concessioners doubled the size of the Cafeteria and Store building in 1956, enlarging it to house a lunchroom and a “winter warming area.” [53]
Director Conrad Wirth’s order to take design and construction functions out of the regions in 1953 changed the way that park planning had been done previously. Two offices, one in Philadelphia and the other in San Francisco, were organized prior to the inception of the ten year development program called Mission
66. This was done to centralize design and construction so that the NPS could justify hiring enough staff to meet the demands of park projects brought on by aging facilities and increased visitation.
Near the end of 1954, the new Western Office of Design and Construction (WODC) drew a museum building that was to be located downslope from the site of the Community House. The proposed building was to be connected to the Sinnott Memorial by an underground walkway. The walkway’s purpose was to allow visitor access to a glassed-in Sinnott Memorial for all-year use. [54]
A winterized Sinnott Memorial had been part of NPS planning for Rim Village since 1947, but Congress provided barely enough money for operations at Crater Lake despite Drury’s best efforts. [55] To Wirth, the only way to meet park needs for new facilities was to launch a coordinated program whose time horizon could coincide with the publicity generated by the National Park Service’s 50th anniversary. With the initiation of Mission 66, park officials fully expected that construction of a visitor center and winterized Sinnott Memorial would begin in 1957. [56]
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