The Scenic America Company, a Portland-based firm headed by Fred H. Kiser, opened a photographic studio west of the lodge on August 25, 1921. Prior to the erection of the stone building the studio had operated in a tent. Under the terms of its concession contract the company sold photographic souvenirs, post cards, oil enlargements, and camera supplies. According to Mather, the establishment of this studio brought “to the park permanently the genius and artistic influence” of a man “who knows the national park system as well as anybody in the Northwest, and who for many years has aided this bureau by supplying pictures, by lecturing, and by writing on the parks and other western mountain regions”. [14]
In June 1922, just prior to the opening of the tourist season, the Crater Lake National Park Company formally acquired the concession facilities leased to them by the Parkhurst interests the previous year. The lodge was improved, and on July 11 construction was begun on an $80,000 eighty-room addition. Under a two-year subcontract to William T. Lee of Klamath Falls a fleet of six “powerful new seven-passenger [Packard] touring cars” was introduced to provide improved service between the park and Medford and Klamath Falls. A five-year subcontract was let to the Standard Oil Company of California to construct and operate a gasoline service station at Anna Spring, thus filling a long-felt need by the motoring public. [15]
To protect the investment of the new concessioner and to encourage the development of plans for further comprehensive improvements and extensions in accommodations for park visitors a new franchise was granted the Crater Lake National Park Company by the Department of the Interior. The contract, signed on December 7, 1922, but made retroactive to January 1, provided for a twenty-year arrangement to cover hotel, camp, transportation, and other visitor services. While the contract offered “inducements for progressive development of the Crater Lake properties,” it also contained, according to NPS Director Mather, “reciprocal obligations on the part of the owner to keep abreast of the demand for increased facilities, in so far as this can be done with due regard to the short season, reasonable return on the investment, and similar considerations.” [16]
The detailed provisions of the contract were designed to circumvent problems that had arisen with the former Crater Lake Company. Among other things the contract stated:
Term of the lease to be for twenty years from January 1, 1922, authorizing the Company to establish, maintain and operate in Crater Lake National Park hotels, etc., for the accommodation and entertainment of tourists and others; to install and operate laundries and barber shops, Turkish baths, bath houses, swimming pools; provide facilities for skating, sleighing, skiing and other winter sports; establish and maintain hot houses and gardens; to sell newspapers and other articles of merchandise; also to establish, maintain and operate a transportation service; to maintain for use and hire, row boats on the lake; to conduct a general livery business; to establish and operate lodges; also to establish a dairy service and to operate general merchandise stores.
