I remember the one on the east side of the building.
We had to go into an elaborate smoke alarm system and spent tons of money on that darn thing. I made the decision that they could no longer have fires in that mammoth fire place in the Great Hall.
Yes, I remember the sign.
I had to put it up because the chimney had deteriorated so badly that the smoke was billowing into rooms upstairs. That didn’t win any popularity contests. They’ve got the fireplace reconstructed now.
What was the relationship of Oregon Caves when you were superintendent? Did you provide any direct assistance to the monument?
Yes and no. Going back to the cluster office period, the group provided budgetary oversight, administrative personnel, and interpretive assistance to John Miele and Dick Sims (56). Then there was a period after Ernie retired that the group office was still functioning. I was there in a coordinating role and it was maybe a two day a week job. Then Oregon Cave became completely independent, so we backed off (57). I left a standing offer to provide any assistance that they needed and to just to give us a call. It was on that basis, but that type of assistance wasn’t incorporated into the organizational chart.
We still provide direct assistance to them with budget and in a few other ways.
I think there were a couple of times that we sent somebody over there for a while. On a couple of other occasions they wanted some assistance, but most of the time they operated on their own. They liked being independent.
I had a couple questions on the plan that you helped to finish at the Oregon Caves. In the draft there was a holding area about three or four miles up the road, on Highway 46. What led to that?
I’ll have to take the blame or credit. Bruce Black might have been doing the Oregon Caves master plan draft and I can’t remember who else. But they were gone from the scene and John Rutter said, “Here, do it.” At that point in time, the planning process was to the point where we were to have public meetings. I hammered out of final plan, a revised draft, I guess it was. We went down and held a meeting in Cave Junction. Ben Gale and I flew to Medford and drove over to the monument. We had a meeting and not too many people showed. We discussed it, and it was the concessionaire who had some questions. Christianson, I believe his name was.
