Two more postcards from GN-owned Glacier Park Company show two of the company’s hotels in the park. Bob and Ira Spring are credited with taking the photo of Lake McDonald Hotel with Mt. Brown in the background. Unlike Many Glacier and other Glacier Park hotels, Lake McDonald Hotel wasn’t built by the Great Northern, but was acquired by the railway in 1930.
Click image to download a PDF of this postcard.
When the hotel was built in 1913, passengers would get off the train in West Glacier (Belton) and take an 8-mile boat trip up Lake McDonald. The front of the hotel therefore faces the lake. After road access opened in 1921, the back of the hotel effectively became the front. The hotel’s name was changed to Lake McDonald Lodge in 1957, which dates this postcard to before that year.
The second postcard shows Many Glacier Hotel, on Swiftcurrent Lake, with what I believe is Mt. Gould in the background. The steep slope of Mt. Grinnell can be seen in the far right of the photo.