The Disabled Traveler's Companion


Glacier Park Lodge

Glacier Park Lodge is a stones throw from East Glacier.  The railroad is what divides the two.  You can take a train from where ever and disembark at the depot and walk to either Glacier Park Lodge or go across the street of East Glacier where you will find a place to dine and grocery store among the choices.

Glacier Park Lodge is not in Glacier National Park but just on the outskirts.  It is very near Two Medicine and Runniubg Eagle Falls Nature Trail.  Located in the south east corner of Glacier

Glacier Park Lodge was built almost a century ago by the Great Northern Railroad.  Situated on the Blackfeet Reservation, the hotel site was purchased from the Piegan, a tribe of the Blackfeet nation.

This site was in a settlement known as Midvale.  When the present railway depot was built in 1912, the area was renamed Glacier Park Station and then became known as East Glacier Park in 1950.

The section of the lodge containing the lobby and dining room was erected in 1912-1913 and opened to guests on June 15, 1913.  The opening was a very festive occasion.  Hundreds of Blackfeet Indians erected their lodges (teepees) on the grounds and some 600 invited guests attended the celebration.

Few of these elderly Indians had ever been beyond the boundaries of the government reservation and they never ceased to wonder as the seemingly unlimited powers the “Great Spirit” bestowed on the white man as the massive lodge took shape.  They stood and watched in awe as the gigantic fir and cedar columns, which would support the verandahs and form a colonnade in the lobby, were unloaded from flatcars.  Weighing 15 tons each, only two of the huge timbers could be loaded onto each flatcar and when they arrived in Montana they had to be dragged by mule teams from the railroad to the building site.  The Indians promptly named the new lodge “Umiaks” or, translated “Big Tree Lodge”.

These immense timbers which support the lodge were probably 500 to 800 years old when they were cut and all of the retain their bark.  There are 60 of them, 36 to 42 inches in diameter and 40 feet long.  In the lobby, there are Douglas fir and the verandahs are supported by cedars from Washington.

The Lodge was hardly open to guests before necessity for enlargement became recognized.  During the winter of 1913-1914 the annex building, employee’s quarters, power house and laundry were built and the dining room was expanded.  All in all, it took a crew of 75 men a year and a half to construct the two main buildings.

    

GLACIER PARK LODGE

P. O. Box 2025
Columbia Falls, MT 59912
406-892-2525
Web Site
You cannot reserve an accessible room through the Internet. You must call Glacier Park Inc directly. Ask them to "Hard Block" your room of choice. The parking for a visitor with a disability is at the base of the hotel. The driveway to the main entrance is rather steep and you will need assistance going up from the parking space. The rewarding atmosphere of history far outweighs the assistance you will need going up this steep grade.

ACCESSIBLE ROOMS:


 

 
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