Page 22 - Flathead Beacon // 8.17.16

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AUGUST 17, 2016 // FLATHEADBEACON.COM
100 years of the national park service
1910s and the Glacier Park Lodge was among its most spectacular. The 155- room lodge was built to look like a post- and-beam log cabin with Swiss in u- ences. The hotel even featured a pool in the basement. It was from here that many visitors would begin their trip through Glacier Park. While people were free to tour the park at their leisure, the railroad worked hard to promote trips that ferried people to their other accom- modations in Glacier. Automobile and stage tours from the Glacier Park Lodge went to St. Mary, Many Glacier and Two Medicine and could be purchased for anywhere from $1.50 to $12. Visitors wishing to journey deeper into the park could hire guides and horses from the Park Saddle Horse Co.
In 1916, single-day passage into Gla- cier Park cost 50 cents and a season pass cost $2. In 2016 currencies, the season pass would cost $45.93, only 93 cents more than what it is today.
A complete tour of the park – with stops at all of the chalets and scenic highlights such as Iceberg Lake and the Blackfeet Glacier – could be completed in 10 to 14 days. For those who didn’t have the luxury of a long vacation, the Department of Interior published a list of special tours lasting from one to seven days. The seven-day tour, which took visitors to Many Glacier, Granite Park and elsewhere, cost $33.70 per per- son, not including meals and lodging.
A guide to Glacier Park published in early 1916 advised visitors on how to dress and pack for a trip into the wilds of Montana.
“As a rule tourists are inclined to carry too much,” the guide stated. “A very inexpensive and simple out t is required – old clothes and stout shoes
are the rule.”
Among the suggested wardrobe items
was one sweater or old jacket; two pairs of wool underwear (medium weight); three pairs of socks; one pair of hunting boots; two pairs of cotton gloves; one old felt hat and one “saddle slicker,” or rain- coat. Of course, if anyone forgot to pack an item, the “well-stocked commissar- ies” would gladly sell them another.
The rst part of a visitor’s seven-day journey across Glacier, however, didn’t require “stout shoes,” just an ability to sit back and enjoy the drive to Many Glacier, which departed East Glacier promptly at 8:15 a.m. In 1916, motor- ized tours of Glacier Park were still a new concept, having only begun in 1914. Glacier was the rst park in the U.S. that o ered driving tours. According to Superintendent S.F. Ralston’s annual report, there were 83 miles of roads within the park and another 50 miles outside the preserve that was under the supervision of the park.
Speeds on park roads were espe- cially slow, according to Dju , who said 15 miles per hour was usually the limit, although in some straight sections more adventurous drivers could speed up to 20 miles per hour. Because automobile lights were not especially bright back then, driving was only permissible between the hours of 7 a.m. and 9:30 p.m. And pack trains and horses always had the right-of-way on any park road.
Arriving at Many Glacier, visitors would nd the park’s newest and grand- est hotel on the shores of Swiftcurrent Lake, than called McDermott Lake. The Many Glacier Hotel opened in the summer of 1915 and Hill dubbed it “the showplace of the Rockies.” A visitor could spend $4 to spend the night in one
of its more than 200 rooms, or $5 if they wanted one with a bath. At the time, it was the largest and perhaps most lux- urious hotel in all of Montana and even featured a telephone in every room.
Many Glacier served as base camp for the seven-day tour. On the second day, participants would horseback ride to Iceberg Lake, one of the most iconic trails in the park. While today there are more than 700 miles of trail, the system was still in its infancy in 1916. The superintendent’s report from that year outlines much of the work that was done, including the construction, extension and improvement of trails to Snyder Lake, Granite Park and Grin- nell Glacier. A new Sperry Glacier Trail was also constructed to an average width of 4 feet. While Superintendent Ralston boasted of the work his trail crews accomplished, it wasn’t enough for some people, especially Hill. The railroad-president-turned-park-pro- moter frequently chastised park o - cials for spending too much time build- ing employee housing and not enough time building trails. “The people who return each year are becoming tired of the old trails and want something new,” he wrote in 1920.
While many visitors took guided tours with horses, almost as many toured the park on their own two feet, although back then hiking was called “tramping.” Dju said those looking for a more inexpensive vacation could fre- quently stay at the many campsites the railroad built around the park.
On the third day of the weeklong tour, participants rose early for break- fast before hitting the trail for Granite Park, site of one of the half-dozen cha- lets the railroad built in the early 1910s.
LEFT TO RIGHT A women’s hiking group; Tourists on the porch of Many Glacier Hotel, Mt. Gould in background, circa 1916.
Inspired by those found in the Swiss Alps, the chalets were wilderness hotels located at spots personally selected by Hill. Although remote, visitors were not roughing it at the chalets as a ser- vice sta decked out in Alpine-inspired uniforms waited on them for meals (female waitresses were required to wear a heavy Swiss dress).