During 1904 no applications were made for driving stock through the park. One small herd of cattle had been found trespassing on park lands, however, and its removal was required immediately. The only stock that had passed through the park was that associated with visitors to the park. While there was no park visitor register Arant estimated the number of visitors during July-September to be 1,200 to 1,500. The summer season having been dry, several forest fires had started but were extinguished before any significant damage was done to the timber or grass lands.
Since Congress had appropriated only $3,000 for the park during fiscal year 1905, Arant reported in September 1904 that this “amount was entirely inadequate to a good administration of the affairs of the park, and entirely insufficient for making anything like the necessary improvements during one season.” Accordingly, he again prepared a list of projects, totaling $7,918, that should be carried out in 1906 to enhance the attractiveness of the park and promote better management of its resources.
Three of these budget requests were highlighted by Arant in his annual report. These were the items relating to building a house and barn in the park and making provision for assistance in patrolling the park during the visitation season. Relative to the house and barn he noted that while preparing his annual report there had been
for the past forty-eight hours, and is at the present time, a heavy, cold rain mixed with snow falling, and accompanied by strong south wind, making it most disagreeable living in tents, and also making it desperately uncomfortable for the horses and teams kept for the work in the park, to say nothing of the danger of their contracting pneumonia or other disease caused by the great exposure to the storm and cold.
I can not refrain from again saying that I not only recommend, but I earnestly urge upon Congress the great importance of making sufficient appropriation to provide against this unreasonable condition.
Concerning the need for patrol assistance, he observed:
Owing to the fact that during the summer months the entire time of the superintendent is required in superintending the improvements and other affairs of the park, as there is danger at any time of destructive fires breaking out–and these fires do start every summer- -and as there is more or less of trespassing in stock grazing upon the park lands, and as it is very difficult, almost impossible, to restrain some people from cutting green timber in the park, it is deemed absolutely necessary that there should be at least two patrolmen in the park from the 15th of June to the 15th of October, 1905, to attend to those matters above specified. Sixty dollars per month each would be reasonable compensation for such services . . . . [3]
The story of operations at Crater Lake National Park continued much the same in fiscal year 1905. During the winter of 1904-05 several steps were taken to protect government property against the elements. Flooring from all the bridges was removed to allow the snow to fall through the bridge frames to the ground, thus preventing the bridges from being broken down by the snow. All tools and implements were hauled “to a safe place 14 miles from the park and securely housed for the winter.”
A post office was established at the head of Anna Creek when the summer season opened on July 1, 1905. This was done at the request of the Department of the Interior to accommodate the needs of visitors and campers in the park.
On August 19 the road from the head of Anna Creek to the rim of the lake was completed. The road was described as “a comfortable one to travel over, being of easy grade, the steepest of which is 10 percent, smooth and as straight as it was practicable to make it.” After its completion there was “very little, if any, travel over the old road to the lake.” [4]
Work on a new road from Whitehorse to Anna Creek Bridge was commenced in mid-August. Only one place on this road had as steep a grade as ten percent, while parts of the old road over the steep summit which the road would replace had grades of more than fifteen percent.
