On May 11, 1910, Glacier National Park in Montana became the tenth national park in the United States. During the second decade of its existence, from 1920 to 1930, the fledgling National Park Service continued to define its mission to:
"conserve the scenery and the natural and historic objects and wildlife therein, and to provide for the enjoyment of the same in such manner and by such means as will leave them unimpaired for the enjoyment of future generations."
At the same time, Glacier National Park’s tourism continued to be developed in close cooperation with the Great Northern Railroad. While the Blackfoot Indians, whose lands had become Glacier National Park, had no say in the administration of the Park, the railroad used the tribe to promote Park tourism. They became the “Glacier Park Indians” in the railroad’s advertising and public relations.
Administration:
In 1923, Glacier National Park administrators, assuming that the Blackfoot were subject to state law, attempted to end hunting near the eastern border of the park. Park wardens arrested Blackfoot and Cree hunters for killing elk east of the park boundary (that is, outside of the park itself on reservation land). The judge, however, released the men and returned the elk to them. The National Park Service then advised the Indian agent in Browning, the capital of the Blackfoot Nation, that the elk in Glacier National Park were not native, but had been imported from Yellowstone National Park and therefore the Indians did not have the right to hunt them. The Indians simply laughed at this tale.
In 1929, the National Park Service proposed enlarging Glacier National Park by adding more Blackfoot land to the park. Ignoring the Blackfoot themselves, the Park Service asked the Indian Office for help in the matter and enlisted the aid of an “Indian expert”. The park was told that the Blackfoot would not give up any additional area to the park for any monetary consideration.
Tourism:
During the Roaring Twenties, tourism at Glacier National Park focused on images of the West, complete with horses, cowboys, and, of course, Indians.
In 1926, the Great Northern Railway was using a forty-member Blackfoot dance group to help promote tourism to Glacier National Park. The group performed at the dedication of the new football stadium at the Haskell Indian School in Kansas. The Blackfoot dancers joined Indian dancers from 70 tribes who participated in the dance contests.
The following year, the Great Northern Railroad sponsored a seventy city tour for a group of 35 Blackfoot as a part of its promotion of Glacier National Park. In Baltimore, the group took part in the Centennial Railway Exhibition. In New York, Percy Little Dog gave Mayor Jimmy Walker the name Many Rider.
The Great Northern Railway also commissioned German artist Winold Reiss to paint portraits of Blackfoot Indians as a part of its promotion of Glacier National Park. He completed 51 portraits in 1927. The following year, he completed an additional 19 portraits.
In 1928, the Great Northern Railway published American Indian Portraits which featured paintings of Blackfoot Indians.
Tourism was also impacted by prohibition. Many of the tourists who visited the Park wanted to be able to enjoy an alcoholic drink as they sat in the luxury of one of the lodges or around one of the campfires. Fortunately for them, Canada was nearby and Canada hadn’t gotten involved with the insanity of prohibition. Smuggling of alcohol into the Park was common. In 1927, promoter Louis Hill built the Prince of Wales Hotel on the shore of Waterton Lake in Canada where the guests could gather in the pub, have a drink and a good time.
Automobiles:
During the 1920s, automobiles were beginning to change the nature of tourism. By1924, Congress was budgeting money to improve roads in the national parks. Stephen Mather, Glacier’s superintendent at the time, feared that a poorly designed road system in the park would destroy the fragile landscape. According to Mather:
“Our purpose is to construct only such roads as contribute solely toward accessibility of the major scenic areas by motor without disturbing the solitude and quiet of other sections.”
Veteran road-building engineer George E. Goodwin proposed a plan to build a road which would rise to the summit of Logan Pass in a series of fifteen switchbacks. However, this idea was opposed by Thomas Vint, who is described as a “wet-behind-the-ears” landscape architect. Vint pointed out that the Goodwin plan would make the landscape “look like miners had been there.” As an alternative, he proposed a longer road that required a single switchback. This plan led to the Going-to-the-Sun Road and construction started in 1925.
Names:
In that same year, as a part of a publicity program for the Park, author J.W. Schultz, known for his autobiographical novel My Life as an Indian, began a program of assigning Blackfoot names to the Park’s features. Working with Eli Guardipee, Curly Bear, and other Blackfoot elders, the plan was to begin at the southeastern corner of the Park and work northward along the eastern slope of the Rocky Mountains. The idea was to assign names of Indians painted by George Catlin and Charles Bodmer rather than reasserting the aboriginal names.
Hunting:
In 1924, Peter Oscar Little Chief began to circulate a petition among the Blackfoot calling for recognition of their hunting rights in Glacier National Park. He claimed that the Blackfoot retained these rights in their 1895 treaty:
“We sold to the U.S. Government nothing but rocks only. We still control timber, grass, water, and all big or small game or all the animals living in this [sic] mountains”
He submitted his petition to the Bureau of Indian affairs, but received no response.
In 1928, Peter Oscar Little Chief complained to Montana Senator James Walsh that the Indian Office had not responded to his 1924 petition regarding Blackfoot hunting rights in Glacier National Park. Walsh contacted the Commissioner of Indian Affairs who knew nothing about the petition but informed Walsh that Indians had no hunting rights in the park.