Lake Roosevelt Administrative History

Recreation Planning for Lake Roosevelt up to 1956

The Park Service became involved in planning for recreation on Lake Roosevelt in late 1939, when Reclamation organized the Joint Investigations of the Columbia Basin Irrigation Project to provide an orderly program for the development and settlement of the project area. Problem No. 26 focused on the recreational development of Lake Roosevelt. The Park Service selected Claude Greider, a state supervisor with the agency based in Portland, Oregon, to head the committee. This was the start of Greider's fourteen-year involvement with Lake Roosevelt and the NRA that was eventually created around its shores. [20]

The committee's report, completed in April 1942, provided preliminary layouts of various recreational sites bordering the lake in order to facilitate rational coordination of private and public development. Ten sites were selected for priority development for general public use. General problems noted by the committee included the pollution of the Spokane River and the lack of shade trees at proposed development sites. [21]

For the next several years, Claude Greider and his small staff performed land use studies and formulated a development program for the NRA. Reclamation provided funds on an annual basis for the supervision of current uses. The Park Service was not allowed to initiate any development or protection of the area; its responsibilities were limited to administrative duties and planning. [22]

Finally, the decision as to which agency would manage Lake Roosevelt was made. In April 1946, representatives of the Park Service, Reclamation, and Office of Indian Affairs (OIA) drafted the tri-party interbureau agreement that designated the National Park Service as the principal administrative agency for the Lake Roosevelt area. The Secretary of the Interior approved this agreement December 18, 1946, and the area was designated Coulee Dam Recreational Area. Under this agreement, the Park Service assumed responsibility to plan for recreational facilities and arrange for their construction, operation, and maintenance; establish policies regarding the uses of the NRA; negotiate contracts for concessions; and designate (in consultation with the OIA) suitable recreation sites within the Indian Zones. The Park Service agreed to submit itemized cost estimates to Reclamation, which would advance the necessary funds as available. Reclamation agreed to provide facilities within the Reclamation Zone near Grand Coulee Dam for the Park Service to use in administering the area. [23]

Between 1941 and 1946, the years of temporary interbureau agreements and debates over which agency should manage recreation on Lake Roosevelt, a handful of Park Service employees worked on recreation planning for the reservoir in addition to administering its current uses. Philip W. Kearney, a landscape architect employed by the CCC, and Greider, with help from the Regional Office, completed a Master Plan for Lake Roosevelt in 1944 that superseded the report of the committee on Problem No. 26. [24]

Landscape park planning and design had matured in the late 1920s, and the Park Service hired many talented landscape architects during the 1930s. Master Plans represented an attempt to prepare plans for orderly development of an area. Individual layout plans for sites to be developed provided details concerning the location of individual features. Master Plans were intended to protect parks from excessive or poorly coordinated road construction and other development. They detailed multi-year programs of prioritized construction activity and were intended to be flexible to allow for changing conditions. Following this general program, Greider and Kearney classified the reservoir shore land according to zones for "best social and economic uses"; located sites for development of various resources; determined additional private lands for the federal government to acquire; prepared general layout plans for development of each recreational site; and coordinated all uses of the area. In 1943, Greider stated that the aim of the recreation program for Lake Roosevelt was to "provide wholesome recreation at the lowest possible cost to the individual." [25]

The Master Plan completed by Greider and Kearney in 1944 delineated a number of sites appropriate for recreational development. The report emphasized the need to provide a balanced program for the area as a whole, planning for full development but understanding that development would be made in phases only as required by public use. Post-war development, the report stated, should cover the estimated requirements for the first five years, guarding against over-development. The federal government (agency not yet determined) should develop and administer free public recreational facilities and boating. Private concessions should provide facilities for which a user fee was charged, such as boat docks, boat service facilities, concessionaire and lodge buildings, and cabin camps. [26] The plans prepared for this report generally provided the basis for the development of LARO that was finally funded in the 1950s.

