Glacier Album: Historic Photographs of Glacier National Park

Over the years, Michael Ober, Flathead Valley Community College Library director, Montana historian and long-time seasonal ranger at Glacier National Park, has collected hundreds of black and white photos of Glacier National Park's earliest years. The images, largely taken by ordinary park visitors, capture roughly the first 40 years of the park. Most of the images have never been seen or published before—until now.

As Glacier National Park celebrates its 100th anniversary this year, Ober thought this would be an ideal time present the photos to the public providing them with a intimate look at the most significant years of the Park.

"The first 40 years of Glacier Park were the Park's biggest years," said Ober. "They laid down the foundation of what the Park is today."

To honor the Park's anniversary, Ober compiled the photos he collected from photo archives at Glacier Park, the Minnesota Historical Society, The University of Montana Mansfield Library and the Montana Historical Society and combined them with captions and narrative to produce the photo-documentary Glacier Album: Historic Photographs of Glacier National Park.

"Part of the pleasure in producing such a title comes in the tangential discovery of hundreds of photographs taken by ordinary park visitors," said Ober. "I cling to the belief that humans still like to look at pictures of other humans doing human things."

The images and stories found in the book represent the early development years of the Park from its establishment on May 11, 1910 to the post-war boom in automobile travel. According to Ober, they worked well to highlight the history of Glacier's earliestyears just after the close of the second World War when a robust American traveling public was beginning to embrace color film to record their journeys.

"The end of the war meant the end of black and white," he said.

Ober notes the photographs have immediate interpretive value and yield endless opportunities for the imagination.

"A historic photo halts everything: the clothing, equipment, time of day, the season, weather and the lingering faces of people who age no more."

Perhaps it couldn't be better said than by summer tourist Igna Westfall who inscribed the following on the back of her 1921 snapshot photo: "I packed my brave little camera and ample films as I was determined to record the smiles of our children amid the high peaks…"