Louis Hill, son of James J. Hill, the owner of the Great Northern Railway, opened the Glacier Park Hotel near the newly established Glacier National Park in 1913. The hotel was intended to increase passenger traffic on the Great Northern. This massive hotel was Louis Hill’s showpiece.
In an era in which railroads provided most of the transcontinental and long-distance travel in the United States, the Glacier Park Hotel was the starting and ending point for most of the packaged tours of Glacier National Park. The Great Northern Railway would bring tourists to Midvale (now East Glacier) where they would see the magnificent log lodge across the road from the depot.
Obtaining the land for the hotel was not a simple task. The land is not in the national park but is actually on the Blackfeet Indian Reservation. When he found that he could not buy the land he wanted, Hill went to Montana Senator Joseph Dixon who pushed a bill through Congress to sell him 160 acres at $25 per acre. The Indians, however, demanded $90 per acre. By organizing a protest among area residents (a paid protest?) and having Senator Dixon threaten the Department of the Interior, Hill obtained the land for $30 per acre.
The inspiration for the design of the hotel can be found in the Forestry Building constructed for the 1905 Lewis and Clark Centennial Exposition in Portland, Oregon. In their book Glacier’s Historic Hotels and Chalets: View with a Room, Ray Djuff and Chris Morrison report:
“The Forestry Building was billed as the world’s largest log cabin. It took the humble building that had served America’s frontier forefathers and transformed it into a monumental structure. Architects picked up on the style, mimicking the post and beam construction, adding fancy scrollwork on window and door frames.”
Hill’s architect, Samuel H. Bartlett of St. Paul, worked on the design in 1911-1912. While Hill had originally intended to obtain logs from the area between Essex and Belton, this proved to be too expensive. Hill ordered the design changed and instead of log walls the hotel would have stud framing with exterior shakes. These materials were to be obtained from Great Northern’s lumber mill in Somers, Montana.
The gala opening of the new hotel actually came about a week after guests began using the facility. The opening event included entertainment by the local Blackfoot Indians as well as more traditional music by the Kalispell Elks Club Band.
When the hotel closed at the end of the 1913 season, construction began on a large bedroom annex (111 rooms) and a connecting bridge.
Part of the promotion of the new hotel and Glacier Park involved the Blackfoot Indians. According to Ray Djuff and Chris Morrison:
“One of the great expectations of tourists coming to Glacier was to meet Blackfeet natives, and the Great Northern did not disappoint, paying selected members of the tribe to dance, sing, and demonstrate skills for visitors.”
In 1927, the Great Northern Railway commissioned German artist Winold Reiss to paint portraits of Blackfoot Indians as a part of its promotion of Glacier National Park. He completed 51 portraits. The following year, in order to promote tourism to Glacier National Park, the Great Northern Railroad published American Indian Portraits which featured these paintings.
In 1928, the hotel added a nine-hole golf course which was the first golf course in Montana to have grass greens.
In 1932, the hotel hosted the ceremony honoring the creation of the Glacier-Waterton International Peace Park, the first international park. The event included speeches by several notable American Indians: Two Guns White Calf (Blackfoot; one of the possible models for the Buffalo Head Nickle); Bear Track (Salish); and Loose Moccasin Grizzly Bear (Kootenai).
During World War II, the hotel remained closed from 1943 until 1946. After the war, tourism changed from being railway-based to being automobile-based. In addition, most of the connections to and presence of the Blackfoot Indians were replaced or reduced. The name was also changed from Hotel to Lodge.
Shown below are photos of the Glacier Park Lodge as its exists today.
More Glacier Park
Glacier Park: Running Eagle Falls (Photo Diary)
Glacier Park: The Mountains of Many Glacier (Photo Diary)
Glacier Park: The Wheeler Camp (Photo Diary)
Glacier Park: Some Waterfalls (Photo Diary)
Glacier National Park: St Mary Lake (Photo Diary)
Glacier Park: Lake McDonald Lodge Area (Photo Diary)
Glacier Park: Logan Pass (Photo Diary)