Whitefish: Stumptown to Glacier Gateway
Near Whitefish, Montana
Whitefish was called Stumptown before it had an official name, because early residents had to clear so many trees just to build it. The Great Northern Railway established a division point here in nineteen oh four, and the town incorporated in nineteen oh five. Railroad workers and loggers made up most of the population.
In nineteen twenty-eight, the Great Northern commissioned a Tudor Revival depot designed to complement the Swiss-chalet lodges the railroad had built inside Glacier National Park, twenty-six miles to the east. After World War Two, skiing transformed the town again. Whitefish Mountain Resort opened in nineteen forty-seven, and what had been a railroad and lumber town became a four-season destination.
The Great Northern's handsome depot still stands, now used as a working train station and tourist center, the best-preserved reminder of how one railroad shaped an entire corner of Montana.
