The laboratory worked on other wayside exhibits during this period, each time trying not only to supply an immediate interpretive need but to increase the durability and graphic versatility of the medium. Experimentation that dated back to the wayside shrines Hermon Bumpus had conceived for Yellowstone some twenty years earlier proceeded along two principal lines. One led toward cheaply produced multiple copies so a park could easily replace a damaged display. The other sought to use tough materials and construction that would resist weathering and vandalism.

Following the latter path the branch produced two carefully encased waysides at this time. For Montezuma Castle National Monument, where continued erosion of the ruin by visitors threatened irreparable harm, the laboratory prepared a detailed scale model. Installed at the foot of the cliff, it supplemented the distant view of the original to which people might no longer climb. The second exhibit stood at Surrender Field in the Yorktown portion of Colonial National Historical Park. In spite of tight case construction moisture tended to condense on the inside of the glass front. After the top official of the Pittsburgh Plate Glass Company visited the park and saw the problem, he wrote the director offering his company's help. The laboratory rebuilt the case with advice and materials from the manufacturer. Three inches of glass foam insulation on the back and sides combined with a dual-pane glass front did solve the condensation problem- until a vandal shot holes in the expensive assembly a few months after its reinstallation.

The Museum Branch continued work toward practical methods of displaying pictures, maps, charts, labels, and even objects outdoors. Its efforts culminated in the very durable and graphic cast aluminum markers designed by Frank Buffmire for the High Water Mark Trail at Gettysburg a decade later. Buffmire and his colleagues also developed effective waysides using plastic lamination, metalphoto, routed aluminum, and other techniques in various combinations.

Innovation characterized another exhibit project in the busy start of the 1950s. A few months after Floyd LaFayette joined the Museum Branch staff as a curator in 1951, he volunteered to serve as planner, designer, and preparator for the Ochs Memorial exhibits. Being deeply involved in production for Ocmulgee and Custer Battlefield, the laboratory welcomed his unusual offer. The Ochs Memorial, an observation station museum built on Lookout Mountain in Chickamauga and Chattanooga National Military Park just before World War II, badly needed to have temporary displays replaced. LaFayette conceived and painted exceptionally graphic campaign and battle maps along with other creditable exhibits. The museum received its new installation in January 1952

When the government lease on the L Street garage terminated, the museum laboratory again had to search for new quarters. Burns skillfully parried an attempt to transfer the operation to a commercial structure acquired by Independence National Historical Park in Philadelphia, believing firmly that the Museum Branch should remain close to the director's office. Ultimately he selected the ground floor of one wing in Temporary Building S. Erected for a World War II agency, Tempo S was on the Mall across from the National Gallery of Art where the west wing of the National Air and Space Museum now stands. The laboratory would be midway between the Interior Department, where Burns had his office, and the Library of Congress, which the curators needed to use on an almost daily basis. It would be even closer to the National Archives and the Smithsonian museums, other vital sources of continual reference.

The move took place at the end of March 1953. A small room provided a convenient studio in which Burns worked much of the time that remained to him. Here he modeled his last diorama figures and made a start toward revising the out-of-print Field Manual for Museums. He hired a part-time editor but other responsibilities left him little opportunity to use her aid. Tempo S gave the laboratory a good home for more than a decade, until pending demolition forced another move. No earlier or later quarters matched its convenience and spaciousness. The only notable difficulty encountered there involved thefts from the collection storeroom by a GSA night guard. On the verge of apprehension, he threw into the Potomac beyond retrieval a bugle and dirk intended for exhibition.

The new administration that took office in 1953 retained Director Conrad Wirth, who had succeeded Demaray at the end of 1951, but initiated a management survey that led to realignments within the Service. One of these placed Assistant Director Ronald Lee in charge of a newly designated Division of Interpretation composed of four branches: history, natural history, information, and museums. This sharpened the focus on interpretation as a primary Service function under strong leadership. As a secondary result the Museum Branch for the first time achieved the organizational status Carl Russell had sought for it in 1935. Heretofore it had been under the chief naturalist, although at least half its assignments required equally close collaboration with the chief historian. In practice, the excellent cooperation on museum matters established between Chief Historians Lee and Kahler and Chief Naturalists Russell and Doerr had reduced the difficulties in this arrangement to an inconsequential minimum.

Burns' death during the early stages of this reorganization necessitated some staff changes within the branch. In April 1954 Ralph Lewis succeeded Burns as branch chief. Frank Buffmire became assistant chief in May and Robert Scherer moved up to the position of chief preparator, or chief exhibits construction specialist as then titled.29 They inherited a production program that would continue to tax the museum laboratory.