Video
Driving the Going-to-the-Sun Road: 1950s
Descriptive Transcript
DRIVING THE GOING-TO-THE-SUN ROAD 1950s – DESCRIPTIVE TRANSCRIPT
Title card: Driving the Going-the-the-Sun Road: 1950s
Title card: Between 1946 and 1952, annual visitation to Glacier more than tripled. Park staff began to express concern about traffic on the Sun Road in the 1950s.
Color footage with date label '1950'. 1950s-era cars drive through a checking station set at the foot of a gently sloping mountain.
Title card: These clips show Logan Pass before the visitor center and boardwalk trails were built. A 1954 study found that the park's facilities could not accommodate the rapidly increasing numbers of visitors.
Color footage with date label '1950.' Aerial view across a parking lot with several 'arms'. The parking lot abuts a rocky area dotted with small pine trees, crisscrossed with trails and a small stone building. A main trails cuts through alpine meadows leading up to the base of a mountain.
Closer view of the stone building and a group of people clustered around a trailhead sign. A network of trails surround the stone building, with stairs leading down to the parking lot.
Title card: By the 1950s, the park was under increasing pressure from local businesses to open the Going-to-the-Sun Road as early as possible---by June 15th at the latest, or as soon as one lane had been cut through the snow. This practice would change in the 1960s.
Color footage with date label '1955'. A visible line cuts across hulking mountains partly covered with snow. Cars wind around a bend in a narrow road cut out of a massive snowdrift, towering at least 60 feet high. A yellow sign on the road reads, “One Way Traffic.”
Title card: In 1954, NPS Director Conrad Wirth reported that the national park system, designed for 25 million visitors a year, could expect more than 80 million a year by the mid-1960s.
Title card: This led to 'Mission 66', a 10-year program beginning in 1956 designed to improve infrastructure and visitor facilities in the NPS.
Color footage with date label 'ca. 1953-1956.' Cars wind around bends in a mountainside road with steep drop-offs.
A red bus pulls over to a turnoff along the road, where other cars are parked.
Title card: Mission 66 projects planned for Glacier included new visitor centers, campgrounds, parking lots, exhibits, signage, and much more.
Title card: The park also set two new records for the earliest-ever opening of the Going-to-the-Sun Road---May 27 in 1957 and May 23 in 1958.
Color footage with date label 'ca. 1953-1956'. Red buses and cars convene pull into a parking lot at the base of a mountain. The parking lot looks full and a line of people walk up a ramp leading away from the parking lot.
Aerial views of cars driving a mountain road winding through a mountain valley. The road snakes through the steep rocky mountainside. The valley below is filled with dark green forest.
Cars travel a lower portion of the road lined by towering pines.
Description
These archival clips show visitors driving the Going-to-the-Sun Road in the 1950s, with some historical context explained.
Duration
3 minutes, 52 seconds
Credit
NPS Video
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