Phase I: 1927-1932
Implementation of the general development plan for Rim Village began in 1927. For the first five years work was completed by NPS forces and private contractors. Both Ernest A. Davidson and John B. Wosky, assistant landscape architects to Vint, guided the early improvements. By the fall of 1930, landscape architect Merel Sager was assigned to Crater Lake and became the lead in directing the design work there. The design as implemented at Rim Village is considered by many to be Sager’s personal vision and expression of the Rustic.
The park received its largest appropriation to date in 1927. A variety of projects were undertaken that year. At Rim Village, the most notable addition was the completion of a new trail down to the lake. This trail replaced an older, steeper trail that originated near the lodge. The new trail began at the west end of the village. In 1928, there was a considerable increase in development activity at the village. The construction of buildings became a priority, particularly for the park’s concessioner, the Crater Lake National Park Company. In 1928 they constructed a sizable cafeteria and store building at the west end of the village, orienting it toward the lake. Following NPS landscape architects’ designs, the Cafeteria was built with Rustic styling, the exterior faced in stone and the broad gable roof sheathed in wood shingles. Its unbroken roofline and rectangular shape, although punctuated by windows and a recessed central door, made for a massive, overscaled building. This same year, a cluster of housekeeping cabins were built behind (south of) the Cafeteria. Later known as the Coldwater Cabins, these twelve tourist cabins followed the layout delineated on the general plan for the rim.[21]
Victor Rock, the rock outcrop 50 feet below the caldera rim and so popular with park visitors, became the focus of attention during this first period of construction. Vint had originally proposed for the site “an observation platform with an architectural development in the way of a memorial rest.” Concurrently, NPS Director Horace Albright proposed the installation of a bronze plaque at the rim to honor former Oregon State Congressman Nicholas J. Sinnott, an individual who had worked diligently on behalf of the national parks. NPS Chief Naturalist Ansel Hall made a suggestion that combined and expanded on these two ideas:
. . . the placque might be placed at the Victor Rock Observation Station — indeed if support can be secured on this project we might very well erect a neat little granite structure which might be known as a memorial to Mr. Sinnot [sic] and at the same time fulfill the requirements of a branch museum and observation station such as has been erected at Yavapai Point in Grand Canyon National Park.[22]
In 1930 the decision was made to change the project from a “memorial rest” to a memorial museum. Landscape Architect Merel Sager assisted with the preparation of plans for a substantial structure to be built on the precipitous outcrop, using the Grand Canyon building as the model. Studies for the building were drawn up in San Francisco over the winter and by June a preliminary sketch plan was finished. Unfortunately, these plans were drawn without actual field knowledge of the site. The designers quickly learned that Victor Rock had its limitations as a building site; in order for the building to be constructed as designed, several large hemlock trees would need to be removed and very heavy cutting of other vegetation was required. After some time was spent reconfiguring the building, construction began and was well underway by fall of that year. A tribute to the Rustic style of design, the Sinnott Memorial was completed in 1931.[23]
