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.
Out of that came this final, with endorsements from John Rutter and Ben Gale (58). My idea, rather than having a holding area up the road some distance and having visitors wait at a place with nothing to do, was to have some place in Cave Junction. You would come in and register at the parking lot in Cave Junction. They could then say we can accommodate so many cars and it’ll be such and such a wait. Whoever is operating the station at Cave Junction could say, “Okay car such and such you may go.” In the mean time there are things for people to do and see in Cave Junction. This would help the Chamber of Commerce and maybe go hand in hand with the Forest Service by indicating what recreational opportunities there are in the area. But all of this is contingent on communications, so they had to establish a system that would make this thing work (59). The big problem that prompted these plans was the overcrowding in the parking area on real busy days (60). That was the big problem, as stated in the master plan draft. There wasn’t room for an overflow and you had people stacked up on that road, so you had a problem. I’m not surprised that it never happened, did it?
There is an Illinois Valley Visitors Center. The Park Service helps staff it now.
That’s good. It is what I envisioned. Let me add this… about the time of the North Cascades master planning, the director ordered planners to look at other means of transportation beside the automobile. Tramways were proposed for North Cascades, but I knew that a bus system wouldn’t quite work at Oregon Caves. Planners have since focused on the parking problem.