The 1944 development plans for a number of sites included provision for one- and two-room cabins, shelter kitchens, softball fields, summer homes, and tennis courts, plus more traditional Park Service facilities such as swimming and picnicking areas, campgrounds, and restrooms. The "rustic" style of architecture popular during the 1930s was now seen as outmoded and too costly since the CCC program had been discontinued. The 1944 plans correlated nicely with recommendations made in Frank A. Waugh's 1935 book, Landscape Conservation: Planning for the Restoration, Conservation, and Utilization of Wild Lands for Parks and Forests. This work recommended that park structures should be in harmony with the setting, lacking in ornamentation, and arranged in clusters. Waugh stressed the need to plan for and select the best locations for a variety of sites, even if they were not to be developed initially. These included administrative, service, hotels and accommodations, water conservation and supply, sewage disposal, clubhouses, group campsites, tent campsites, playing fields, tennis courts, golf courses, bathing beaches, and fishing sites. [27]

Like other Park Service units established soon after World War II, LARO's earliest facilities were designed to be functional and relatively easy to maintain. For example, in 1954 Superintendent Hugh Peyton described the optimal comfort station design for Fort Spokane as having a concrete floor, pitched roof with composition roofing, steel windows, metal partitions and stall doors, and plumbing and storage space in the center between the men's and women's sections. [29]

Once rationing of gas and rubber was lifted at the end of the war, and as leisure time, disposable income, and mobility increased, millions of Americans took to the highways for vacations. Outdoor recreation grew tremendously popular. In 1941, swimming was the most popular outdoor sport in America, and boating was eighth. But on newly formed Lake Roosevelt, industrial uses dominated, especially uses related to the timber industry. In 1944, for example, only eight out of the sixty special-use permits granted by Greider's office were for recreation. For several years, the only public boating facilities on the reservoir were boat slips built by the Works Projects Administration in 1938 or 1939 and then leased by Reclamation to the Grand Coulee Dam Yacht Club. In 1940, a commercial outfit known as the Grand Coulee Navigation Company began providing passenger service on Lake Roosevelt, and soon Reclamation granted a few permits for boat fueling and fuel and mechanical service for seaplanes. [30]

By 1941, some fifty or sixty private "pleasure boats" were maintained on Lake Roosevelt (this number dropped dramatically, however, during the war). One of the influential promoters of boating on Lake Roosevelt was Reclamation engineer Frank Banks, whose thirty-four-foot cruiser was the largest pleasure craft on the lake. Many promoted the 328-mile waterway between Revelstoke, British Columbia, and Grand Coulee Dam, and in 1946 a Reclamation employee took eight days to paddle the full length in a homemade kayak. [31]

During the ten years between 1946, when the Park Service officially took over the administration of recreation on Lake Roosevelt, and 1956, when the Mission 66 program began, LARO staff concentrated on recreational planning, administering current uses, and constructing the first facilities for the public on the reservoir. Three districts were established: Coulee Dam, Fort Spokane, and Kettle Falls. By the late 1940s, a private float plane base that also provided storage and service for boats was established at the North Marina. This first public facility along the entire reservoir was located on land managed by Reclamation, not the Park Service. Initial Park Service planning concentrated on developments such as roads, water and sanitation systems, utilities, boating facilities, beaches, and picnic grounds at the major sites of Coulee Dam and vicinity, Fort Spokane, and Kettle Falls. NRA staff expected Kettle Falls to become the most important recreational site in the area, and they hoped for boating, float plane facilities, bathing, picnicking, camping, tourist cabins, and other facilities at that location. Secondary development sites included Keller Ferry, Sanpoil, Hunters, and North Gorge. Problems facing the Park Service, however, were significant. They included the poor fishery; woody debris floating on the lake and along the lakeshore (especially after the 1948 floods); pollution of the Spokane River, South Marina, Hawk Creek, and Colville River; and land acquisition (including much land needed at Fort Spokane). [32]

Private development by concessions began at LARO before the Park Service was able to begin construction projects. In fiscal year 1947, the Coulee Dam Amphibious Aircraft Company established a float plane and sightseeing boat operation; Grand Coulee Navigation Company initiated scheduled and chartered boat rides; and Stranger Creek Grange constructed a recreation site at Gifford. Over the next few years, concession facilities concentrated at North Marina, Fort Spokane, and Kettle Falls. [33]

Local groups did some development on their own, with Park Service approval. For example, the towns of Grand Coulee and Kettle Falls developed swim beach facilities in the 1940s, and the Red Cross provided swimming instruction at these and at the Reclamation beach at Coulee Dam. The Park Service tried to provide simple development such as hand pumps, beach improvements, pit toilets, tables and fireplaces, shade trees, and even boat launch ramps at some sites, often in cooperation with local groups such as the Wilbur Boat Club (Sanpoil campground), Wellpinit 4-H Club, and Greenwood Park Grange (Hunters). Superintendent Greider worried about public use of the area without adequate facilities and area regulations, but local communities successfully organized events such as a 1949 Fourth of July celebration at Kettle Falls that attracted seven thousand people for boat races and salmon barbecues. [34]

Swimming class at North Marina, August 1946. Photo courtesy of U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, Grand Coulee (USBR Archives 1346).

