most visitor contacts would be made in the visitor centers and through wayside exhibits rather than through naturalist programs. [39]

The 1964 Interpretive Prospectus for LARO benefited from the lessons learned from operating the area's interpretive program for three visitor seasons. It recommended that the visitor centers have changing exhibits to attract repeat visitors. Campfire programs and conducted walks, wayside exhibits at boat launch ramps and along highways, and off-site programs about the recreation area were also recommended. [40]

By 1968, LARO's interpretive program was mostly centered at Fort Spokane and Kettle Falls. At Fort Spokane, audiovisual programs were supplemented by tours of selected historic buildings and a self-guided trail. Both areas had campfire circles, as did Porcupine Bay and Evans, and more were proposed. The district information stations served as both staff offices and as visitor contact stations, providing area and local information, publications for sale, first aid, law enforcement, fee collection, and interpretive services. [41]

LARO's interpretive facilities included six amphitheaters in 1989. Four of these were soon upgraded with new enclosed projection booths, control panels, column speakers, and improved lighting systems. They seated 60 to 175 people. A 1990s interpretive facilities project created the Kettle Falls Visitor Contact Station in 1995, which housed the North District Interpreter and LARO Archeologist. [42]

Beginning in approximately 1970, the LARO Superintendent supervised personnel at the Park Service's Spokane field office, which was established to support Park Service participation in Spokane's Expo 74. The personnel based there, generally two employees, provided information about various national parks; conducted outreach interpretive activities in the Spokane area; worked with local outdoor recreation groups; worked with the local news media; and presented teacher workshops. Instead of being phased out after the Expo, in 1975 the Park Service field office in Spokane was combined with that of the U.S. Forest Service. In 1977, the joint information office moved to the lobby of Spokane's federal courthouse building in order to provide better public access. Because of Park Service studies of its field offices Servicewide, the Spokane office was closed in early 1982, although the Forest Service continued to respond to requests for information on Park Service units. [43]

Park Headquarters serves some visitor contact function in Coulee Dam, for those who stumble across it. Indeed, on entering the village from the main highway, one finds two signs on the same pole, one with an arrow toward "Visitor Information" (a local operation) and another sign directing a traveler to "National Park Service" in a different direction. The distinction is the more mystifying in that access to either is handy by the same route.

-- Harpers Ferry Center, "Draft Interpretive Prospectus, Coulee Dam National Recreation Area," 1993 [44]

In 1968, LARO's Master Plan mentioned that a joint-agency visitor contact station near Kettle Falls would be a convenient place for visitors to learn about the NRA, and this was noted again in the park's 1975 Interpretive Prospectus. Prompted by the imminent opening of the North Cascades Highway and Spokane Expo 74, LARO and Colville National Forest personnel began planning for a multi-agency visitor center located where Highway 395 crossed Lake Roosevelt in the Kettle Falls area. By 1993, the Park Service, Bonneville Power Administration, Reclamation, and Washington Department of Wildlife were also involved in the project. Agency personnel obtained a design for the building and almost $375,000 in funding, and LARO interpretive personnel drafted the exhibit text and designed some of the interior facilities. Park Service and Forest Service personnel were slated to staff the building during the summers, although some at LARO saw the project as a potential drain to park resources. The facility, known as the Sherman Pass Interagency Visitor Center, was scheduled to open in 1995. The project "died a slow, painful death" in 1995, however, because of the lack of a formal cooperative agreement for leasing the land from the Washington Department of Wildlife. Neither the Forest Service nor the Park Service had the time or energy to pick up the ball and bring the project back to life. LARO staff are willing to partner again, but not to take the lead to revive the project. [45]