Like the menus shown in the previous two days, this one lists Wm. Dolphin as Superintendent of Dining Cars. Unlike the previous menus, this one has a detailed description of the cover photo on the back. This suggests a new menu format that would date this menu somewhat later.

Click image to download a 1.8-MB PDF of this menu, scans for which were provided by Brian Leiteritz.

What the menu calls Morrison Cave is now known as Lewis and Clark Caverns State Park. The limestone caves were discovered by local ranchers in the late nineteenth century and local businesses persuaded President Roosevelt to declare them a national monument in 1908.

In 1937 the Park Service decided the area was not nationally significant and gave it to the state of Montana, which made it into the state’s first state park. Although Lewis and Clark camped nearby, they never actually saw the caverns, but the state decided to name the park after them rather than after Dan Morrison, who first promoted tourism in the area in around 1900.

In 1938, workers with the Civilian Conservation Corps opened a second entrance into the caverns, allowing tourists to make a one-way loop rather than have to backtrack up a narrow, slippery staircase. The menu refers to “A newly blasted tunnel [that] enables visitors to emerge from the lowest level of the cave and walk back over a pleasant trail to the parking area.” Based on this, I would date the menu to 1939, but it could be from 1940.