NATIONAL PARK SERVICE Park and Recreation Structures

BEFORE facilitating structures can be discussed with clarity, the nomenclature of overnight accommodation and organized camping in parks calls for examination—indeed organized camping as an institution may even stand in need of exposition. Perhaps an attempt to differentiate between "overnight use" and "organized camping" as the terms are herein applied should first be made.

Overnight facilities in a park are structures ranging from tents to hotels in which an individual or a family, or combinations of either or both, may obtain sleeping accommodations for one or more nights. Facilities for organized camping likewise include tents or cabins in which individuals or families may obtain sleeping accommodations within the park but with the distinction that their group tenancy, generally for a week or longer, is sponsored and supervised by some character-building, educational, welfare, or other organization. This sponsored variety of day and night use of a park constitutes a collective recreational use, so to say, in contrast with the free lance tenancy that characterizes other overnight accommodation. If the distinction is ill-expressed, perhaps it will become more clear as the structural facilities individually are discussed.

Among the variety of means for stopping overnight in a park, the simplest is tent camping, so long practiced that it probably invaded most park areas even before they were officially established as such. Perhaps for this reason tents, clothes lines, and campers in the most outlandish dress and undress, and the propriety of all these in areas of extraordinary natural beauty, have been seldom challenged. The tent camper seems to exercise (and to get away with!) an inversion of the right of eminent domain. He holds any attempt to regulate his tenancy and conduct in the public interest to be ultra vires and inhibiting of his ruggedly individualistic prerogatives.

Then comes trailer camping, comparatively a recent development, more submissive perhaps to regulation, but also more demanding of space and facilities for comfort and convenience. At present the appropriateness of elaborate accommodations for trailers in natural parks of distinction is a subject of lively debate. There is also diverse current prophecy concerning the future of the trailer, ranging from a view that it is a passing fad (as was once said of the automobile), already on the way out, to the statement of a once eminent statistician that within 20 years half the population of the country will be living in trailers. In the latter prediction, considered thought cannot have been given to the schooling of children. Apparently the typical American family of that future time will consist of a man, a wife, and a trailer—probably children, schools, and schooling will then be obsolete. If the birth rate is to drop and the trailer rate to rise, the figure representative of one-half the population in 1956, and so of trailer registration, is highly speculative.

There is everywhere abundant proof that trailer popularity has lately been increasing, and the very present problem of parks is whether to ban them or arrange to make them welcome and as little destructive of park values as need be. In any rush to anticipate the demand of visitors with trailers for parking and camping space in parks, it is recommended as foresighted to keep one trend-conscious ear to the ground to prevent possible overenthusiastic provision of trailer campsites.

In contrast with the aforementioned overnight accommodations of transportable character are those of fixed type. Of this series the cabin is the simplest example. The meaning of the term "cabin" is probably generally well understood. Still, in addition to designating a detached structure accommodating a family or small group vacationing independently, it is applied to a one-room building sleeping campers of an organized camp. In discussions of structures of organized camps, cabin generally means this latter type. It could be termed a "dormitory" if the word did not smack of crowded or substandard sleeping conditions. This taboo and the appearance of no differentiating term in substitution make it incumbent on the reader to interpret the specific intent in each cabin reference herein.

In some parks the need for overnight cabins in great numbers and the difficulties which attend finding a solution satisfactory to the many interests involved have led to centralizations of fixed overnight accommodations, more or less complex. These are variously called inns, lodges, and hotels, and the terms are so interchangeably applied to varying physical set-ups that exact definitions are arrived at with difficulty.

In national parks what is termed a "lodge" is usually a building containing lounge, dining room, and kitchen, together with the dependencies that relate to these. It supplements or serves cabins grouped around it. The hotel in national parks is usually self-contained; instead of supplementing detached cabins, it provides guest rooms under the same roof. But this difference even within the national parks is not always sharply defined. Elsewhere the terms "lodge", "inn", and "hotel" are so generally interchangeable in use that lodge, in these discussions, will be used as the generic term for all combinations, whether the sleeping quarters are integral or detached.

Except for organized camps, the roll of overnight accommodations in parks, from tents to hotels, has been called. Following later textual and graphic exploration of these several facilities, certain necessary supplementing structures will also be discussed and pictured.

