The Great Northern Railway's Historic Glacier Park Chalets

By David R. Butler

When Glacier National Park was created by Congress in 1910, it had virtually no infrastructure: no roads, trails, or lodging, and no budget to build them. The Great Northern Railway, whose main line ran along the southern border of the park, was eager to step in and create facilities and transportation for the park that would bring visitors there on its trains. Led by the visionary president of the railway, Louis W. Hill, the Great Northern created a series of backcountry chalets joined together by a network of trails that led to and from the railway's train depots on the eastern and western margins of the park. Visitors disembarked at the depots and proceeded to take multi-day horseback trips to a series of nine chalet groups spaced roughly a day's horseback ride apart from each other. The creation of Going-to-the-Sun Road, combined with the effects of the Great Depression, changed park visitation patterns so that by World War II the chalets were largely ignored by visitors in automobiles. Many of the chalets were subsequently destroyed, although five chalet groups, either intact or in remnants, remain today.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1634996674
• ISBN13: 9781634996679
• Release Date: January 2027
• Publisher: America Through Time
• Length: 124 Pages