Friday Photo: Blackfoot Glacier

Montana Historical Society Photograph Archives, 956-593

These hikers climbed Blackfoot Glacier on Mount Jackson in 1909, one year before Glacier National Park was founded.

Friday Photo: Pitamakin Pass

Montana Historical Society Photograph Archives, 956-850

A group of riders pauses at the top of Cut Bank Pass (now Pitamakin Pass) in Glacier National Park in 1915. Mount Morgan is in the background.

Elizabeth Lochrie

The U.S. Treasury Department, the State of Montana, the Ford Motor Company, New York Life Insurance Company, and the First National Bank of Seattle were among the distinguished patrons of Deer Lodge native Elizabeth Lochrie. Formally trained as an artist at the Pratt Institute in New York City, she graduated in 1911 and settled in Butte. From the 1920s to the 1950s, Lochrie established herself as a fine portrait artist. She also painted local rural and urban landscapes and scenes. During 1924 and 1925, Lochrie painted eighteen children’s murals for the Montana State Hospital at Galen. She also created murals for several post office buildings.

Montana Historical Society Photograph Archives, PAc 80-61

In 1937 Lochrie won the U.S. Treasury Department’s competition for News from the States at the Dillon Post Office, depicting the historic arrival of mail in that community. At Glacier National Park, Lochrie studied under Winold Reiss and then served as artist for the Great Northern Railway from 1937 to 1939. While other artists documented the vanishing Indian lifeway, Lochrie did more than that. She immersed herself in Indian culture and learned to converse in various dialects. She traveled the lecture circuit and often used her fees to buy clothing and other items for needy tribal members, especially Blackfeet. In 1932, the Blackfeet Nation adopted her and named her Netchitaki, Woman Alone in Her Way. When she died in 1981, Lochrie left a legacy of more than one thousand paintings, murals, and sculptures. She was one of Montana’s most outstanding twentieth-century artists.

P.S. Have you seen the Women's History Project?

Friday Photo: Glacier Park Hotel

Montana Historical Society Photograph Archives, 956-665

Visitors gather around the fireplace in the lobby of the Glacier Park Hotel in East Glacier, circa 1914.

Friday Photo: Blackfeet at Two Medicine Lake

Montana Historical Society Photograph Archives, 956-503

This idyllic (and carefully posed) photo of a Blackfeet camp at Two Medicine Lake was probably used to promote Glacier National Park tourism. It was taken in 1915 by Herford T. Cowling.

Friday Photo: Glacier Park Station

Montana Historical Society Photograph Archives, PAc 93-25 A4 298

A Great Northern train makes a stop at the Glacier Park station circa 1918. At the time, the best way to get to the park was by train, and you can still take Amtrak through the park.

Friday Photo: Sperry Chalet

Montana Historical Society Photograph Archives, PAc 93-25 A3 199

Visitors pause outside the Sperry Chalet dormitory in Glacier National Park circa 1930. Have you ever made the hike to the chalet?

P.S. Remember this beautiful view in the Park?

Dedicating the Going-to-the-Sun Road

Glenn Montgomery cooked for several of the crews that built Going-to-the-Sun Road and was head cook for West Glacier Park. But never in his career did he feed more people than on July 15, 1933, the day Going-to-the-Sun Road was dedicated. Park officials expected to serve lunch to twenty-five hundred people before the opening ceremony. The day before, Montgomery gathered his groceries, including 500 pounds of red beans, 125 pounds of hamburger, 36 gallons of tomatoes, 100 pounds of onions, and 15 pounds of chili powder. The brew bubbled on four woodstoves in nine copper-bottomed washtubs until midnight. Crews transported the first batch of hot chili up to Logan Pass and transferred it to waiting cook fires to keep it hot. Meanwhile back at headquarters, Montgomery prepared a second batch that cooked the rest of the night. Nineteen-year-old Ernest Johnson, who worked on the road’s construction at forty cents an hour, stayed up all night helping to stir the chili.

At the dedication of Going-to-the Sun Road
Montana Historical Society Photograph Archives, 956-617

The morning dawned sunny and clear, drawing four thousand people to the festivities on Logan Pass. The chili stretched thin, but with additional hot dogs and coffee, everyone got something to eat. Johnson later said that he slept through the event, but helped clean up the mess. He never saw so many paper plates in all his life.

From Montana Moments: History on the Go

Great Northern Insignia

The white silhouette of a Rocky Mountain goat on red background was the majestic insignia for the Great Northern Railway. How this famous symbol came to be is a long forgotten tale.  William P. Kenney, who served as Great Northern president in the 1930s, grew up in south Minneapolis. As a boy he sold newspapers. His business was so lucrative that he established a corner newsstand, but carrying newspapers to stock his stand became a problem. So Kenney acquired a billy goat and cart.  But neighbors complained about the billy goat.  Kenney searched the want ads and found a rancher in Midvale, Montana who wanted domestic goats. This rancher was experimenting with breeding domestic goats with some Rocky Mountain goats he had captured.  Kenney made the sale. Many years later, Kenney was the traffic vice president for the Great Northern Railway. He and board chairman Louis W. Hill were traveling across the country and stopped at Glacier Park Station. Kenney recalled that the station had changed its name from Midvale, where he has so long ago sent that billy goat. Making inquiries, he discovered that the rancher and his herd were long gone. The next day Kenney and other officials went out to take in the sights. High on a mountain ledge they spied a magnificent Rocky Mountain goat. From his lofty vantage point, the goat surveyed the party below. Kenney remarked that the goat must be the great-great grandson of the billy goat that pulled his wagon. Everyone laughed, but Hill had an idea. It wasn’t long before Glacier Park artist John L. Clarke had designed the famous logo. And among railway men, it was always known as Kenney’s goat.