ORGANIZED CAMPING is either very old or relatively very new, depending on the perspective in which its background is seen. Only a century ago, when about 75 percent of the population of the United States was rural, primitive conditions made living throughout vast areas not far different from a camping existence except that it was conditioned on the hardest kind of labor. Even when the frontier was pushed westward and rural life in the wake of it became less rigorous, dwellers in rural districts might still enjoy close touch with Nature in its many moods. But the coming of the machine age brought a rapid movement of population from farms to cities and towns. When eventually less than 50 percent of us could experience the satisfying and revivifying contacts with Nature afforded by nonurban existence, these contacts in themselves had lost value. Sprawling, overcrowded cities were expanding on every hand to a far reaching contamination of countryside; natural resources were being squandered to obtain the raw materials for a wasteful, industrial civilization. Lacking only a date line, the obituary of a Nature that had once gloriously spanned a continent and nurtured a nation was on the way to the linotype.

Reaction against the cramped and artificial living conditions imposed by this revolutionary way of life naturally developed. The phrases "the simple life" and "back to Nature", current at the start of the century, evidence an awareness that something highly prized had vanished from the American scene. They indicate, moreover, a will to restore it. When it is remembered that for countless centuries camping was man's normal manner of living and that a settled life in permanent structures is a matter of comparatively few centuries, this nostalgia for the out-of-doors is understandable.

The first excursions in response to the "back to Nature" urge were doubtless made by individuals and small groups geographically scattered. But the idea of camping for camping's sake, not just as a means to some such end as hunting, fishing, migrating, or exploring, carried immediate, far reaching appeal to Americans in great numbers. Small camping groups soon became large groups, and with these had to come organization of a sort. Conflicting interests yielded to a pooling of interests for the greater benefit of all. Individualistic pursuit of recreation gave way to a running with the pack. In this trend was further reversion to man's nomadic past. The tribal organization supplies a centuries-old precedent for the organized camp. Just as the tribal bands, more than the lone wolves among prehistoric hunters, moved the shadowy past into historical focus, so have organized camps, more than the individualistic camping expeditions of limited groups, high-lighted the history of camping and mainly evolved its modern practices.

Most of the first organized camps were private enterprises. Later, educational and character influencing organizations church, lodge, and club groups—and political units such as towns and counties were sponsoring, building, and operating camps for the moderately circumstanced and the underprivileged. Today there are organized camps for families, for adults, for boys and for girls of all age groups, for both boys and girls, for mothers and infants, for crippled children and others impaired in health.

In the discussions and illustrations that follow, bearing on the lay-out and construction of organized camps, there is predominant concern with the organized camp evolved to serve generally the somewhat varying needs of many camping groups and coincidently to avoid any serious restriction of the practices particular to any one. There is a stressing of principles and policies relevant to what might be termed a composite organized camp.

Underlying this approach is the realization that many camp lay-outs are used by several very different groups during a single season. Furthermore, vicissitude may lead to a camp built for the exclusive use of a particular group being shamed with, or even relinquished to, another organization. Indulging a whim for too individualistic and experimental camp lay-out and construction parallels flying a revolutionary type of airplane without a parachute. It testifies to daring rather than good judgment, and is exceedingly ill-advised if undertaken with public or institutional funds on public lands.

To be sure, where the undertaking is a private venture on a privately held site and sole use by a particular organization appears to be guaranteed, there are some desirable though minor departures from the composite or typical organized camp construction. Especially are the physical set-ups of camps for families, for crippled children, and those occupied simultaneously by children or young people of both sexes improved by variations from the typical. These variations will be later touched on, although none, save the rearrangement of toilet and shower facilities, and perhaps a revision of distances between buildings and between units, is so major as to make the generally typical very much less serviceable by contrast.

Some camp structures that do not adhere to principles promoted herein are included among the plates. Theories of organized camping other than the one here recommended have their proponents, and have led to the creation of camp buildings, imaginative architecturally, and meritorious structurally. Presentation of these here seems completely justified, because of the inspiration to be had from the highly original designs and excellent construction, even though it has sometimes been felt necessary to challenge underlying concepts.

THE IMPORTANCE of structures and facilities of the organized camp may seem to be overstressed, and the contribution of able leadership to the success of such a camp to be neglected, in this publication. This is but natural in a compilation which has for its announced purpose the exploration of structural accessories.

