You can see the old boundary signs with the Sequoia on them.
If you watch Yogi Bear, Ranger Smith in Jellystone still wears the old symbol on his shoulder. He has the Sequoia tree symbol. The guy somehow has never updated that.
Back to a few of the changes of that [1960 to 1970] period. We were seeing the old guard changing and the new guard of bureaucrats that came in. Service is our middle name. Rangeroons, that’s it. Hufnagel had the little smoos. Are you acquainted with the smoos out of Al Capp? Little Abner’s smoos. But these are the little potbellied things and all they wore was a Ranger hat that went down below their eyes. They were the kind that stood offstage getting off the comments about what was going on in the cartoon. Hufnagel talked about service being our middle name, and it was. When I was running entrance station, our policy was that no matter who came in, at what time, and no matter how campers we had, we always found a spot for them.
So people weren’t turned away?
NEVER! It would be unheard of to turn anybody away. It was all free camping. Mazama was being extended at that time. So the Annie Creek campground was there at the curve, where the old headquarters was (37).
You can still walk on it. You can drive there today.
It’s still sitting there, a few rocks have fallen down. We could put about 25 there. Right where the entrance station is sitting now, where the road goes out, that was called the boondocks. It was a dusty area up through the trees that we’d just start shoving people up in there (38). We’d be so happy when we’d hit the campground count and we’d break a record over the previous night. It was exciting to be able to use Cold Springs, which was down by Polebridge (39). We’d put people in there. We’d put them in the picnic areas and when all that got full, we’d use the whole rim area. They weren’t encouraged to go around the rim and camp except in the rim parking lot. It was great. I remember one night we had seventy units sitting in the rim parking lot overnight and we were proud of the fact that we were able to find a home for those people. When the fee came in, oh, that was devastating. We had to start charging for something. It was horrible. The entrance station fee took care of that, supposedly, and then they started charging. We’re no longer the free Park Service like we used to be. Then, of course, it went up. It started at a dollar, two, then it went up. What is it, I think, about seven or eight dollars now? You’re not allowed to compete with private and so it’s based on a private fee with similar services. That’s what they are using.
