Glacier coffee shop gets historic status

The Daily Inter Lake

It may be just a coffee shop, but now it has the distinction of being on the National Historic Register.

Glacier National Park officials on Monday announced the Oct. 16 designation for the Lake McDonald Lodge Coffee Shop, located just east of the Lake McDonald Lodge, one of the park's six National Historic Landmarks.

The coffee shop was designed and built in 1965 as part of the National Park Service's Mission 66 infrastructure improvement program and it is the most recent designation for Mission 66 buildings in the park.

"With the addition of this latest nomination, Glacier National Park now has 372 buildings, structures and sites that have received this distinction," Glacier Superintendent Chas Cartwright said.

Like several other Mission 66 buildings in the park, the coffee shop was designed by Burt Gewalt, an architect with the Kalispell firm Brinkman and Lenon, Architects and Engineers. It was built at a cost of $140,130 and opened in 1966.