It is admitted at once that a full complement of the buildings and facilities herein rated as essential or desirable will never become a perfect organized camp until competent leadership directs the use of them. On the other hand, experienced and capable camp directors, utilizing structural accessories limited to a very minimum and individually short of ideal, can still achieve something notable in camping. Probably a very able leadership, starting with only a small lodge, sanitary latrines, and tent platforms, will eventually produce a better all around organized camp by the addition of needed structural facilities as opportunity permits than will result where a camp, initially complete structurally, suffers from inept leadership. Even so, it cannot be denied that the greatest potential accomplishment exists for camps when capable leadership is reinforced with structural perfection and completeness.

Naturally in the earliest organized camps there was much freedom for the individual. Programs were impromptu; schedules, rather sketchy; regulations, few. Ensuing development tended to over-organization and overregulation. Camp lay-outs patterned on army camp lines became popular. Tents and buildings more or less formally lined a company street or bordered a virtual parade ground. The camper's day became a succession of periods during each of which everyone in camp was expected to cavort simultaneously at some scheduled activity, devised with good intent for recreation or physical benefit, but often resulting in rebellion and overfatigue. It will probably sometime be recorded that regimentation of camping wrote its own death warrant on a day when a leader of extraordinary inventive genius hit upon the idea of a mass brushing, morning and night, of all the teeth in camp to a kind of dance routine and timing.

Retreat from that kind of camp direction, with its crowded programs, disregard of differing physical capacities, and stifling of individuality, became general and continues a marked trend in camping today. It has greatly influenced the planning of organized camps, and has led to the building of so-called unit camps, a type which will be described later. The formal arrangements on army camp lines have lost favor, and in the most successful and admired campgrounds recently built, the buildings seem to have been plunked down by what has been described as "dice throw" planning. Actually the informal placing of buildings is by no means as casual as might be inferred from this phrase; rather is it a conscious effort to avoid geometric formality and take full advantage of favorable site factors.

Deregimentation of camping has changed the use, design, and number of buildings which comprise a camp group. The one-time acceptable "barracks" housing has given way to smaller units accommodating four campers, preferably, and never more than eight where recommended practices prevail.

In the trend to humor and respect the camper's individuality, there has been very properly no relaxing of standards involving his health and safety. On the contrary, these constantly become more rigid. Safe drinking water, positive disposal of sewage, unpolluted water for swimming, suitable spacing of beds, and the like are increasingly matters of vital concern among camp leaders and jurisdictional agencies.

It is interesting to review the practices in modern camping which derive from the American Indians' way of life and the adaptations from it made by the early pioneers. The influences of these on camp lay-out and construction, in addition to the almost dominating Indian and pioneer influences on activities programs, have been considerable. The council or campfire ring comes immediately to mind. As used, it is an out-and-out revival of Indian custom. The craft shop first came into being for the practice of pioneer and primitive crafts. Organized camps arranged in units are somehow analogous to the villages of certain nomad Indians, wherein the placing of tepees acknowledged groups within a group, and provided fixed positions for related families which were always reassumed in each new encampment.

Log construction is a widely popular style for camp buildings, just as for park buildings, and carries on the structural traditions of the pioneers. Generous fireplaces such as the pioneers built are popular in camps. Among the architecturally most inspired and engaging camp buildings herein shown are those at Dunes State Park, Indiana, where the spirit of the Indian tepee is expressed in wood construction.

The romantic appeal, especially to young children, of camp buildings imaginatively designed is not as widely acknowledged as it might be. Because the primary objective of organized camping is so frequently social welfare—a problem of making an expenditure benefit a maximum number of persons rather than benefit in maximum some lesser number—it is usually, but unfortunately, necessary to forego any overburden of cost that might be solely assessable to "imagination-stimulation" or "romantic appeal." In such situations the dictates of social consciousness must be bowed to, certainly. But there is no possible reason, save the ineptitude and ignorance of camp planners, for the cheapest of camp structures being other than pleasing in proportion, appropriate as to materials, and painless to the eye. If in camps the underprivileged, even the moderately circumstanced, may not eat cake, in an aesthetic sense, it remains an obligation on planners to contrive a substitute that is not less than palatable.