Group plans to re-enact presidential visit to park
The Daily Inter Lake
In celebration of the 75th anniversary of President Franklin D. Roosevelt's visit to Glacier National Park on Aug. 5, 1934, the Jammer Trust will re-enact his historic visit on Wednesday - while riding in some of the same vehicles that carried the Presidential party.
Roosevelt's tour was the only visit to Glacier by a president while in office.
The celebration re-enactment will be an opportunity to see what President Roosevelt saw in 1934. It will begin at West Glacier on the morning of Aug. 5, traverse Going-to-the-Sun Road and overnight at St. Mary.
On Aug. 6, the celebrants will make their way up to Many Glacier to tour Many Glacier Hotel and then back over Going-to-the-Sun Road again with their final stop at the Belton Chalet.
Kate Roosevelt, the great-granddaughter of Franklin D. Roosevelt, will be the special guest on this tour.
On Aug. 5, 1934, President Roosevelt gave a radio address to the nation from Two Medicine Chalet in Glacier Park.
He said: "Today for the first time in my life, I have seen Glacier Park. Perhaps I can best express to you my thrill and delight by saying that I wish every American, old and young, could have been with me today. The great mountains, the glaciers, the lakes and the trees make me long to stay here for all the rest of the summer."
He added, "There is nothing so American as our national parks. The scenery and wild land are native. The fundamental idea behind the parks is native. It is, in brief, that the country belongs to the people … for the enrichment of the lives of all of us. The parks stand as the outward symbol of this great human spirit."
The Jammer Trust is a nonprofit Montana Public Benefit Educational Corporation whose principal objective is to encourage the preservation of historic touring vehicles and the cultural history of tourism in the national parks. Further information is available at http://jammertrust.org.
For more information about the re-enactment, call the Glacier National Park Fund at 892-3250 or go to www.glaciernationalparkfund.org.