£78,000, while at the request of the Tourist Company another £10,000 had been spent building extra wooden buildings, a garage and a golf course in the front of the hotel. The golf course was designed by an architect serving a prison sentence and built by prison labour. Wigley had led Fletchers to believe that if they overspent the company would be reimbursed by the Mount Cook Tourist Company. Unfortunately due to the Depression it was in difficulties and so would not pay for the increased expenditure. James Fletcher, the head of the company, approached the Prime Minister Sir Joseph Ward and asked him to increase the government loan to £60,000. Ward agreed and Fletcher obtained a promise from Wigley that the bulk of this injection of money would go to pay Fletchers. The Tongariro Park Tourist Company was by now in serious financial trouble, which was not helped by spending lavishly fitting out the hotel. Wigley reneged on the deal and passed on only £10,000. The onset of the depression delayed hopes of a tourism boom; to secure their debt Fletchers put the Tongariro Park Tourist Company into receivership in February 1931, took control of the hotel, and ran it for 3 months before walking away with a loss of £19,000, (which included £1000 of losses incurred during their period of ownership). Government ownership In 1932 the hotel was taken over by the National Park Board, who quickly transferred the title to the Department of Tourist and Health Resorts, which owned and ran the hotel for the next 26 years. Over this period, the hotel manager not only ran the Chateau, but also Tongariro National Park. The sole park ranger, Alf Cowling, was told "his services were to be at the disposal of the Manager of The Chateau, and that his horse was to be available when not otherwise required for hiring out to guests." The numbers of skiing tourists declined during World War II, so in 1942 the Chateau was commandeered by the Health Department as an asylum when the Wairarapa earthquakes damaged Porirua Psychiatric Institution in Wellington. In late 1945 Ruapehu erupted over a ten month period, and the heavy showers of ash disrupted the Chateau's power and water supply; the patients were evacuated to Ramarama. The Chateau then served as a rest and recuperation centre for Air Force personnel returning from service in World War II. After