At the Foot of the Belton Hills: A Cultural Landscape History of the Headquarters Area, Glacier National Park

Catton, Ted

With a history longer than that of the National Park Service, Glacier National Park’s headquarters area is a microcosm of park service building styles, representing all of the agency’s major architectural phases nestled within a larger context of shifting American tastes, movements, events, and lifestyle choices. This report traces the area’s architectural history from its smattering of initial, ramshackle structures built by local businesspeople, through phases representing the Craftsman, Rustic, and Modern styles adopted by the National Park Service at diff erent points in its development. All three of those styles can be seen in the headquarters area today, in buildings that are still used to support agency functions. Prior to the establishment of the National Park Service (NPS), the extension of the Great Northern Railway from Marias Pass to the Flathead Valley in 1891 had encouraged local settlement, including a small community at the foot of Lake McDonald that came to be known as Apgar. Soon after their arrival, these early settlers cooperated in building a primitive wagon road from the north bank of the Middle Fork of the Flathead River to Lake McDonald that likely passed through the future headquarters area. In 1906, Lake McDonald resident and hotelier George Snyder sold his property on the lake and built a hotel near the Middle Fork. Ten years later, that land (and hotel) would become part of the headquarters area. After Glacier National Park was established in 1910, its first, temporary headquarters was located at Fish Creek, a couple of miles into the park. What park visitors fi rst saw upon entering the park was George Snyder’s hotel, whose appearance was not of a sort that first National Park Service Director Stephen Mather, upon his 1915 visit to the park, thought befi tting of the agency. With his own funds, Mather purchased the land from Snyder, and the park fi nally had a location for its permanent headquarters. Development of the headquarters area has occurred in three temporal phases. Phase I (1917– 1941), characterized by Craftsman and Rustic style architecture, built a foundation of administrative, utility, and residential structures essential to park operations. The period saw the construction of four Craftsman style cottages, which were likely some of the first structures ever designed by the National Park Service; a superintendent’s house and administrative building in the Rustic style; and a warehouse, auto repair shop, carpenter’s shop, and other utility buildings, all in an arrangement that resembled the “national park village” concept implemented in many national parks by landscape architects Charles Punchard, Jr., and Daniel Hull. The Civilian Conservation Corps made many improvements to the headquarters area during this phase, as well. The architecture of Phase II (1941–1967) introduced the Modern style to the headquarters area, adding many newer buildings while leaving most of the older ones intact and in use. With the re-alignment of the Going-to-the-Sun Road, a new administrative building was needed, and was constructed in the Modern style at the opposite end of the headquarters area from the first. The budgetary austerity of World War II led many of the area’s existing buildings to deteriorate, and postwar expectations and tastes were largely changed from those of the prewar era. As such, this phase saw the addition of many new, Modern residences, as well as play areas for children, with many more planned but never built. The legacy of the NPS’s Mission 66 program is very much in evidence in the area today. Phase III (1967–present) has seen little major construction, most of which has occurred in the utility area. Many buildings have been repurposed in response to changing park needs, and the architectural integrity of the headquarters area remains remarkably intact.

At the Foot of the Belton Hills: A Cultural Landscape History of the Headquarters Area, Glacier National Park

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