Leavitt was also instrumental in establishing better mail service to the park. With the cooperation of the U.S. Post Office Department a Star Route was established to the park beginning June 1, 1939. Thereafter, mail was received seven times per week both from Medford and Klamath Falls. On June 1 an acting postmaster (former postmaster R.W. Price having resigned) assumed duties in the new post office quarters in the Administration Building. [61]
By the late 1930s the park’s winter headquarters offices in the Post Office Building in Medford were becoming increasingly inadequate. The office space used by the Park Service was provided through the courtesy of the U.S. District Court to which organization the office space was allocated. Problems with this arrangement, however, arose in 1937 as the result of more frequent and extended sessions of the court The difficulties were outlined in a letter sent by Assistant Secretary of the Interior Oscar L. Chapman to the Fourth Assistant Postmaster General on March 10, 1938:
Until recently it has been the custom for the Court to meet once each year, usually during the month of October. After adjournment of the Court the National Park Service unit was permitted to utilize the space until the following spring. Last year, however, there was a session of the Court in December and it was necessary for the National Park Service unit to vacate the space usually occupied and to move into two small rooms in the basement where there are neither telephone facilities nor proper light and ventilation. This year the number of Court sessions was increased and the sessions were postponed several times so that it has been necessary for the National Park Service unit to occupy the entirely unsatisfactory basement space during the major portion of the winter. It is understood that, in the future, the Court plans to hold sessions every month or two as circumstances may require. This is a change in policy on the part of the Federal Court which in the past held most of its sessions in Portland, Oregon. [62]
During the fall of 1940 the Post Office Building in Medford was remodeled and enlarged. Thus the park was provided with a suite of six rooms, a decided improvement over its former cramped office space. [63]
The entry of the United States in World War II following the bombing of Pearl Harbor in December 1941 had a profound effect on park operations and administration. In October 1942 Leavitt described the situation at Crater Lake during the first months after Pearl Harbor:
Activities of the past year are marked by contrasts–definite, sharp contrasts–characterized, on the one hand, by operations at the peak of peace time, and, on the other hand, by operations in the confusion and bewilderment of the first few months of war. Unprecedented travel with accelerated activities resulting therefrom during the summer and fall of 1941 was followed by abrupt and sudden transition to the grimness of war at the echo of enemy bombers and exploding bombs over the quiet waters of Pearl Harbor.
Shadows of events to come were cast early in this year with the acute reduction of CCC enrollees and supervisory personnel, loss of employees through the Selective Service Act, and the difficulty encountered in finding qualified and willing replacements. In spite of it all and because of the facility with which the regular organization can expand or contract, depending upon the exigencies at the moment, the apparent difficulties were admirably met and overcome. The chameleonlike readiness with which the regular staff met and accomplished tasks ordinarily expected of others accounts in no small measure for the willingness and ability to carry on.[64]
Despite the optimism expressed by Leavitt wartime restrictions took an increasing toll on park operations. Crater Lake was closed during the winter months from 1942-45, and the war years witnessed a drastic curtailment of travel cutbacks in park appropriations, personnel, and visitor services, and difficulty in securing personnel for construction and maintenance work. All snow removal equipment was transferred to the U.S. Army, and the park found it increasingly difficult to secure parts, materials, supplies, gasoline, tires, and fuel oil required for normal operations. The chief ranger and park naturalist undertook the major responsibility for trail repairs and other maintenance work and furnished crews or individual employees to assist the park carpenter, plumber, road foreman, and engineer in their duties. The only unskilled labor the park was able to hire consisted of “a few young boys just old enough to qualify under the age regulations, and a few old men.”