This brochure printed by the Great Northern Railway shows the famous mountain goat insignia.
Montana Historical Society Research Center, PAM 4256

Friday Photo: Going to the Sun Road

Montana Historical Society Photograph Archives, 956-638

I hear that snowplows have started on the Going-to-the-Sun Road in Glacier National Park. This circa 1930s photo of the view along the Garden Wall gives an idea of the work that's cut out for them. E. T. Scoyen snapped the photo.

P.S. You can track the plows here.
P.P.S. More spectacular photos of Glacier here and here.

Josephine Doody

On the way to isolated Harrison Lake, in the wilderness area on the southern border of Glacier National Park, lie the ruins of a secret cabin. The area is extremely difficult to access because you have to cross the Middle Fork of the Flathead and there is only a short time when it’s not frozen or deep. The remote cabin was home to Josephine Doody, a woman even more notorious than Calamity Jane. And unlike calamity, the events of her life are not disputed. John Fraley, in his book Wild River Pioneers, details Josephine’s adventures. Around 1890. Josephine shot a man in Colorado, she claimed in self-defense. Awaiting trial, she fled to MacCarthyville, Montana, a railroad town Montana along James J. Hill’s Great Northern Railway. There, as a dance hall girl, she met Dan Doody who fell for her. But Josephine had an opium addiction. So Dan kidnapped her, tied her to a mule, took her to his homestead on the Flathead River and locked her in to dry out.

Josephine Doody in front of her cabin on the Flathead. Photo courtesy Glacier National Park.

Josephine survived and took up moonshining. Dan kept a tiny cabin where she could hide when the revenue officers of Colorado lawmen came looking for her. James Hill built a siding to the Doody place, and the engineer would blow the whistle once for each quart of moonshine the engineers wanted. Dan was one of the first park rangers at Glacier, but was soon fired because he liked to poach the game.

Dan Doody. Photo courtesy Glacier National Park.

He died in 1919, and Josephine stayed in the two-story homestead, keeping guest rooms and leading occasional fishing parties. She died in 1936 after a long, colorful life.

Friday Photo: Sperry Glacier

Happy Friday! Do you have any adventures planned for the weekend?

Montana Historical Society Photograph Archives, 956-638

In today's photo, sightseers explore a crevasse in Sperry Glacier in Glacier National Park, circa 1910. Have you ever made the hike up to to the glacier? If you go, use more sense than these hikers and don't tie yourselves together!

P.S. More vintage views of Glacier here and here.

Scarred Trees

Culturally scarred trees in Glacier National Park, the Nez Perce and Bitterroot Forests, the Flathead Lake area, the Bob Marshall Wilderness, and elsewhere in western Montana are indicative of travel corridors that native people used seasonally. Majestic Ponderosa pines and, less often, western larch and other types of trees served as a source of nutrition in the spring when the sap was running. Food was scarce at this time of the year and the people were hungry. Various tribes harvested the sweet bark, or cambium. For the Salish, it was women’s work. They used a stone knife or ax to make a foot-long waist-high incision on the outer trunk of the tree. A pole thrust upward into the bark served as a lever to loosen and peel the outer bark. Then the women used a sharp knife to shave thin strips from the inner layer. Some of the strips were eaten raw on the spot and immensely enjoyed. What remained was dried on drying racks like jerky. When the strips were completely dry, the women pounded the strips into a fine powder and used it as a nutritious sweetener. The procedure did not kill the tree, and often the scars are so old they are nearly healed over. Lewis and Clark noted the practice of peeling bark in their journals, and some scarred trees were harvested as long ago as the 1700s, before Lewis and Clark trekked through Montana. Ponderosa pines are not ready for harvest until the bark turns a reddish color when the tree is about two hundred years old. Forest fires have claimed some of these treasures, but some of the massive survivors have stood for centuries.

Friday Photo: Camping in Glacier

Happy Friday!




Montana Historical Society Photograph Archives, 956-454

These women traveled through Glacier National Park in 1917 on a horseback tour led by dude-rancher Howard Eaton. Here they pause their chores for a photo of "Ladies Row."

P.S. Mary Roberts Rinehart wrote about a similar trip in 1916.

Friday Photo: Glacier National Park Tour Bus

Did you hear? The Going-to-the-Sun Road is open, and the forecast for the park is calling for sixties and seventies all weekend. Wouldn't you love to take a tour?

Montana Historical Society Photograph Archives, PAc 93-25 A3 214

The Blackfeet inducted western artist E. W. Deming into the tribe and named him Eight Bears for his family of eight. In this photo, the Demings pose in a tour bus circa 1914 with their Blackfeet driver, Lazy Boy, at the wheel.

Friday Photo: Glacier Country



Montana Historical Society Photograph Archives

N. A. Forsyth snapped this photo circa 1908. This landscape is now part of Glacier National Park. One wonders how that young man lugged his camera equipment up onto that pinnacle of rock.