Picture perfect
George Bird Grinnell was one of the first white explorers in Glacier and took some of the earliest photographs
Horses have long been used in Glacier Park and most trails are cut to accomodate them. Here, assistant Chief Ranger Dick Nelson and steed red Eagle, 1947. This view looks back toward Mt. Siyeh and Citadel.
It's tough to go to a place like Glacier National Park and not take a camera. Even before it was officially a national park, photographers have been capturing Glacier's grand stage on film.
Here's a look at some of the more notable photographers through the park's first 100 years.
* Fred Kizer (1878-1955): A successful commercial photographer, Kizer gained national recognition in 1903 for his photos of Crater Lake, which were hand-colored in oil. In 1907, Louis Hill, president of the Great Northern Railway, hired Kizer as its official photographer. For six years he spent summers in Glacier. The railroad wanted to promote the area so people would use not only its trains, but also stay in the lodges it was building or planned to build in Glacier.
* T.J. Hileman (1882-1945): A very successful commercial photographer, Tomar Jacob Hileman moved to Kalispell in 1911 and opened a portrait studio. He earned the nickname "Mountain Goat Hileman" for carrying his large-format camera to high places in the park. Soon after his arrival he, too, built a relationship with the railroad. In 1925 he signed a contract with Great Northern for $125 a month, but he kept the rights to his photos. One photo netted Hileman $4,000 in print sales. From that he was able to build a home on Flathead Lake in 1931 -- in the depths of the Great Depression. Like Kizer, Hileman also hand-colored his prints.
* George Bird Grinnell (1849-1938): The Forest and Stream editor and eventual owner, Grinnell was one of the first white explorers of the park and a champion for its designation. He also took early photographs of the region including a photo of American Indians for author James Willard Schultz's "My Life as an Indian" published in 1907.
* Edward Curtis (1868-1952): Curtis photographed American Indian peoples across the country, including the Blackfeet and Flathead Tribes. He amassed a gigantic body of work, taking photographs 16 hours a day for years on end.
* Roland Reed (1864-1934): Reed also photographed American Indians and is well-known for his work with Blackfeet Indians inside Glacier. Twenty-four of his photos appear in James Willard Schultz's 1916 book, "Blackfeet Tales of Glacier National Park." He also had a studio in Kalispell.
* Ray Elmer "Ted" Marble (1883-1938): Marble was hired by the Great Northern Railway in 1913 and made his home outside the west entrance of Glacier. Marble, who was just 5-feet 3-inches and weighed 110 pounds, carried a large format camera that weighed 30 pounds everywhere he went. The railroad owned the rights to many of his early photos and he received no credit. One of his best selling photos was a fake -- a postcard of a fur-bearing trout. It was originally a gag for a Great Northern convention, but caught on with tourists visiting the Park.
* George Grant: Grant was appointed as the National Park Service's first official photographer in 1929. One of his first assignments entailed traveling park to park, using his camera to document the features and resources of each park he visited. Grant's trips to Glacier in 1932 and 1933 resulted in images that vividly capture the visitor experience of that era.
* Mel Ruder (1915-2000): Ruder was the founding editor, publisher and photographer for the Hungry Horse News. He won multiple awards for his photographs of Glacier National Park and its surrounding communities. In 1965 he won the Pulitzer Prize for his coverage of a flood in June 1964 that devastated Northwest Montana and Glacier.
Ruder used a Speed Graflex through most of his career. His trademark was crisp, sharp scenics that included people in them for scale. In 1998, Ruder gave more than $200,000 to Flathead Valley Community College and the University of Montana's School of Journalism. Ruder sold the Hungry Horse News in 1978 to Brian Kennedy.
Kennedy, a fine photographer in his own right, was a mountaineer. Kennedy's finest work featured people on summits and vistas of Glacier's high passes and peaks. He sold the Hungry Horse News to Lee Enterprises in 1998 (Hagadone Corp. has owned the weekly newspaper for several years) and still lives in Columbia Falls.
Source for early photographers with the exception of Grant: "The Call of the Mountains, the Artists of Glacier National Park."