There was a proposal to move the park headquarters to the south entrance about that time. Was that ever seriously funded, or considered or did it run into opposition?
It was seriously considered. I remember being very much opposed to it, myself. And years later when I was working in master planning in San Francisco, I went with a planning team to Crater Lake. This would have been about 1967 or ’68, right about then. And it was still being seriously considered and I was still opposed to it.
In that report that I brought you listed a number of reasons.
When we went to Crater Lake, Tom Williams was superintendent, and there was the finest esprit de corps and cooperation on the staff and the families of any park I had been familiar with up ‘til that time. And I was amazed of find out that it hadn’t always been that way. In fact, before Tom got there was a lot of dissention, strife, and the sort of things going on in the park. Tom Williams started having parties and bringing park employees together and Tom was a good listener, too. So, he turned that park staff around, there was a real fine quality there, I felt, under him.
He spent a lot of time in the park.
He did when we were there, yes.
I know that hasn’t always been the case.
That had not always been the case. That’s one reason why I’m so strong on the park staff all being in the park. Because of the quality of the teamwork that you get when this happens if you have the right people in leadership positions. They had, along with Tom, Raymond Rudell who was assistant superintendent at that time, and we had known Ray from our Sequoia days, too.
