Glacier's Historic Hotels & Chalets: View With a Room

We saw this while staying at Granite Park Chalet and decided that we needed a copy of our own. After an amazing trip hiking for 6 days in Glacier National Park we ordered this when we arrived back home.

Totally in awe at Glacier National Park but just couldn't afford another book (actually spent all our $$ on gas !). When I found it on Amaazon I couldn't resist again. The memories and now full stories are a treasure.

Good book to read before going to Glacier

As a lover of Glacier National Park, I tried my best to understand every bit of it. Although hotels are usually not the points for most tourists, these historic hotels played a great role in the park history and early development. Among all of the national parks, the hotels/chalets in Glacier National Park are the best with drama and romance. I am glad authors spend huge time and efforts to systematically document these rarely unknown history of these hotels/chalets. This is the best book to document it, at least so far. Most of Glacier's historic hotels were built by Great Northern Railway in the early 20th century. There were no road in the park and tourists have to hike or ride a horse saddle to see the grandeur of the park. These hotels/chalets serve as a stopping point for tourists to stay over night and continue their journey for the next day, which is quite different from the way we tour the park. The ups and downs of these hotels are documented and suitable historic photos are provided. Interviews with ex-employees or park rangers are also described. Each hotel is within couple pages and pretty easy to read and enjoy. Every hotel has its own character, or story. Some survives until today but others don't. If you love the hotel you've stayed in the park, I highly recommend this book.

Only a couple of colored illustrations (postcards), mostly old black/white photos. When I buy a book on historic building, I want to see THEN and NOW pictures. The monochromatic photos lose the sense of grandeur so impressive on the book's beautiful cover.

I found a hardback version of this book at GNP while visiting last summer. Was delighted to find this very affordable softcover version. Highly recommend it to anyone interested in western National Park architecture.