Lake Roosevelt Administrative History

Signs

Unlike many other National Park units, there is no main entrance to LARO. Park Service lands there are confined to a narrow strip on either side of the river, extending roughly 150 miles upriver from Grand Coulee Dam. Visitors reach campgrounds and boat launches on multiple access roads from nearby state highways and county roads. This configuration has made signs particularly important at LARO. The park began working with the Washington Department of Highways in 1974 to erect brown-and-white highway signs to direct tourists to Park Service areas from state highways; installation of these signs was completed the following year, but two years later the state installed another fifty directional signs. Superintendent Gary Kuiper asked for a waiver of rules for highway signs in 1985 to allow listing the full name of the NRA on the Spring Canyon sign, the first one seen by north-bound tourists. He believed this was important because it would alert visitors to the change from Banks Lake, administered under State Parks regulations, to Lake Roosevelt, administered under Park Service regulations. [53]

Initially, all signs within LARO boundaries were traditional wooden ones with routed and/or painted lettering. The park had a sign committee at least by the mid-1960s that inspected all park signs in May. They ensured that the sign was still needed, provided adequate information, and retained an attractive appearance. Any that were deemed unnecessary were removed. Maintenance and repairs were done during the winter months to be ready for the summer season. New signs had to be approved by the committee. [54]

LARO began to switch to metal signs with standardized Park Service symbols in the 1970s at the instigation of Maintenance Supervisor Bill Schieber. The committee completed a Sign Survey and Inventory of existing signs in 1972-1973 and then ordered new signs, made by Federal Prison Industries, through the regional office. Installation of the metal signs did not begin until the spring of 1975, so the park continued to use and maintain wooden signs. In 1976, Superintendent William Burgen complained about excessive delays on sign orders placed through the regional office. When LARO installed new fish cleaning stations that year, the park decided to make routed wooden signs instead of waiting at least five or six months for a sign request to be filled. Burgen noted that if they had sent in a request, they would not have received the signs for the summer season and, moreover, they probably would not have received them in time for the following season. LARO was still waiting for approximately two hundred metal signs in 1977, but it had decided to keep the wooden signs in historic areas to help maintain integrity. [55]

Al Drysdale and James Todd installing new headquarters sign, February 1959. Photo courtesy of National Park Service, Lake Roosevelt National Recreation Area (LARO.HQ.MENG).

There were no major changes to the LARO sign program until the mid-1980s when the park's Maintenance Division photographed and categorized all park signs and entered the information into a computer. LARO approved a Sign Plan in March 1990 to codify the park's approach to signage. It emphasized the need to give entrance signs a friendly, instead of authoritative, tone to welcome visitors. In addition, the plan stressed the need to present a distinct visual image for the NRA within the overall Park Service identity. [56]