Glacier Park’s Once-Grand Hotels Fall on Hard Times

It was a crisp fall day, just cool enough for a long-sleeve shirt, not cold enough for a coat. Dozens of tourists lined the balcony of Many Glacier Hotel, gazing in silence as the sun slipped behind Grinnell Point, its glow painting the mountain a hazy tangerine.

As if on cue, a brown bear appeared on an adjacent peak, playing hide-and-seek behind a towering pine as the spectators scrambled for their binoculars, pointed and oohed.

It was the perfect ending to another perfect day amid the undeniably perfect scenery at Glacier National Park. Still beaming from their brush with nature, the visitors drifted back inside the hotel to settle in for the evening.

Goodbye beauty. Hello beast.

Once dubbed “The Jewel of the Rockies,” as much for its own opulence as its spectacular location, 84-year-old Many Glacier Hotel has earned a new nickname even from its owners: “The Monster.”

Pipes clank. Faucets leak. Showers are moldy. Rooms are too hot or too cold. The walls are so thin you actually can hear the guy down the hall snoring. There’s no working elevator or handicapped access. And then there’s that pesky problem with bats finding their way into the ceiling.

As one guest tersely informed his tour company: “Accommodations were a disaster.”

This summer, congressional leaders convened a hearing at Many Glacier, a National Historic Landmark, to discuss proposals for funding the estimated $120-million cost of restoring it and six other historic park hotels.

At issue is whether to allow the hotel operator, Phoenix-based Glacier Park Inc., to pay for the repairs in exchange for loosened federal restrictions on rates, the length of the hotel season and the duration of its contract, or to use tax dollars to purchase and restore the buildings.

The debate, says GPI President Dale Scott, underscores a growing need to merge public and private interests in the pursuit of resolving the national park system’s $5.6- billion maintenance backlog.

“We think Glacier could be a great template of what private enterprise working with government can do,” he says.

But regardless of how it’s done, park officials, politicians and historians all agree: Glacier’s hotels must be saved.

“They’re part of America’s heritage,” says Park Supt. Dave Mihalic. “One hundred years from now when people are thinking about how people experienced these national parks in the West, I think it’s important that there’s a Many Glacier so they can see how these places were at one time.”

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The White Men are Coming. The irresistible call of the glorious West is being answered from all over the world. Glacier National Park--America’s newest and grandest scenic playground--awaits you!--Great Northern Railway advertisement, circa 1915

With a new national park system promoting the natural wonders of such places as Yellowstone, Mt. Rainier and Glacier, the 1900s were a time of discovery in the western United States.

Recognizing the tourism potential, railroad companies with routes out West lobbied for many of the early park designations and began building grand hotels to entice customers to the region. Among them was the Great Northern Railway, under the leadership of President Louis Hill.

“Glacier is similar to most of our great Western parks,” says Barbara Pahl, regional director of the National Trust for Historic Preservation. “The park was created in part because people were concerned about protecting our natural environment, but behind that were the railroads.”

With a rail line hugging the southern boundary of Glacier, Hill designed an ad campaign linking the railroad with the majestic beauty of the park, targeting Americans who preferred European vacations with slogans such as “See America First” and “The National Park Route.”

The problem was, there was only one hotel inside the park. So in 1912, under Hill’s direction, work began on a network of lodges and chalets that would allow guests to experience Glacier in world-class fashion.

Douglas fir and cedar timbers were brought from Oregon and Washington to construct Glacier Park Lodge, on the east side of the park, and Many Glacier, on the shore of Swiftcurrent Lake farther north.

At Many Glacier, which opened July 4, 1915, stone for the foundation was quarried on site, and the exterior trim on the balconies and shutters was hand-carved. By 1918 the hotel boasted a swimming pool, tailor shop, barbershop, hospital, hot and cold running water and steam heat, according to “Glacier’s Grandest: A Pictorial History of the Hotels and Chalets of Glacier National Park.”

Short Season, Increase in Car Travel Had Impact

When visitors arrived by rail at Glacier Park Lodge, they were greeted by Blackfeet Indians in ceremonial dress. From there they traveled by horseback from hotel to hotel, roughing it out in the wild by day, living it up at night with black-tie dinners, orchestras and fireside storytelling at the lodges.

But the heyday wouldn’t last.

With only a 100-day season, and with automobiles reducing the demand for rail travel, Great Northern was losing more than $500,000 a year on the hotels. In 1961 the company sold the properties to Don Hummel, then mayor of Tucson, Ariz., who relinquished them in 1981 to the current owners.

In announcing his intention to sell, Hummel noted, “It’s been a constant battle attempting to not only pay off the facilities, but to try to upgrade them as well.”

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The day after a 1936 fire at Many Glacier, hotel employees sent a telegram to Great Northern headquarters exulting: “We saved the hotel!” The one-word reply: “Why?”

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These days the hotels’ blemishes rather than their rustic charm are what leave a lasting impression on many of the 225,000 guests who visit annually. Many Glacier, the largest of the lodges with 211 rooms, is in the worst shape by far, requiring an estimated $50 million in repairs.

Room rates at the hotel run from $103 a night to $190 for a suite, yet it has no electric heat or air conditioning, water lines with a 30-year life span are 50 years old, and wood braces installed years ago for extra support are rotting.

One hallway earned the nickname “Stagger Alley” because it leans in opposite directions due to foundation shifts, caused by giant snowdrifts that shove the hotel one way or the other. The foundation is so badly buckled that the doors to several rooms won’t open fully.

“It’s just moving all the time,” says hotel engineer Tom Gervais. “In a couple of years, it’s going to be too late. If it doesn’t fall over on its own, they’ll have to push it into the lake.”

One tour company stopped bringing visitors to the hotels because of escalating complaints. Another, Connecticut-based Tauck Tours, includes a disclaimer about the condition of the lodges in its brochures. Nevertheless, says spokesman Michael Marino, it continues to receive scores of grievances:

“Bathroom ceiling leaked, poured water from upstairs.”

“Hotel is a firetrap.”

“The worst hotel rooms we’ve ever seen.”

Lodges’ Condition Part of Visiting a Piece of Past

Still, some guests say the leaks and creaks are just part of the experience of visiting a piece of America’s past.

“We’re happy with the steam heating and the clanking,” Jack Martin of Avon Lake, Ohio, said during a recent stay at Many Glacier. “I’d just hate to come up here next year and find it looking like a Marriott or something.”

Scott, of Glacier Park Inc., insists the historic look of the lodges will be maintained but says they must also be made safe and comfortable for visitors.

“My vision is that when the guest walks in here it matches their perception of what a destination resort should be. They don’t walk in and find small bathrooms, heating systems that don’t work, doors that don’t close,” he says.

“It’s migrated from what was a world-class destination resort to where it wouldn’t even rate a star.”