The Great Northern Railway was an American Class I railroad. Running from Saint Paul, Minnesota, to Seattle, Washington, it was the creation of 19th-century railroad entrepreneur James J. Hill and was developed from the Saint Paul & Pacific Railroad. The Great Northern's route was the northernmost transcontinental railroad route in the U.S.
Glacier National Park is an American national park located in northwestern Montana, on the Canada–United States border, adjacent to the Canadian provinces of Alberta and British Columbia. The park encompasses more than 1 million acres (4,000 km2) and includes parts of two mountain ranges, more than 130 named lakes, more than 1,000 different species of plants, and hundreds of species of animals. This vast pristine ecosystem is the centerpiece of what has been referred to as the "Crown of the Continent Ecosystem," a region of protected land encompassing 16,000 sq mi (41,000 km2).
The Prince of Wales Hotel is a historic hotel located in Waterton, Alberta, Canada. It is situated within Waterton Lakes National Park, overlooking Upper Waterton Lakes. It was designed by and built for the Great Northern Railway company. It is currently managed by the Pursuit Collection.
Robert Chambers Reamer (1873–1938) was an American architect, most noted for the Old Faithful Inn in Yellowstone National Park. A number of his works are listed on the National Register of Historic Places for their architecture.
The Lake McDonald Lodge is a historic lodge located within Glacier National Park, on the southeast shore of Lake McDonald. The lodge is a 3+1⁄2-story structure built in 1913 based on Kirtland Cutter's design. The foundation and first floor walls are built of stone, with a wood-frame superstructure. The lobby is a large, open space that extends to the third story. It has a massive fireplace and a concrete floor scored in a flagstone pattern, with messages in several Indian languages inscribed into it. The rustic lodge was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1987 as one of the nation's finest examples of large-scale Swiss chalet architecture. Lake McDonald Lodge is a member of Historic Hotels of America, the official program of the National Trust for Historic Preservation.
Granite Park Chalet is located in the heart of Glacier National Park in the U.S. state of Montana at an elevation of 6,693 feet above sea level. The chalet was built in 1914 by the Great Northern Railway and is a National Historic Landmark contributing property, being one of five structures in the Great Northern Railway Buildings district. From Logan Pass along the Going-to-the-Sun Road, the chalet is a moderate 7.6 miles (12.2 km) hike along the famed Crown of the Continent Highline Trail, usually referred to simply as the Highline Trail. Much of the trail passes through the scenic Garden Wall section of the park, immediately west and parallel to the Continental Divide. The chalet is also accessible via the Loop Trail and the Swiftcurrent Trail. The trails are for hikers and horseback riders only; no vehicle access is provided. Granite Park Chalet is a limited services facility and those that spend the night make use of the full service kitchen to cook their own meals.
Many Glacier Hotel is a historic hotel located on the east shore of Swiftcurrent Lake in Glacier National Park in the U.S. state of Montana. The building is designed as a series of chalets, up to four stories tall, and stretches for a substantial distance along the lakeshore. The building has a Swiss alpine theme both on the outside and on the inside. The foundation is made of stone, with a wood superstructure. The outside is finished with brown-painted wood siding, and the window framing and balconies have wood sawed in Swiss jigsawed patterns. On the inside, the four-story lobby is surrounded by balconies, whose railings are patterned after Swiss designs.
Sperry Chalet is located about seven miles east of Lake McDonald in Glacier National Park in the U.S. state of Montana. The chalet was opened in 1914 by the Great Northern Railway and was a National Historic Landmark contributing property, being one of five structures in the Great Northern Railway Buildings National Historic Landmark. Along with Granite Park Chalet, Sperry Chalet is one of the two remaining backcountry chalets in Glacier National Park, both operated by Belton Chalets, Inc.
Two Medicine Store, formerly part of Two Medicine Chalets, is a historic building in Glacier National Park in the U.S. state of Montana. The chalet was originally built in 1914 by the Glacier Park Hotel Company, a subsidiary of the Great Northern Railway, as part of the railway's extensive program of visitor services development at Glacier. The chalet group originally featured a complex of log buildings, all built in the rustic style, which provided dining and lodging facilities. Overnight accommodations at the chalet ended with the onset of World War II, and the other buildings at the site were intentionally burned in 1956.
