Were you still there for the winter that both bridges were out? I think that was the winter of 1942?
No, in 1942 the park was not even open in the winter because of World War II.
It may have been in April of 1942?
It must have happened after I was there. They replaced a bridge at Annie Spring when I was there but it was just because the old one was no longer safe (12). It never disrupted the traffic or anything like that.
They had a by pass road around there and it was 14 years before they ended up putting in a new bridge. You can still see where the old road [ around the top of the drainage] went.
I did not leave until October 1942. That was when they replaced the bridge. I remember that some of timbers from the bridge were what I used to cook with in my house down at Annie Spring.
[Response to wife, Becky] Some of the early snow studies were done at Crater Lake because they have real deep snow there it had easy access (13). The Soil Conservation Service conducted the study for a couple years and a fella named Arch work, in Medford, was the man in charge of that study for the Soil Conservation Service (14). They had a couple of pits within the parks. The rangers got involved with digging the holes and studying the various layers of snow and that sort of thing. Jack Frost ended up being the snow surveyor for the Soil Conservation Service. His original contact with the work was through Arch Work and his studies at Crater Lake. In the winter of 1942, when the decision was made not to keep Crater Lake open any longer, the Soil Conservation Service offered Jack the job as snow surveyor. He took that job and transferred to the Soil Conservation Service from the Park Service. That was about the same time I left Crater Lake and went to the Forest Service. We moved to Union Creek which was a ranger station about 17 miles down the road toward Medford (15). Jack remained with the Soil Conservation Service for the duration of his federal employment and I stayed with the Forest Service for the duration of my career as a federal employee. We never forgot Crater Lake, either one of us, that’s for sure. We really had good times there.
