Finding Our Place in the Sun -the East Side 120 pages.
Our east side journey begins in Essex and continues along the Great Northern Railroad.
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is completed July 20, 1930.55
The town of Glacier Park has now reached the status of a village out of the storied West, with a wild West dance hall at Mike’s Place, celebrities frequenting the community, bronco busters on nearby dude ranches, bowlegged guides, and ‘real Indians.’
The white Blackfoot tribe in the 1930s includes: Mr. and Mrs. Franklin Roosevelt; Clark Gable; FBI boss J. Edgar Hoover; Norway’s Crown Prince Olav and Princess Martha and Secretary of Interior Harold Ickes.56
By the 1930s, small towns are showing clear signs of business decline. Mike’s Place burns for a second time in 1931. The start of the Depression for the town of Glacier Park is in 1931 when grease spills on a stove in Elmer’s pool hall. The fire hose from the Glacier Park Hotel hydrant stretches over the tracks to assist with fighting the fire. The next week Harry Dunn comes to town with a 10-stool diner on wheels, and he handles the café business for years. Dunn builds the Waldorf Café in 1932 while Mike Shannon is rebuilding #3. Dunn eventually buys out Shannon.57 Jack Horan includes a poem “An Ode to Mike’s Place” in his book On the Trails of the Rockies. This shows the importance of this landmark with the merriness of the music and cowboys dancing with their ladies. The fire occurred during one of these special summer nights, and the poem states, “Was just a mass of blackened ember.” The fire lit the landscape.58
Families are starting to leave for larger communities like Cut Bank. Glacier Park begins declining in population from a bustling center for a mix of residents and travelers. In the next several years, prohibition will be repealed, large dancehalls will disappear and many individual bars are built in small communities. Mike’s Place is no longer drawing crowds from the immediate area. Since the Theodore Roosevelt International Highway over Marias Pass has been completed, the National Park Service is reducing administrative services at Glacier Park. Also, the Going-to-the-Sun Highway is rerouting most of the travelers now arriving in automobiles rather than by train.
On June 18, 1932, the Rotary International sponsors a formal ceremony at the Glacier Park Hotel dedicating Waterton-Glacier International Peace Park as a “Great monument to the idea of International Peace and Goodwill.”59
In 1933, three events have a lasting change on the business and character for the town of Glacier Park. First, the completion of the Transmountain Road increases Glacier National Park travel, however, the highway routes 90% of
Continuing northward, communities similar to Swift Current are being developed in a rugged terrain.
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A Nation’s Attention to the Northern Rockies
A New Century Unfolds - 1900 to 1909
The Swift Current Oil Land and Power Company is incorporated in 1904. One well produces oil in small amounts. The incorporators include such people as Joseph H. Sherburne of Browning, Dave Greenwood Altyn, and Frank M. Stevenson. Swift Current operates a post office from 1906 to 1908 with Charles Matson as postmaster.5 Lake McDermott is twelve miles from the recently renamed town of Babb.
“Frank Stevenson states The little Ptarmigan Lake I really named, because when I sat down one day to get notes on the boundaries of my prospect some ptarmigans walked across my feet, they were so tame. In 1906 I built a cabin there at the falls below the lake so that I would have a place to live in when I was working on the claim. I ran a tunnel in thirty-five feet on the south side of the lake.”6
Valentine Logging Company has a cabin, dam and mill pond. This is located here before Glacier National Park is created, and Valentine Creek flows into Waterton River.
“There is an old prospect hole on the Northwest side of the big lake and an old cabin and a lesser one on the East. The small lake is typical and there is a trail leading up to a couple prospect holes on Southeast by East. Its all a great camping ground on the East.”7
National Park Status-Pristine with Development? - 1910 to 1915
Cascadia Development and Product Company of Minnesota has title to one hundred acres to the east of Sherburne Lake area since before 1910 and continues after Glacier National Park is created.
The Great Northern Railroad is constructing a road into the Many Glacier area from Babb. This is a twelve mile road terminating in the Swift Current Valley. The Great Northern Railroad erects a teepee camp at Many Glacier with ten tents to accommodate forty travelers on their journey. The following year twelve log cabins are constructed to sleep and feed many more travelers. Little Kootenai Creek flowing into the United States in 1913 will later become known as Waterton River.
Frank Stevenson is a prospector and miner remaining in the area following the primary mining activity at Cracker Lake.
In 1913 and 1914, he is a Park ranger stationed at Many Glacier. In 1913, Many Glacier Chalet is built by the Great Northern Railroad |
