Was the group office and the Seattle office just coincidental as far as the timing of both of them?
No, it was planned that way. We added Lava Beds to it which caused some consternation, because it was in a different Congressional District, but we worked that out okay. So it wasn’t any strain really, just a logical solution. Then the local Congressmen at that time, was Al Ullman. To get your reference straight, Al Ullman was a number two man in the Ways and Means Committee. Ullman became the head of that when Fanny and Wilbur [Mills] fell in the pool on the Potomac. The interesting aspect was that Al Ullman was from John Day, Oregon. He said, “I would like you to have a look at this place.” And I said, “Yes sir.” So we had a look at it. We ended up writing a plan for John Day and it eventually became the fourth area to be managed by the group office.
Was it your recommendation that it have three separate units?
Oh, yes. There was no way that you could tie that thing together, short of taking the whole river. In those days we didn’t thin quite that broadly. The only other aspect of it that I wanted was the old Chinese store. That was in downtown John Day, but I couldn’t get it then. It was fascinating; did you ever see that?
Yeah, the Kam Wah Chung?
Yeah, I wanted that real bad. Ullman said he couldn’t do that.
Was it simply just a transfer from the State Parks to the NPS?
Yeah.
Okay, there wasn’t anybody else involved as far as private owners?
Oh, yeah there was some private acquisition, but it was not a major deal.
BLM wasn’t involved?
Not that I recall. See, at that time, we also we had a Portland office. The Portland office had a planning function, but again you run into, well let’s say, personnel problems.
Was the Portland office only an NPS office or was it shared with other agencies?
It was a separate entity, but I think it was in the BLM building.
