Oregon Caves Historic Structures Report

PART I
Site and Building History (continued)

Oregon Caves Company Development

The tent camp above the Chalet.

At the time of the completion of the Caves Highway (now Oregon 46) in 1922, McIlveen was operating a tent camp under a Special Use Permit from the Forest Service at the caves. A group of local businessmen from Grants Pass saw the caves, Monument, and general area as having a high potential for development, and in 1923 filed an application for another permit. The District Forester, George Cecil, had been working with the group for at least a year on the development of the application, and felt that the group was comprised of "responsible business men of Grants Pass, none of great wealth, but all sound, public-spirited citizens, whose names are more than sufficient to back paper of this kind." [13] The District Office in Portland sent news to Forest Supervisor MacDaniels on March 16 that the term lease had been approved. [14]

The Special Use Permit granted to the newly established Oregon Caves Company essentially involved three critical components. First, the OCC was to establish a guide service for the cave, including the availability of coveralls and appropriate light sources. Second, the OCC would be allowed to construct a "permanent guide headquarters station building" immediately, containing an office and registry room, ladies' dressing room, public rest room, and an optional lunch room or kitchen. These requirements could be met through either one or two buildings on the Monument, with Forest Service approval of the design prior to construction. The quality of the building(s) was kept to a relatively high level, with the stipulation that the construction cost a minimum of $2,000. [15] The third component of the application was a proposed resort development at the mouth of Grayback creek.

The Grayback Creek component of the permit contained a set of minimum requirements, agreed upon by the Oregon Caves Company and the Forest Service. The OCC was to develop, by June 15 of 1923, a tent camp including a dining facility and kitchen to accommodate 30 overnight visitors. A permanent store with camping supplies would also be constructed by this same date. Within a year of that, the company agreed to complete a main resort building with a lobby, dining room, and kitchen to accommodate 60 people, construct a pressure water system, and build outdoor restroom facilities. By July of 1925, the company was required to accommodate 30 more people in new "cottages" or in wings attached to existing structures. By July of 1926, the OCC was required to develop cottages, wings, or other permanent structures to accommodate a total of 60 visitors. The original concession development at the Oregon Caves was to be a split between the resort development at the Grayback Creek site (8 miles from the cave) and the construction of limited facilities on the Monument. [16]

In order to properly formulate a development plan, Arthur L. Peck of the Oregon Agricultural College in Corvallis (now Oregon State University) was persuaded to visit the area and advise the Forest Service and the Oregon Caves Company on how to lay out the development at both sites. Peck, a professor of landscape architecture at the college, advised the company to make use of a flat area within the ravine near the cave entrance, about 100 feet to the east of the entrance itself. Peck's plan was to introduce a "good sized building on the terrace, where Mr. McIlveen's mess tent was last year, with a porch from which a view of the entire lower valley could be obtained." [17] The porch was intended to extend "beyond the house so that it would include the spring that was opened on this terrace, and this porch would form an entrance to the path to the Caves and also to the trail up the gulch leading to the upper entrance. Upon this trail there would be one or more small buildings as on an irregular street. There would not be many of these, as there is no need for them, the dining-room and office being in the large building." [18]

The original Chalet and evening bonfire.

Peck, in agreement with the 1922 Forest Service plan for the monument, decided on an architectural style for the development around the cave entrance. His idea was that the buildings should respond to the local climate, which involves heavy snowfall during the winter months. An "Alpine type" of structure was needed to serve this end, but it also suited the particular landscape of the site. The notion of the Chalet was born, and to answer additional landscape aesthetic concerns Peck decided the building should be finished with a cladding of Port Orford cedar bark or sugar pine shakes. Either of these options would quickly weather to a silver gray or reddish brown, blending in with the colors of the surrounding landscape. The architectural style was chosen chiefly because of its suitability to high elevations and the surrounding mountains and big timber. The picturesque and distinctive style contributed to, instead of distracting from, the landscape.

The new building, the Chalet, was constructed in 1923. This was the first permanent construction by the Oregon Caves Company at the Monument, containing a lunchroom, cave tour registration Oregon Caves Chateau office, restrooms, and seven rooms to accommodate visitors and employees. The massing of the 1-1/2 story Chalet was primarily located to the north of the "porch" that evolved into a breezeway separating the two portions of the building at the ground level. The breezeway, or porch spoken of by Peck, spanned the base of the ravine and linked the larger northern portion of the building with the smaller southern portion.

The guest cottages.

The original Chalet was replaced with a new building during 1941-1942. The new structure retained the same general massing locations and design ideals of the original, but was set back ten feet further from the road to facilitate pedestrian circulation. Gust Lium, an architect and contractor from Grants Pass, was responsible for most of the design. The new Chalet was larger than the original, yet it still fit into the confined and rugged topography of the Monument. Lium took the functions contained in the original structure and answered the demands for a new building on the same site with expanded facilities, showing his adaptation to the limits imposed by a confined site. The building cost $25,000 to construct, exceeding the initial estimates by about $8,000. However, the Oregon Caves Company was eager to finish construction before wartime inflation took effect in the area. This 1942 version of the Chalet exists today, the second permanent building to occupy the same site. It continues to play its traditional role as an important facilitator of the visitor experience at the monument, and is the focal point for day use visitors to the Oregon Caves.

The concessionaire's next development at the Monument was the construction of a series of guest cottages in the ravine east of the Chalet. These seven cottages were also designed and built by Gust Lium in 1926, the same year that the Redwood Highway opened between Crescent City, California and Grants Pass. The cottages were sited above the Chalet and a nursery ("Kiddy Kave") just to the east of the Chalet, with short, steep, switchback trails connecting each cabin to the main trail. The tent cabins employed by McIlveen under his permit were still in the area as well, creating a mixture of structures in the gulch. The cottages were all laid out with the same floor plan, yet the exterior of each was distinct through subtle design changes such as the addition of small dormers in varying configurations and varied entrance details. The cabins held to Peck's basic design ideal of the development at the Monument, with Port Orford cedar siding and a rustic exterior appearance.

The guest cottages, looking down toward the Chalet.

This development was closely followed the next year by the construction of a guide dormitory, north of the Chalet and set up on the hillside above the road. As originally built, the dormitory had only its vertical cedar bark cladding as a decorative feature. Like the Chalet and cottages, the dormitory was designed and built by Lium. It remains at the site today, a two story rectangular building somewhat hidden from view by plant growth. The placement of the dormitory was contrary to Peck's original decision to site the building west of the cave entrance.

By the middle of 1927, the resort at the Monument could accommodate about 56 visitors, plus the concession staff of about 20. [19] The money spent on the development at the cave site precluded any development of the Grayback Creek area, which was originally to be the main focus of resort development. The financial expense and attention to the day-to-day operation of the concession at the Oregon Caves "made Mr. Sabin (the manager of the resort, and a founding member of the OCC) very doubtful about whether they want to do anything with Grayback." [20] As early as the fall of 1924, it was fairly obvious to the Forest Service that the company was planning to abandon the permit for development at the Grayback site. The original Forest Service plan for development of the caves featured Grayback as the main resort, with the area immediately surrounding the caves serving as a subsidiary development. The concessionaire chose to develop the cave site first, and the plan to develop a resort at a distance away from the caves on government lands never came to fruition.

orca/hsr/hsr1a.htm
Last Updated: 22-Sep-2001