JEFFERSON COUNTY MUSEUM PRESENTS: Glacier National Park: Its Early History

This illustrated lecture by collector Lee Silliman of Missoula will investigate the story of Montana's Glacier National Park from Native American days to 1940 at the Jefferson County Museum in Clancy, Montana, on Saturday, October 1 starting at 3 PM. It complements Silliman's exhibition of early Glacier memorabilia such as old tourist album lithographs, original black and white photographs, and vintage promotional advertisements that will be on display at the museum from October through next February. The public is cordially invited at no charge to this lecture.

The talk begins by discussing how Blackfeet, Kootenai, and other tribes utilized the natural resources of the park for millennia. Next, important individuals in the establishment of the park will be introduced, such as George Bird Grinnell, James Willard Schultz, and Louis Warren Hill. The images of four photographers who recorded Glacier's wonders for wider audiences will be shown next, namely T. J. Hileman, Fred Kiser, Roland Reed, and George Grant. Following the photographers, paintings of Glacier artists such as John Fery, Charles Russell, and Winold Reiss will be shown. The talk concludes with a discussion of the hotels and chalets, construction of the Going-To-The-Sun Road, horseback trips into the backcountry, and finally, "Then & Now" images showing dramatic glacial shrinkage of the past century. All of these topics served the early twentieth century patriotic movement to "See America First."