The granting of a 20 year contract to Hauser and Price in 1922 led to the construction of annexes onto the Crater Lake Lodge. These were well underway the following summer, but visitation had grown to where a structure was needed at the campground. In 1923, Superintendent C.G. Thomson recommended:
a shake community house, designed in imitation of a wigwam and containing a large central circular fireplace be constructed at the Rim auto camp ground. [18]
Community houses had proven popular in auto camps throughout the western United States as a place for campers to mingle after sunset, and Thomson saw construction of one as a way to establish a National Park Service presence at Rim Village. In 1924, a considerably less ambitious building than the one Thomson had suggested was erected.
Implementation of Daniels’ recommendation for a village store to service rented tents or cabins took considerably longer to realize. A development plan worked out by NPS landscape architect Thomas Vint in 1925-26 called for the construction of housekeeping cabins and a building to house a cafeteria and store. Vint envisioned the cafeteria and store building as being one of a group of three structures set on a plaza. The other buildings were to be a photography studio and a kind of visitor center/museum/auditorium/dormitory called a “Government Contact Building.” [19]
Although Vint’s plan called for the removal of his studio, Kiser was reluctant to give up his location and pay for construction of a new building in the plaza development. He did have a small wing added to his studio during the summer of 1926, but subsequent business reversals forced Kiser to forfeit the building in 1929. It has remained under NPS control ever since, being known subsequently as the Information Building, the Exhibit Building, and the Rim Visitor Center.
The development plan also addressed how the public would view the lake from Rim Village. It called for:
a Rim-way walk with a dustless surface behind which would be the roadway and parking area. After designing all necessary road ways and walks the intervening unused ground can be provided with a ground cover or other plant growth to stabilize the dust. The Rim walk will be one of the most important units of the Rim Area development and its center of attraction will be at Victor Rock. [20]
The “Rim-way walk” was one way of tackling the problem of unrestricted automobile parking next to the Rim which had destabilized or destroyed much of the vegetation and had scarred the area with vehicle tracks. Construction of a new main access to Rim Village was in progress during 1926, a project that was to set the circulation pattern on the site for over six decades.
C. Rim Village Remade: 1927-1941
Construction of the new road was accompanied by an expanded water system and extensive utility work to service the proposed Rim Village development. Vint’s intention was to make the site a center for viewing the lake according to the evolving design principles of rustic architecture. In many respects, the plan for Rim Village’s layout resembled another project of his during this period, the Giant Forest site at Sequoia National Park. Unlike Giant Forest, however, the concession company’s willingness to finance improvements was limited and sporadic. Nevertheless, by 1941, the NPS had launched a successful revegetation program at Rim Village and endowed the site with many improvements that were to last for more than a half-century.
The army road was shorter than the realigned route that the Bureau of Public Roads completed for the NPS in 1927, but had grades up to eleven percent in places. [21] The new road from Munson Valley cut the steepest grades to six percent, and in so doing was aligned to enter Rim Village development from the northwest. Rim Village now had a southern and western boundary, something that allowed the NPS to begin implementing its plan for the area.
Development of the plaza began in 1928 with a cafeteria and store building designed by NPS landscape architects. It was accompanied by construction of housekeeping cabins, which until 1941 did not have running water or sanitary facilities. [22] Work on the promenade started in 1929, following a design by NPS landscape architect E.A. Davidson. Planting work started the following year under the direction of Merel Sager. [23]
Concurrent with the start of the revegetation program was the construction of a new trail to the lakeshore. Like the earlier Rim Camp Trail, the Lake Trail near the lodge had become hazardous. In response, the NPS spent two seasons building the Crater Wall Trail and located the new trailhead on the plaza across from the Cafeteria and Store building.
