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.
