Kalispell Chamber of Commerce marks 100th year of fostering business

Kalispell Chamber of Commerce President Joe Unterreiner knows one thing for sure about the Chamber: the more things change, the more they stay the same.

After poring over 100 years' worth of history in scrapbooks, newspaper archives and annual reports, Unterreiner found that education, transportation systems, business development, labor supply and tourism were just as important in 1904 as they are in 2004.

"They're all the same issues. Nothing's changed. The scale is different, but the whole dynamic is really the same," he said.

The Chamber's centennial date was inadvertently discovered this summer when Unterreiner and others read the Front & Center section of the Daily Inter Lake that made note of an organizational meeting for the Kalispell Chamber of Commerce on Aug. 4, 1904, at Knight's Hall over Schroeder meat market on First Avenue.

"All citizens who are interested in the future developments and welfare of Kalispell and Flathead County are invited to be present; and to become members of the organization," declared committee chairman W.C. Whipps.

Unterreiner said he'd been led to believe the Kalispell Chamber began in 1915, though no one could ever document it for him when he asked.

"When we saw that information in the paper in late July, we went 'huh?' and sure enough, once we did the research we found it did start in 1904," he said.

Chamber officials quickly pulled together enough historical facts for a presentation at the annual banquet on Thursday. More extensive research will be done for a centennial celebration at a later date.

Soon after that first meeting in 1904, the Chamber office was set up at 316 Main Street. The organization is mentioned for the first time in the 1905 Polk Directory, listing H.G. Miller as president, Lafayette Tinkel as vice president, W.H. Griffin as treasurer and George F. Stannard as secretary.

The first Chamber officials wasted no time delving into issues of the day. On Oct. 21, 1904, the Inter Lake noted that "acting on a suggestion from the people of Whitefish, the Kalispell Chamber of Commerce appointed a committee to investigate the desirability of asking the Great Northern officials to run trains through to Whitefish, instead of stopping them at Columbia Falls and see what could be done about it."

Recruitment of settlers and businesses was also high on the agenda, and by January 1905, the Inter Lake reported that local residents were asked to provide the names of people living in eastern states who would be "interested in the resources and opportunities of Flathead County in order that advertising matter may be sent to them.

"A little assistance from each one would probably result in general good. Don't neglect it," the editor urged.

Unterreiner found a good bit of history about the Kalispell Chamber's early day in an unlikely source - the annual reports of the Kalispell Water Department. Community organizations were invited to submit summaries in the annual report, and that yielded detailed accounts of Chamber projects during the 1920s and beyond.

There are many references to the Chamber's promotion of a strong educational system for Kalispell, Unterreiner said. In 1921, in-migration due to Eastern Montana crop failures was attributed to "good schools, particularly our fine county free high school and our graded schools …" In 1929, as the Great Depression began, the Chamber pushed for a $98,000 school bond to build Southside School, where Hedges Elementary is now located.

Education is still on the Chamber's front burner, illustrated by a full-page newspaper advertisement this week asking voters to support school bonds for an expanded junior high and a second high school.

Transportation routes connecting the Flathead to the rest of the world were also important to early Chamber leaders. They worked on numerous road projects, including the Belton-Glacier Road (U.S. 2), Swan Road (Montana 83), Whitefish-Eureka Road (U.S. 93 N.), Marion Road (U.S. 2 W.) and a road called the Electric Highway.

Since the beginning, the promotion of the area's assets - Glacier National Park, Flathead Lake and the national forest system - has been of paramount importance to the Chamber. Chamber secretary P.N. Bernard pointed out in 1920 that "Kalispell occupies a strategic position in the great scenic center of the great Northwest, sitting in a very amphitheater of scenic splendor unequaled though comparatively unknown."

By 1924 the Chamber was pleased to note that the summer population in the Kalispell area was about 50,000, three times the normal population of Flathead County at the time. And promoters knew where to find potential tourists.

"California and Florida have fully exploited their beaches and artificial areas are crowded to the limit, and the eyes of the tourist have just been turned to the Rocky Mountain region of the northwest," the 1924 annual report states.

The assets of Western Montana were so bountiful civic leaders thought about seceding from the rest of Montana in the early 1920s. "The time is not far distant until a divorce (from eastern Montana) will be filed by western Montana in the state legislature," predicted the author of the Kalispell Chamber's 1924 annual report. "The vast and eternal scenic glory of western Montana is a natural asset of such outstanding and commanding magnitude that it should have state recognition and state development …"

Kalispell's historic train depot has housed the Chamber offices since 1982, but the organization's connection to the depot dates back to 1911, when the Chamber urged the railroad to improve the dingy facility whose grounds had become "irregular and treacherous." A major renovation transformed the area from an eyesore into a showplace, but by 1981 the depot, owned by the city of Kalispell, was once again deteriorating. The Chamber offered to renovate the structure, and with volunteer labor, donated materials and $130,000 in donations, the job got done. Since then the Chamber had invested another $124,000 in the depot.

Today, the Chamber's six full-time and one part-time employees are working on ways to make Kalispell a regional trade center, a goal that's as relevant now as it was 100 years ago, Unterreiner said. The events have evolved to include drawing cards like the air show next July, but the mission is the same - put Kalispell on the map.

Features editor Lynnette Hintze may be reached at 758-4421 or by e-mail at lhintze@dailyinterlake.com