West Glacier is an unincorporated community and census-designated place (CDP) in eastern Flathead County, Montana, United States. As of the 2010 census it had a population of 227. The town is at the west entrance to Glacier National Park and is located on U.S. Route 2 and a main line of the BNSF Railway. The headquarters complex for Glacier National Park is located nearby.
National Park Service rustic – sometimes colloquially called Parkitecture – is a style of architecture that developed in the early and middle 20th century in the United States National Park Service (NPS) through its efforts to create buildings that harmonized with the natural environment. Since its founding in 1916, the NPS sought to design and build visitor facilities without visually interrupting the natural or historic surroundings. The early results were characterized by intensive use of hand labor and a rejection of the regularity and symmetry of the industrial world, reflecting connections with the Arts and Crafts movement and American Picturesque architecture.
Whitefish station is a stop on Amtrak's Empire Builder in Whitefish, Montana. In addition to the Empire Builder, a once-daily Greyhound Lines bus service also links the station to Kalispell and Missoula. A car rental agency operates a window within the station. The station and parking lot are owned by the Stumptown Historical Society. BNSF Railway leases office space on the upper floors of the station and owns the platform and track.
The Izaak Walton Inn is a historic inn in Essex, Montana, United States. It was originally built as the Izaak Walton Hotel in 1939 by the Great Northern Railway as a soup kitchen and lodgings for railway workers. The hotel was also originally envisioned as a potential official southern gateway to Glacier National Park, hence its size, but World War II intervened and that plan never materialized. Today, the inn is served by Essex station, the only request stop on Amtrak's Empire Builder route. A van from the inn meets both the morning eastbound and the evening westbound Empire Builders to convey passengers between the station and the inn.
The Glacier Park Company, a subsidiary of the Great Northern Railway (GN), constructed and operated hotels, chalets, and other visitor facilities in Glacier National Park, Montana and Waterton Lakes National Park, Alberta from the 1910s through 1960. Operating as a concessionaire of the National Park Service, the company operated from a summer base in East Glacier Park, Montana, near the company's flagship Glacier Park Hotel; winter headquarters were in St. Paul, Minnesota. Originally known as the Glacier Park Hotel Company, the corporate name was shortened to Glacier Park Company in 1943.
Babb is a small unincorporated farming and ranching community in Glacier County, Montana, United States, on the Blackfeet Indian Reservation. The community experiences a large influx of tourists in the summer months as it is the gateway to the Many Glacier area of Glacier National Park. For statistical purposes, the United States Census Bureau has defined Babb as a census-designated place (CDP). It had a population of 174 at the 2010 census.
The Great Northern Railway Buildings are a set of five building complexes in or near Glacier National Park in Montana. They were built by the Great Northern Railway during the period of the park's founding to provide a unified tourist experience to visitors to the park, using the Swiss chalet as a building model. The building complexes, each separately listed on the National Register of Historic Places, are:
Louis Warren Hill, was an American railroad executive. He was the president and board chairman of the Great Northern Railway, which served a substantial area of the Upper Midwest, the northern Great Plains, and Pacific Northwest.
The Lake McDonald Lodge Coffee Shop is a visitor services building in the Lake McDonald district of Glacier National Park, Montana, USA. The coffee shop was built in 1965 as part of the National Park Service's Mission 66 program to upgrade visitor facilities, in order to increase visitor dining capacity. Under the Mission 66 projects, visitor facilities were usually comprehensive in nature, providing a range of visitor services. Specialized concession buildings like the Coffee Shop were unusual in Mission 66. It was leased to the Glacier Park Company for operation, in anticipation of the construction of lodging facilities by the company.
Samuel L. Bartlett was an American architect who worked in Saint Paul, Minnesota, in the early 1900s. He was appointed to the position of architect with the Great Northern Railway in 1905. Bartlett was tasked to bring to reality the vision of Great Northern President Louis W. Hill for great destination hotels in the newly created Glacier National Park (U.S.). Several of the lodges and stations Bartlett designed for the Great Northern are listed in the National Register of Historic Places.
