The Grand Lodges of Glacier

Prior to May 10, 1910, the 1 million acres that are now part of Glacier National Park were part of the Flathead Forest Reserve. Although the glacier-capped mountains and deep blue lakes were just as beautiful before President William Howard Taft signed the legislation creating Glacier as they were afterward, the designation of this area as a national park changed everything. Suddenly, the plot of land east of the North Fork of the Flathead River and south of the Canadian border was a nationally recognized destination.

Before this land became a National Park, there were limited accommodations in the area. The most notable was the Snyder Hotel, which opened on the shores of Lake McDonald in 1895 and was operated by George Snyder. Snyder managed the hotel for over a decade before the property was transferred to John and Olive Lewis of Columbia Falls. According to legend, the transfer happened after Snyder lost the property in a drunken card game. However, others, particularly historians Ray Djuff and Chris Morrison, have suggested that Snyder might have simply grown weary of the isolation of living along Lake McDonald and subsequently sold it for $1,500. 

While accommodations in these areas were limited, it didn’t deter people from venturing into the region. Among them was George Bird Grinnell, the editor and owner of Forest and Stream magazine, who made his first trip to the area in 1885. He immediately began advocating for the land to be designated as a national park (by that time, Yellowstone had already been a national park for over a decade) and later wrote, “The scenery is wonderfully grand; the mountains high and remarkably bold … Someday, it will be a great resort for travelers.” 

Grinnell also had support from Louis W. Hill, president of the Great Northern Railway. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, railroads began to explore ways to take advantage of the stunning scenery their railroads ran through. “The railroads are greatly interested in the passenger traffic to the parks,” Hill said. “Every passenger that goes to the national parks, wherever he may be, represents practically a net earning.” William Van Horne, president of the Canadian Pacific Railway, put it even more directly: “Since we can’t export the scenery, we’ll have to import the tourists.”

However, once they arrived, those tourists needed a place to stay. While the legislation that established Glacier National Park came with some federal funding, it was primarily allocated to more basic needs such as hiring park rangers, constructing employee housing, and covering the essential costs of management. There was little to no money available in the federal budget for accommodations. Therefore, Hill and his Great Northern Railway stepped in to fill the gap. Even before Glacier was officially established, the railway had been making efforts to enhance accommodations in the area, particularly the Belton Chalet in what is now West Glacier. The railroad authorized the construction of a hotel there in 1909, and it opened for business in June 1910, just a month after the park was established. Almost immediately following the creation of the park, the railway began promoting it, including placing advertisements in newspapers nationwide encouraging people to “See America First” and visit Glacier (by way of the Great Northern Railway, of course).

As ridership to the park began to increase, Hill approved the construction of a grand hotel on the east side of the park named the Glacier Park Lodge. The 155-room hotel opened for business in June 1913 and served as the railway’s gateway into Glacier. Hoping to invoke the feeling of the great outdoors indoors, Hill ordered that the hotel be designed to resemble a massive log cabin, inspired by a structure built for the 1905 Lewis and Clark Centennial Exposition in Portland, Oregon. As such, both the interior and exterior of the building feature massive wooden pillars several stories high. 

At that time, most tourism development in Glacier had occurred on the west side, so Hill figured that the east side was ready for development. Although these developments did run into some challenges. Hill wanted to build his grand hotel along his railway line (that way, passengers didn’t need to travel far after getting off the train) and the best spot wasn’t in the park, but rather on the Blackfeet Indian Reservation. However, the Department of the Interior refused to sell any land. Undeterred, Hill had a friend, a powerful U.S. Senator, drafted legislation to compel the government to sell him the property. 

The Glacier Park Lodge wasn’t the only hotel the railway constructed in and around Glacier. Over the next few years, the company built a series of wilderness chalets that were accessible only by horseback or foot. These small mountain hotels were typically located a day’s horseback ride apart, allowing visitors to spend a week traveling from chalet to chalet (on trips organized and sold by the railroad, of course). Once again, most of these were found on the east side of the park, although two of them — Granite Park and Sperry chalets — were located just west of the Continental Divide. According to legend, all of the chalet locations were chosen by Hill himself. Throughout the 1910s, the railroad president played a significant role in developing Glacier Park, even though he could have focused on more lucrative endeavors. However, Hill wanted to ensure the park received the infrastructure it deserved. “The work is so important that I am loath to entrust the development to anybody but myself. For that reason, I shall give a major part of my time to the park,” he once told a friend. 

The Great Northern built two additional hotels during this era: the Many Glacier Hotel, which opened in 1915, and the Prince of Wales Hotel, located just over the border in Canada’s Waterton Lakes National Park. This hotel was originally planned for construction in the mid-1910s but was delayed because of the outbreak of World War I. However, those plans were revived in the 1920s when the 18th Amendment was enacted, prohibiting the sale of alcohol in the United States. To ensure its guests could still enjoy a cold drink after a long day on the trail, the Great Northern constructed a 90-room hotel in Alberta. Later, the railroad also acquired the Lake McDonald Lodge, which had been built in 1914 on the site of the old Snyder Hotel. 

With the rise of the private automobile, the nature of travel to and within Glacier Park transformed. Week-long horse-packing trips became less popular as more people sought motels and campgrounds that were easily accessible from their own cars. World War II further depressed travel, and by the 1950s, the Great Northern Railway lost interest in maintaining a series of lodges inside the park. Throughout that decade, several wilderness chalets were demolished, and the hotels were sold. Today, seven of the lodges and hotels still survive, all welcoming guests every summer and offering a glimpse of what travel in Glacier was like a century ago. 

The Many Glacier Hotel and Lake McDonald Lodge are operated by Xanterra Parks & Resorts. For more information about those facilities and other Xanterra properties in Glacier, visit glaciernationalparklodges.com. 

The Glacier Park Lodge, Prince of Wales Hotel and Belton Chalet are owned and operated by Pursuit. Visit glacierparkcollection.com for more information. 

The Sperry and Granite Park chalets are the only surviving wilderness hotels in the park, offering an experience almost unchanged since the park’s earliest days (no electricity here!). For more information, visit sperrychalet.com or graniteparkchalet.com. Note, that while all reservations in Glacier Park can go quickly, ones at Sperry and Granite Park are particularly competitive.