During the months following the end of the war it was determined to reopen the park on a year-round basis. To facilitate this decision it was announced in March 1946 that as soon as funds became available an all-year park headquarters area would be established near the south entrance of the park. Behind this decision was the belief that Crater Lake suffered more severely from the lack of a suitable park headquarters and utility area than from any other problem. The existing park headquarters in Munson Valley had been constructed more than a decade before for summer operation only and was not laid out for economical and efficient operation during the winter months, nor were any of the buildings constructed for year-round use. The proposed area was located on a southern exposure with flat terrain and had an average winter snow depth of only three to four feet. The issue of the new headquarters, however, would continue to be discussed and studied until 1964 when the Park Service resolved to establish year-round headquarters at Munson Valley. [69]
The opening of the travel season at Crater Lake in 1946 witnessed the resumption of year-round park operations. On June 15 the Crater Lake National Park Company resumed furnishing lodging, meals, and transportation services to the public after more than three years of non-operation. Maintenance and operation of the park on a year-round basis commenced on July 1, Congress having provided the necessary funds for its administration.
The resumption of park operations brought to the fore a variety of personnel problems as efforts were undertaken to rebuild the park staff. In June 1947 Superintendent Leavitt discussed the manifold personnel difficulties that he had encountered during the first year of postwar operation:
From a permanent staff of about twenty-five year-around employees before the war, Crater Lake dropped down to six, just prior to the beginning of the 1947 fiscal year. It was, therefore, necessary to reconstruct and rebuild the permanent and seasonal staff as rapidly as possible to plow snow from the roads and get the park in operating condition to take care of the great crowd of visitors that poured in upon us when the bars were lowered at the entrance stations at the beginning of the season. The park was seriously handicapped by the new legislation that restricted the service of employees to eight hours per day and forty hours per week, without providing extra money for the overtime that was required or for the extra employees required to properly administer and protect the park and give public service. It was not practicable in Crater Lake to close the park as one would an office and go home, for the park is open twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, and service to the public and maintenance of utilities, protection, etc., must be carried on normally from ten to sixteen hours per day and, in emergencies, for twenty-four hours per day.
The park was handicapped by inability to get employees to work five days a week when nearby agencies were working six to seven days per week, and it was necessary to change the work week to six days instead of five, first in order to get our work done which was badly in arrears and, second, to hold the employees on the job. Naturally, this resulted in extra-heavy costs for overtime.
The upgrading of employees from an annual basis to an hourly basis was not well received by the employees affected, despite every effort to convince them that the move was advantageous to them in the long run.
The park suffered from loss of key personnel through transfer and resignations. It has not been possible to secure experienced, qualified persons for the positions that have been vacated at the rates of pay that are now in effect. The increase in rental of quarters have been very disconcerting to the employees, and they are resentful of the increases which are as effective as a reduction in pay, especially at a time when the cost of living is the highest in the history of the country, with only a limited increase in salary made to the employees on an annual basis.[70]
As Crater Lake resumed year-round operations the need arose for a school facility in the park to provide education for employees” children. The hack of such facilities in the park was having a serious impact on park personnel recruitment by 1949. In June of that year Superintendent Leavitt elaborated on the problem:
There are no public school facilities in Crater Lake National Park and none that are ordinarily satisfactory to park families except in the gateway cities of Klamath Falls and Medford. This makes it necessary for families with children of grade school age to rent a home for the mother and children in one of the gateway communities in order to permit children to attend school, while the husband has to do his own cooking and housekeeping in a house in the park for it has been found impracticable to operate a government mess during the winter time because of the excessive cost due to the limited number of boarders, etc. This makes it necessary for the employee to maintain two homes for at least nine months of the year or on a year-around basis due to the difficulty of obtaining rental quarters in gateway cities at the beginning of the school year.
These factors often prevent the park from securing the ablest and best qualified employees to fill our various jobs, particularly our key positions. . . .
To correct this problem a private school was organized in the park under the direction of Leavitt’s second wife Katherine for the 1949-50 school term. It was supported by payments made by parents and by private funds and donations. The school, which met in a room in the Administration Building, had five children in kindergarten and three in elementary grades during its first year. After the school was established the Oregon State Department of Education provided financial assistance to the school for two years. Beginning in 1952 funding was provided by the Federal Security Agency.
