Another building, the Community House, is a contributing structure to the designed landscape despite diminished architectural integrity. [6] Although the porch is gone and original shingle siding has been replaced with horizontal boards, this building retains most of its relatively simple rustic features. Its fairly austere appearance is largely due to a $1,500 limitation on the cost construction that limited the design possibilities for park buildings between 1917 and 1926. [7] Nevertheless, the Community House retains a compelling association with the former campground since this type of structure often accompanied the development of campgrounds for automobiles in city, state, and national parks during the 1920s. As the oldest extant NPS-built structure in the park, it gave the agency a presence at Rim Village and represents a stage in park development.
One other building within the district, the Cafeteria, is a noncontributing structure because it lacks qualities associated with the original design intent. The Cafeteria still functions as it did historically, but additions to the building in 1956, 1970, and 1971 tripled the floor space while obscuring the battered stone and other rustic features formerly evident from the plaza. It has lost much of its architectural integrity as a result, and is presently almost unrecognizable from the building constructed in 1928.
Endnotes
1. Three comfort stations in the campground (buildings #117, #119. and #123) were not included on the original form. All three (referenced in the cultural landscape report as comfort stations #1, #2, and #3) were removed by the NPS in 1991.
2. The inventory card also raised questions about architectural and structural integrity, concerns repeated on page 10, section 8, of the original form.
3. Linda Flint McClelland, Presenting Nature: The Historic Landscape Design of the National Park Service, 1916 to 1942 (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1993), pp. 81-88.
4. Punchard to Mather, February 6, 1920, Record Group 79, Central Classified Files 1907-1939, File 900-01, Part 1, Crater Lake Public Utility Operators, National Archives, Washington, D.C.
5. McClelland, pp. 90-91.
6. The inventory card submitted with the original form focused on changes summarized in Section 7 of this amendment to substantiate a finding that the Community House would not contribute to a nomination emphasizing the park’s rustic architecture. The original form (page 10, section 8) focused on a lack of structural integrity, apparently because cables are used to brace the building against heavy snow.
7. McClelland, pp. 100-101.
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