Report on the Glacier National Park in Montana: Its improvement and administration

Marshall, R

Description of Marshall's report from the GTSR HAER Report No. MT-67: Within a few months after the creation of Glacier Park, the U.S. Geological Survey's Chief Topographer, Robert Marshall, visited Glacier and outlined a plan for developing the park. The U.S.G.S. was a bureau within the Department of the Interior whose duties included surveying and classifying public lands. The recommendations in Marshall's report reflected one strain of Progressive era thought about the conservation of natural resources. One side argued to preserve the park in as pristine a state as possible, while Marshall and the other side advocated relatively extensive development of the park to accommodate and encourage more use of the park. Building a road system was the most crucial step to increasing park attendance. Marshall felt that the most influential factor in locating park roads should be easy tourist accessibility to all the major scenic points in the park. As a result, his report called for a park road system of 213 miles. First, Marshall suggested, the park should make the unsatisfactory wagon road between Belton and the foot of Lake McDonald into a "first-class" roadway 20' wide and a drain-to-drain right-of-way 60' wide. Next, the road should run up the west side of Lake McDonald, follow McDonald Creek and continue north to Waterton Lake. After this primary corridor road was constructed, spur roads could be connected to other points in the park including St. Mary, and Bowman and Kintla Lakes. All of the roads should be built to high standards because--he stated with some degree of foresight--in a park "the roads themselves must be one of the attractions." However, the standards Marshall had in mind were still relatively primitive--up to 8 to 10 percent grades in some cases.

Report on the Glacier National Park in Montana: Its improvement and administration

Collections