Many Glacier Hotel

Many Glacier Hotel overlooks Swiftcurrent Lake. 

There is an adjacent trail system which is not totally accessible yet it is fairly flat for those individuals that would like a short walk on flat ground.

The site for Many Glacier was chosen over any other in the valley for the simple reason of symmetry.  Thought was given to building the hotel where the parking lot is now located but was obviously decided against, deeming the lake front more desirable.  The Great Northern Railway began building this hotel in 1914.  It is said that 400 men worked day and night from May until September to complete the main structure. The hotel opened to its first guests on July 4, 1915, but the annex building was not completed until 1917.

The $500,000 it cost to build the hotel was spent mostly on plumbing fixtures, wire, nails, glass, boilers and other such materials, which are not indigenous to a mountain valley.   Half a million may not seem like much for a large undertaking, but then most construction materials were grown locally.  The large trees, which became the lobby columns came from a stand of trees at the upper end of Lake Josephine and rock from the excavation of the building site, along that quarry from the area, became fireplaces, chimneys and lake-level walls.  The Great Northern Railway set up a sawmill and drying kiln near the hotel site to process timber into lumber for construction.  The architect for this project served as co-designer of Glacier Park Lodger in East Glacier, explaining why there is a marked similarity between the two structures.

At one time, the hotel has a round fountain surrounded by a special staircase that connected the lobby with the St. Moritz Room.  There were pools at the bottom of the fountain and whenever possible trout were placed in the pools for the amusement of the guests. In the late 1950’s during renovations of the hotel, the fountain was removed.  There also was a swimming pool located adjacent to what is now the carpenters shop and below the lake side dining room windows.  Because of the size of the pool, it was soon discovered that all of the heat generated by the boilers was being used to heat the water in the pool and the hotel was left cold.  It was decided to cease heating the pool and since no one wanted to swim in 45 degree water, the swimming pool met demise in 1930.