Greider spent much of 1948 working on a new Master Plan for LARO that included drawings, a Development Outline, and proposals for construction projects for 1950-1951. The plans included a number of minor boat landings and picnic grounds at more remote sites to help meet the needs of area residents. Park Service Acting Director A. E. Demaray approved this plan in the fall of 1948. The proposed Park Service program for LARO involved spending $1.7 million over the next six years to develop Lake Roosevelt for recreation, with an anticipated $1 million in private funds expected to be invested by concessionaires. LARO staff felt that priority should go to facilities to make boating available, such as boat slips, fueling stations, docks, repair facilities, and the removal of hazardous floating debris on the lake. [35]

Development of a couple of the areas targeted for intensive development proved problematic early on in the planning process. One of these areas was South Marina (known today as Crescent Bay). In the late 1940s, this area was dropped from consideration as a development site because Reclamation needed to use it for a concrete manufacturing plant and because of dangerous slide conditions. Similarly, much of the development of Fort Spokane was reworked and then delayed because of new information on possible hazardous landslide potential and because the Park Service needed to acquire additional land there. [36]

The 1948 Master Plan contemplated a total of $2.226 million to be spent for physical improvements at LARO, of which $1.851 million was earmarked for the three districts' major development and minor areas. Development was planned to take place evenly throughout the area as the need for facilities was seen to be "equally acute" in each district. LARO, like other areas administered by the Park Service, prepared Project Construction Plans (PCPs) that allowed the Park Service to justify budget requests for development projects to the Bureau of the Budget and to Congress. At the end of 1949, the PCP priority list for LARO included three headquarters residences; an administrative building; dredging the channel at Kettle Falls to make it suitable for the concessionaire; a residence, warehouse, water and power system, sewer, beach and picnic area, and comfort stations at Kettle Falls; warehouse machine storage and partial water and sewer systems at Fort Spokane; a warehouse at headquarters; and a fence at North Marina. [37]

The planning for LARO's recreational development did not always go smoothly, partly because many offices and individuals were involved in the process. In 1954, the Acting Chief of the Western Office, Division of Design and Construction, commented to the Park Service Director that there had been "considerable disagreement on planning for Coulee Dam." [38] As an example, in 1954 and 1955 the Regional Office and LARO Superintendent Hugh Peyton conducted a prolonged argument over proposed layouts for Fort Spokane. Peyton wanted the approved plan revised, eliminating a motel that he did not believe likely to be built soon, so that some public service could be established that year. The Regional Office emphasized that any permanent development had to conform to the approved plan or be delayed until the Park Service Director approved a new drawing. Finally, in 1955 the Director approved the tenth version of the Fort Spokane drawing, one that eliminated both the proposed motel and concessionaire cabins and made other changes requested by Peyton. [39]

Once South Marina/Crescent Bay had been rejected for development, attention turned to Spring Canyon as the principal developed area at the lower end of Lake Roosevelt, an important site because Grand Coulee Dam received so much visitation. The Regional Office urged LARO to install a temporary boat ramp at Spring Canyon (along with picnic tables and fireplaces at North Marina) to relieve the public pressure. An access road to Spring Canyon was estimated to cost $123,000; Greider suggested that this expensive road be replaced with a gravel road because "it would not be good advertising to build a $123,000 road to Spring Canyon and then provide no means of using Spring Canyon beach at the end of this road." [40]

One of the challenging issues facing Greider was the acquisition of tracts of private lands that he believed "vital" for the recreational program proposed for Lake Roosevelt. In 1946, he recommended that the federal government acquire 1,600 to 1,700 acres. This included tracts totaling 325 acres along Highway 25 (Bissell to Evans) that might be developed in undesirable ways. The desired acreage also included land adjacent to sites proposed for intensive recreational development, about sixty acres to be donated for the Spring Canyon development, and about 370 acres in the Fort Spokane Military Reservation. In 1949, Reclamation began the process of acquiring some of the tracts considered essential for the development of key recreational areas. [41]

