The Henry M. Jackson Visitor Center is a day-use facility located in the Paradise

Paradise, Washington

Paradise is the name of an area at approximately on the south slope of Mount Rainier in Mount Rainier National Park in Washington, United States. The area lies on the border of Pierce and Lewis counties and includes the Paradise Valley and the Paradise Glacier which is the source of the Paradise...

 area of Mount Rainier National Park

Mount Rainier National Park

Mount Rainier National Park is a United States National Park located in southeast Pierce County and northeast Lewis County in Washington state. It was one of the US's earliest National Parks, having been established on March 2, 1899 as the fifth national park in the United States. The park contains...

. The facility offers exhibits, films, guided ranger programs, a book store, a snack bar, and a gift shop, as well as public restrooms, and informational brochures and maps.

The first Jackson Visitor Center opened in 1966 as part of the National Park Service's Mission 66

Mission 66

Mission 66 was a US National Park Service ten-year program that was intended to dramatically expand Park Service visitor services by 1966, in time for the 50th anniversary of the establishment of the Park Service....

 program. Originally known as the Paradise Visitor Center, it was renamed in 1987 after the death of Senator Henry M. Jackson

Henry M. Jackson

Henry Martin "Scoop" Jackson was a U.S. Congressman and Senator from the state of Washington from 1941 until his death...

, who had been instrumental in the development of the program at Mt. Rainier. Construction of a new Jackson Visitor Center was completed in 2008 and the original building was demolished in the spring of 2009.

History

Mount Rainier was a pilot park in the Mission 66 program to expand National Park visitor services. The plans for the Paradise Visitor Center as a day-use facility came about as a compromise when the program was still trying to determine whether overnight lodging would be feasible. Construction began in 1964, and was to include a restaurant, museum, information center, ski rental shop and a warming hut. By the time construction was completed in 1966, costs had grown to $2 million.

Architecture

The original building was designed by Whimberley, Whisenand, Allison & Tong of Honolulu, with McGuire & Muri of Tacoma, Washington

Tacoma, Washington

Tacoma is a mid-sized urban port city and the county seat of Pierce County, Washington, United States. The city is on Washington's Puget Sound, southwest of Seattle, northeast of the state capital, Olympia, and northwest of Mount Rainier National Park. The population was 198,397, according to...

. The structure's round shape and distinctive roof were intended to fit its surrounding mountain landscape. A flyer produced for the opening ceremony spoke of "the swooping, bough-like shape of the beams, the branching 'tree' columns, the 'switchback trail' ramps, and the sloped 'cliffs' of the stone base."

The architecture, after the modernist style common to many of the Mission 66 projects and a distinct departure from National Park Service Rustic

National Park Service Rustic

National Park Service rustic, also colloquially known as Parkitecture, is a style of architecture that arose in the United States National Park System to create buildings that harmonized with their natural environment. Since its founding, the National Park Service consistently has sought to provide...

, was always controversial. Drawing frequent comparisons to a flying saucer

Flying saucer

A flying saucer is a type of unidentified flying object sometimes believed to be of alien origin with a disc or saucer-shaped body, usually described as silver or metallic, occasionally reported as covered with running lights or surrounded with a glowing light, hovering or moving rapidly either...

, it reminded others of a sunken Seattle Space Needle. It was accused of not fulfilling its goal of appropriateness for its setting, instead being "incompatible with the rustic character of Paradise". Others disagreed with this assertion, claiming that "although it doesn't match the rustic styling of Paradise's other buildings, its grandness seems to fit the location".

Replacement

Beyond the varied response to the building's appearance, other more significant architectural problems led the National Park Service to replace the Jackson Visitor Center with a more traditional design. The roof of the original structure was not designed to handle the copious amounts of snowfall in the Paradise area each winter, requiring the consumption of 300 to 500 gallons of diesel fuel per day during the snow season to melt snow and prevent the roof from collapsing. Additionally, the building no longer met building and accessibility codes, despite ramps and other features that required a disproportionate amount of space.

The National Park Service began construction of a smaller, more energy-efficient visitor center in 2006. The new Henry M. Jackson visitor center opened October 10, 2008. Demolition of the original Jackson Visitor Center was accomplished in spring, 2009.