He gave his approval in ’61 that allowed it.
That’s what he told me. Of course, he and I had been acquaintances then for ten years or more. Lawrence was a fine gentleman, but he said he sure goofed on that one. I said, “Well, hell, we all goof.” I put this package together to move the sucker out, Hartzog had already said do it, so you know let’s go folks. I don’t remember how long ago it was, but whoever the Superintendent was, sent me a copy of the new master plan. This was the first I had heard that they were not following up, and then they keep the thing where it is. They wanted my comments. Oh man, you know I wrote back and I said I’m sorry I put together a pretty good master plan under the circumstances that I work, I don’t know your circumstances, therefore I have no comment on this plan.
I know there was a master plan done in ’70, about the time you left.
Yeah, it was later than that. I don’t know how many there have been since then, probably five or six.
[Bill] There was one session, remember, when we prepared the back room for the meeting upstairs, and the team was in at that time? That would have been in ’69, because I left shortly thereafter.
That was the first team that I was involved in, well no, we had a team down here in the Redwoods too. I don’t remember the members, but Paul Fritz was on it. So we were running master plan here and also at Crater Lake at almost the same time.
So there were a number of these teams?
There were teams on both of those. Down here [Redwoods] we obviously didn’t involve the public. We didn’t have any legislation yet, but at Crater Lake, Hartzog had just come out, it must have been ’69, with a statement that you would have public involvement. Remember that funny old term? But there was only one problem – the word never got to Denver. Those guys wouldn’t have any public involvement. Well, we had to make a few calls and we got that straightened out. But they wouldn’t even allow the concessionaire to be in the discussion. Well, not too many people wanted Peyton anyway, but we had him.
I read several of Peyton’s letters about various aspects of the planning process.
That was the first real change that I was involved in, where we start what we call public involvement.
Was it because of NEPA, do you think?
I wouldn’t be surprised if either that, or George was just jumping the gun on them, cause he had a tendency to be about two years ahead of everybody else. Boy, he was sharp. He would come up with things, that two years down the line would be legislation. But he was really a forerunner, in many things that was one of them. Of course after that, you know the public was involved in all kinds of stuff, master plans and Wilderness hearings. Superintendent John Preston came up and he was the chairman for that. I don’t know what ever happened to all those documents, whether they were ever implemented or not.
