Access into the park and to the rim was improved by the Army Corps of Engineers, and several hiking trails were built radiating out from the lodge, enabling park visitors to enjoy views on The Watchman and Garfield Peak, or from below, along the water’s edge. Slowly over the years services improved and by 1924 visitors to Crater Lake National Park had a number of amenities available to them. The “village” area had a large hotel and campground, a photographic studio, and a community house for special programs. Comfort stations were built in the campground, which had been relocated to the lovely sub-alpine glen south of the hotel. Nineteen twenty-seven marked a turning point for the development at Crater Lake, particularly at Rim Village. A general plan for rim area development was approved and the park received its largest appropriation ever. This program was overseen by the NPS’ Chief of the Landscape Engineering Division, Thomas C. Vint, who created a Western Field Office in San Francisco. Vint brought together a number of disciplines for an era of unprecedented development in the parks. He became a controlling figure in the implementation of planning and the use of master plans for all of the parks, plans that were intended to guide each park’s construction and maintenance work over several years. The next fourteen years were critical ones for the implementation of Crater Lake’s master plan. More importantly, the execution of the plan and its concepts reflected the direction of the Park Service’s design ethics and style of the era, a style that has since come to be known as NPS Rustic.
Implementation of the comprehensive design plan for Rim Village was completed in two phases. The first phase, between 1927-1932, saw the establishment of roads and parking areas, new buildings, strolling paths, and plantings, all completed by NPS and contract labor. The second phase of implementation, between 1933-1941, was accomplished by the manpower made available by the New Deal. Two CCC camps were established at Crater Lake, bringing more than four hundred men into the park to undertake a variety of construction projects, landscape work, and general maintenance projects. New trails were built, roads were improved, additional plantings were established, and buildings were erected by these young men. The rim planting program continued, with special attention to planting around buildings, along the promenade, and on the caldera itself. Probably the CCC’s most significant contribution was the work they completed at the Rim Campground. For the first time this important and heavily-used area of the village received considerable attention. Supplemental plantings were installed for design and functional purposes: an internal circulation system was formalized for foot and auto traffic; and individual camp sites with Rustic style picnic tables, benches, and fireplaces were built.
