Did you start seeing a lot less of superintendents as we got into the latter part of the 1960’s?
Yes, they seemed to be more tied to the desk and this sort of thing. I think Williams, Nelson, and Yeager were more the “old type rangers” (18). They were the people that you think of being in the out of doors and active and this sort of thing. Maybe we had more of an administrative type of individuals coming in that were more keyed to that type of work.
I know there was a tremendous expansion in the park service by the late 1960s…
Right, more areas coming in…
I know Don Spalding talks about that, about how he didn’t see much of the park because he was out of the park as key man on the Redwood project (19).
And it seems to me too, Steve, wasn’t there a period when the NPS moved administration to Klamath Falls?
Yes, in 1969.
Right. Although I didn’t get to share in the full impact, there was a change. It was more decentralized. It was really neat when everybody was there together. I think of the maintenance people, Rex Trulove and Jeff Adams, and Tom Fisher and George Crooksey. It was just really a bunch of neat people. When I reflect back on my summers at Crater Lake, the thing that impressed me most was the real feeling of community. I just met so many neat people in the maintenance and the protective division, and the naturalist staff. Both my wife and I felt very fortunate in having the knowledge that during the year we could come to Crater Lake and we would know people and we would be received and there was hospitality there. It is something that’s almost Norman Rockwell. Really neat. We stayed with the Blacks during winter season and also with the Browns. We had some good friendships developed.
I saw a reference in the file, and this goes back to that first section where apparently, at least in the 1950s, Warren Fairbanks had an office in Medford. By talking to Bruce, I sort of figured out that by the time he got there the park naturalists stayed in the park all year round.
That’s right. That’s my recollection that Warren did work out of Medford. As I recall, Warren’s family lived in Medford. I guess there were some internal changes there. Then, when Bruce came, from Glacier Bay in Alaska and being used to a more remote type of environment, he saw no problem with Crater Lake. That was a great step forward, probably, for him. And then, of course, the housing, too. Steel Circle was built, and the permanents were moved from the stone houses over to the new housing. The new housing was a considerable improvement over the stone houses. In fact, I recall staying a while in the superintendent’s house (20). I can’t recall the ranger’s name-Floyd-he was a teacher at Klamath Falls. He and I stayed together in that facility for a couple of weeks one season. It was toward the end of the season. And that was really nice, nice living. But like the stone houses, and I also like Sleepy Hollow. I was tremendously surprised the other day when I went through Sleepy Hollow and, like I said, there’s no going back, but I saw that fabulous housing facility (21). I understand that this is the first season.
