Grand hotel stands test of time

A visitor’s first step into Many Glacier Hotel in Glacier National Park is an experience in itself.

The comfortable perfume of wood smoke pervades the mountain air in the expansive four-story lobby. Immediately across from the entrance, a giant copper fireplace — tended by a hotel employee garbed in lederhosen — throws gentle heat in the middle of the ancient room.

The historic hotel is celebrating its centennial this year, and while the 100 years since its opening have brought plenty of changes to the Swiss-style chalet, much remains the same: Guests can forget about air conditioning, televisions and cellphone service in the remote northeast corner of Glacier National Park.

A low-key centennial celebration will be held at the hotel July 4, marking the anniversary to the day.

And while the Fourth of July is a fine occasion for the festivities, Calgary-based author and historian Ray Djuff pointed out that technically the hotel was not completed until November 2017. At the time of its already-late opening, only the main building was finished, with work still left on most of the annex. It was a fitting bookend for an ambitious project plagued by challenges.

Many Glacier Hotel began as the vision of Louis W. Hill, son of railroad tycoon James J. Hill, who built the Great Northern Railway. At the time, the rail line stretched from St. Paul, Minnesota, to Seattle, and in the early 1900s Hill had a vision for a series of hotels on the east side of the Continental Divide.

“He realized he could claim it as his own,” Djuff said at a recent meeting of the Northwest Montana Posse of Westerners in Kalispell.

Djuff said that after Louis Hill first visited Swiftcurrent Lake (at the time known as McDermott Lake) in August 1909, he decided the magnificent valley would be site of his next — and largest— park-based lodge. Hill was an exacting micromanager and is quoted as saying in 1911: “The work is so important that I am loath to entrust the development to anybody but myself.”

Original plans were drawn up by architect Kirkland Cutter and included a wall of windows facing the lake. However, Cutter’s ideas proved insufficient for Hill and he was replaced by the man who would complete the design of the 141,103-square foot building, Great Northern engineer Thomas McMahon. He had helped design other hotels in and around the park, but Many Glacier was his largest undertaking.

Beginning in January 1914, loggers cut local lodgepole, fir and spruce from the surrounding forests — totaling hundreds of thousands of board-feet — to build the massive structure, and construction of the hotel began soon thereafter. Several hundred men were employed as builders until the project’s ultimate completion in 1917.

The ambitious project and the remote location presented significant hurdles.

During construction, supplies were brought in from Browning, a five-day journey at a rate of 10 to 12 miles per day, and the area’s brutal winter weather could slow progress to about a mile per day.

Other problems also beset Hill’s plans.

According to Djuff, Hill was infuriated in 1913 when the Bureau of Reclamation floated a proposal to put a dam downstream that would raise the water level about 16.5 feet. He blamed the bureau’s director, Frederick Newell, for trying to sabotage his plans. Eventually, however, the bureau abandoned the idea, allowing Hill to move forward with his vision.

The result was an unusual building, now painted deep brown with white-and-gold trim. The contours of Swiftcurrent Lake give the hotel its unconventional shape, and Djuff said McMahon used design elements including the trim, gables and other decor to tie together the building’s “ramshackle appearance.”

But the exterior is just the tip of the iceberg.

“The lobby, as you can see, is an interior designer’s nightmare,” Djuff said, pointing to a black-and-white photo of the great room. “It gives new meaning to the word ‘eclectic.’”

At Hill’s request, Blackfeet pictographs lined the walls and 20 massive Douglas firs were installed as huge columns rising up through the open lobby. It was originally filled with 122 wicker and director-style chairs, Chinese paper lanterns hung at seemingly random elevations overhead and totem poles adorned the columns at ground level — despite their absence from the Blackfeet culture. Furs from the wide variety of local wildlife in the area adorned the banisters outside the guest rooms in the main building.

The fireplace and many other design elements remain the same today, but one of the largest, most controversial changes is the absence of the double-helix staircase that originally led from the lobby to the lower veranda overlooking the lake.

The two intertwining stairs circled a huge fountain, adorned with ferns, flowers and other plants, and containing trout caught in the lake next door.

Djuff said it isn’t clear who came up with the idea for the spiral staircase, but the massive fireplace in the center of the lobby was McMahon’s idea.

With the rise of automobile travel in the late 1950s, the railroad-centric hotels in the park were not bringing in the same visitation levels or money, and the owners brought in construction contractor Don Knudsen to give Many Glacier a shot in the arm.

“He’d spend as much money as he needed to modernize these hotels,” Djuff said. “They basically gave him a blank check.”

Knudsen decided the odd staircase was hurting gift shop sales, and he promptly had it removed to expand the shop, summing up his calculus by saying, “Gift shops make money — staircases don’t.”

That piece of the past is about to return, however. As part of ongoing renovations, the helical staircase is due to be rebuilt this fall thanks to a $243,300 grant from the Glacier National Park Conservancy.

As stunning as Many Glacier Hotel is, perhaps the greater wonder is its location.

Reflected in the blue and green waters of the glacial Swiftcurrent Lake, the jagged, snow-strewn peaks of Mount Gould, Angel Wing, Grinnell Point, Mount Wilbur and the Ptarmigan Wall rise impressively against the sky. Three valleys converge on the lake, and opportunities abound for hiking, fishing, kayaking and finding innumerable adventures in Glacier Park’s rugged landscape.

Reporter Samuel Wilson may be reached at 758-4407 or by email at swilson@dailyinterlake.com.