Nestled beneath the peak of Mount Hood in the Cascade Mountain Range lies a bustling resort known as Timberline Lodge. It's part fortress (quarried from local rock), part manor house (complete with a great room) and part log cabin (some of the columns are whole trees). Think Johnny Appleseed meets Beowulf -- rustic, colossal, lots of fireplaces. But Johnny Appleseed didn't build it -- the federal government did. From the weather vane down to the stone foundations, Timberline Lodge is a product of Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal. President Roosevelt himself came to dedicate the lodge in 1937, "as a monument to the skill and faithful performance of workers on the rolls of the Works Progress Administration."Roosevelt also said the project would "test the workability of recreational facilities installed by the government itself and operated under its complete control."
So how did this test workout? The Forest Service has had a private operator at the lodge who pays 4.5 % of earnings to the agency. Plus, the FS spends around $1.5 million a year on upkeep, Congress has added another $8 million in earmarks and private philanthropy had thrown in $4 million. The result? Not good. According to the story:
None of this is enough, though. Lodge spokesman Jon Tullis wrote in an email that Timberline hopes to identify some projects that are "deemed 'shovel ready' and worthy for consideration in Obama's stimulus plan."So, an FDR stimulus project will need a bailout from the Obama stimulus package. Mr. Obama, meet Mr. Roosevelt.
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