NATIONAL PARK SERVICE Park and Recreation Structures

OFTEN family living quarters for the park superintendent, custodian, or caretaker and other staff members can with propriety reflect in externals the pioneer homesteads of a locality. And being somewhat similar to the pioneer dwellings in most essentials, the modern housing can recall traditional lines without too evident struggle, not always true of adaptations in which the old forms and the modern needs are less closely related. Subject to the dictates of regional influence, we may appropriately house park personnel in structures which derive from the log and stone cabins of the pioneer, from the Spanish, Pueblo, and several manifestations of the Colonial, and from many other traditional structural expressions born of history, local materials, and climate.

The typical problem is simply an efficiently planned five- or six-room rural dwelling that stresses the importance of fitness to environment. Climate, comfort, traditions, and above all the budgets of the park and of the occupant, whether superintendent or naturalist, warden or workman, should be duly weighed.

Where the park personnel group is comparatively large, it is sometimes deemed expedient to resort to small apartment buildings. Although such concentration sacrifices something of park character by bringing an urban solution into a park, it is in accord with the tenet that a single building is better than many minor ones.

In large, isolated, yet heavily attended parks the problem of housing groups of unmarried employes, especially those only seasonally employed, is solved by a barracks or dormitory building. A rangers' club providing comfortable and wholesome living conditions contributes much to the esprit de corps of this group of employes. In Yosemite National Park is a notable example of this institution, made possible by the generosity of Mr. Stephen T. Mather, the first Director of the National Park Service.

Comfortable, well-maintained living quarters in which the occupants can take personal pride will undoubtedly find reflection in the attitude of each employe toward maintenance of the public area. Patched-up, ramshackle living quarters can influence the standards of general park operation adversely.

Inasmuch as quarters in a final analysis supplement the employe's salary, it seems only fitting that quarters and salary be reasonably scaled to each other. Neither commodious residence in lieu of a fair salary, nor more generous stipend in lieu of decent living quarters is a satisfactory substitute for living quarters and salary in appropriate relationship. A more general understanding of this would remove a frequent cause of dissatisfaction.

Sometimes, for purposes of control, economy, or other reason, living quarters are combined with other park needs in structures, such as administration and concession buildings, entranceways and checking stations. In a small park this is logical, avoiding as it does small independent buildings ruinously crowding the area.

Worthy of most careful study is the locating of buildings that house park personnel. To aid effectively in supervision, such structures must be distributed with respect to the areas of concentrated use; employes' quarters should be convenient to, without obtrusively invading, the intensively used areas. Perhaps the Far East custom of a compound which isolates the foreign colony is adaptable to personnel housing in our larger parks. To say that this would serve to protect the park from the personnel and the personnel from the park is not a flippant observation. Too widespread scattering of quarters to achieve maximum supervision can result in unwarrantable modification of the far reaches of the park. It tends, moreover, to place the isolated staff members at the command of the public 24 hours a day, a situation unfair to them and to the best interests of the park.

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