[Bill] It was good because you knew a lot before you got there. Then he put a movie on for the rest of the drive.
Yeah, I had forgotten that one, you are right.
I’ve heard some reference to it the concession operations, was there any linkage between the Caves Company and Peyton?
No, absolutely none.
They were completely independent?
The Caves Company was run by a Board of Directors. Harry Christensen was the manager, the Board ran it, totally independent.
Later on, they both sold out to Canteen Company of Oregon.
Where you might have ran into that, gosh, I can’t remember the chaps name. I ran into him when I was in Death Valley the last time—wanted to buy both. I guess it was Canteen Corporation, and so he was bidding on them both simultaneously. But there never was connection while I was there, or not as long as Harry was there, either. That was a good little operation at Oregon Caves.
I had another question about at the time that the Office of Natural Sciences was created in ’67. Dick Brown became the Research Biologist. Did that change anything in the park, in that you now somebody with a research grade?
Well, it did not at that time, predominately because of personality, I would guess. We arranged for a transfer and about the same time that occurred, we were setting up the Klamath Falls group office. We set the position in the group office. What was his name?
Blaisdell?
Jim Blaisdell, right. He was kind of a dynamic character, anyway, and he was interested in where we were putting in the big horn sheep in Lava Beds. That was his major thrust, which was a full time occupation, but he also did work at Crater Lake and at Oregon Caves.
I guess that might make a good transition to this setting up of the group office and the regional office while you were superintendent. That seems like it would change things enormously as far as how the operation would run.
Not really, I knew a year or so ahead that this was going to come to fruition. Senator Jackson, who is now deceased, and the Regional Director were close associates. Senator Jackson wanted a presence in Seattle. After all, he was from the great state of Washington. In order to do that, they would have to split up the Western Region, which is pretty traumatic. George had some objections to it, but those were resolved when the North Cascades and the Redwoods came in. The Seattle Office was set up to handle Oregon and all the Alaska areas, Washington and Idaho. So this was to me just a normal transition. It was a shock at the park level because we pulled out ten people—myself included, and set up the group office, which changed the financial structure and staffing and so forth.