One land-acquisition case that took much time and effort to accomplish and resulted in difficulties in later years was the acquisition of some seventy acres in the Spring Canyon area. This land, located just a few miles above the dam, provided access to a proposed recreation site at Spring Canyon. The land was owned by the Columbia City Development Company, organized by residents of Grand Coulee to develop a city to replace the "shanty town" of Grand Coulee and to provide a site for a smelter at the mouth of Spring Canyon. The developers, seeing the advantage of a recreational site adjacent to the new town, in 1943 agreed to donate land to Reclamation contingent on future recreational development of the site. The Columbia City Development Company and Julius Johnson, who held principal interest in the company, signed an agreement giving the government five years to develop the recreational site. Some of the land to be donated was state land withdrawn for the Grand Coulee Dam project in 1934 and later sold by the state to the private company. The land donation did not actually take place until the summer of 1952, when Raymond and Vesta Johnson donated eighty-eight acres next to the Spring Canyon site. The land included a right-of-way for a two-mile entrance road and land needed for a beach, campground, and picnic facilities. This donation allowed the Park Service to request funds for the development of the site, and the campground, bathhouse, and swimming beach opened for visitors in June 1955. Almost twenty-six thousand people visited Spring Canyon that first summer. [42]

Launching a boat at Kettle Falls, no date. Photo courtesy of National Park Service, Lake Roosevelt National Recreation Area (LARO.FS).

The recreational development of LARO was severely hampered by budget restrictions. National Park Service appropriations were cut more than 50 percent during World War II. Funding levels remained low around the nation until 1950. In 1949, for example, the total Park Service operating budget was barely $14 million, and LARO at that time estimated that it needed some $2 million to complete enough development work to attract private capital to supply concession facilities. As Greider noted, "[the] little driblets of appropriations for this area such as we are to receive this year will accomplish exactly nothing." [43] Until 1949, all funds advanced to LARO were for administration purposes only, not for protection, development, or maintenance. Finally, in fiscal year 1950, LARO was appropriated $180,345, which allowed the Park Service to begin work on access roads, reservoir clean-up, and the construction of employee residences. It was one of only four recreation areas in the nation to receive such funding that year. [44]

The first construction projects at LARO included work on approach roads to Kettle Falls, Fort Spokane, and North Marina and a boat launch ramp at Fort Spokane, all built in 1950 with the intention of enabling the Grand Coulee Navigation Company to install boat docks and to begin other developments. No money, however, was appropriated for fiscal year 1951 because of the Korean War. In 1952, on the principal that limited funds should be concentrated in one area to make it usable, all the development funds were spent at Kettle Falls, and the ranger office there was constructed. By 1956, the Spring Canyon and Kettle Falls beaches and campgrounds were essentially completed and landscaped, and a few small areas had minimum facilities (tables, fireplaces, and pit toilets), partly just to reserve the sites for public rather than private use. By 1955 Kettle Falls, for example, had a ranger station, bathhouse and comfort station, lawns, irrigation system, diving raft, and an improved beach. The picnic area at North Marina, built primarily for locals, was landscaped and outfitted with tables, fireplaces, and pit toilets. The development of Fort Spokane lagged behind somewhat because of the controversy over the layout for proposed development. [46]

LARO planners made provisions for permitting summer home sites and recreation sites for organized groups. The selection of summer home sites was delayed somewhat, partly to ensure that no sites were set aside that would have better served as campgrounds or other public use areas. In the 1940s it was decided that organized camping groups of "character building agencies," including statewide religious organizations, could obtain camping sites if their use did not conflict with general public use. In the early 1950s, ten sites at Sherman Creek and seventeen sites at Rickey Point, both in the Kettle Falls vicinity, were leased for summer cabins on a fee permit basis. [47]

One of Greider's major concerns during his tenure at LARO was Lake Roosevelt's poor fishery; he knew that improved fishing opportunities would greatly increase the area's recreational appeal. Rainbow trout could be caught at the northern end of the lake, but "scrap fish" such as carp, sucker, and squawfish predominated. The Washington Department of Game said it could not conduct a fisheries improvement program, but in 1947 Greider requested that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service undertake a limnological study of the reservoir to determine ways to improve sport fishing, and the agency complied. Meanwhile, many visitors to the area (including the family of Park Service Regional Director O. A. Tomlinson) stayed at fishing resorts at Twin Lakes on the Colville Reservation or fished at other small regional lakes. [49]