Video
Road Out of Rock
Descriptive Transcript
Title card: United States Department of Agriculture Educational Film Service: A Road Out of Rock, Contribution from Bureau of Public Roads, Photographed by George R. Goergens. Produced in cooperation with the U.S. Department of the Interior.
Title card: Highway construction in the National Parks is carried on by the National Park Service, U.S. Department of the Interior, in cooperation with the Bureau of Public Roads, U.S. Department of Agriculture.
A snowy mountain towers over a forested lake. Text appears: “In Glacier National Park”
An animated arrow zooms over a map of the western U.S., pointing to the portion of northwestern Montana that is Glacier National Park.
Title card: The “Garden Wall”
A forested mountain valley, where further views are obscured by smoke or haze.
A rocky outcropping. Text appears: “The great barrier, raised when the earth contracted in the geologic dawn, has separated east from west in this scenic region.”
The sun rises over a craggy range.
A river framed by pine trees.
A massive mountain valley.
Man on horseback leading a string of pack horses up a trail. Text appears: “But now the National Park Service is having the Bureau of Public Roads build a modern automobile highway through these mountains.”
A topographic map overview of Glacier Park.
Title card: The new road will provide an easy route through the park.
A hand holding a pencil traces the road’s route along the mountainsides of the topographic map from west to east.
Title card: This road takes front rank among highways built over obstacles. It was necessary to place the workmen’s camps high up in the mountains.
A tent camp overlooking a forested mountain valley.
Title card: Really close to nature.
Crouching, a man in chef’s uniform throws food to a bear.
Title card: Supplies for the camps must be carried up by pack train.
Two men secure crates onto a horse’s saddle.
A string of horses, each carrying three crates, head up a trail.
The pack string follows a narrow mountainside trail next to long, cascading waterfalls.
The horses navigate difficult, rocky terrain.
Title card: Food.
Title card: Tools.
The horses pick their way through a switchback.
Title card: Dynamite.
Title card: Oil, in barrels too heavy for one horse to carry, must be sledded up the trails.
Two horses, reins held by a man following behind, pull an oil barrel on a sled.
Title card: On finished portions of the road the caterpillar tractor takes over the burden.
A rudimentary tractor with man riding atop pulls several barrels of oil up the road.
Title card: The “pack horse garage”.
Men working to shoe pack horses at a log shelter.
Illustrated title card depicting a man using a surveying instrument to look across a mountain landscape. Text reads, “Locating the road.”
Seen through a circular scope, men perched on a cliff using surveying equipment and waving. An expanded view shows their size relative to the mountainside.
Holding surveying equipment, two men use ropes to descend a rocky cliffside.
One man rappels a sheer rock face, with the rope belayed by the second man standing on a ledge.
Title card: Drilling before blasting.
A group of men working on the mountainside. One man drills into the rock. Others load dynamite into a hole in the rock.
Title card: Moving the rock.
An enormous blast of dust and rock explode from the rock face next to the existing trail.
Title card: Clearing the debris.
Six men use crowbars to hoist an enormous boulder over the mountainside.
A rudimentary bulldozer moves chunks of rock off the trail, sending them tumbling over the steep cliffside.
Title card: Crushing rock for surfacing material.
A pulley system brings large rock material up to crushed.
A truck backs up to the wooden scaffolding.
Title card: The sand washer, part of the surfacing equipment.
A man takes a handful of the sand and inspects it.
Title card: Laying down the surfacing.
A truck drives forward, dumping finely crushed rock out the back. It’s followed by two men on a horse-drawn machine that flattens out the crushed rock.
Title card: Ready for travel.
Cars travel a flat gravel stretch of road surrounded by towering pines.
Text appears over image of a lake: Another great scenic highway in our national road system.
A man points out across a mountain valley.
From across the vast valley, the outline of the road is visible cutting across the mountainsides.
Description
This black-and-white silent film was made during the construction of the Going-to-the-Sun Road in Glacier National Park circa 1927-1933. It shows the monumental task of building a road on the side of a mountain using early machinery and methods. Although the film shows a bear being fed, please know that this is illegal today.
Duration
9 minutes, 13 seconds
Credit
NPS Video
Copyright and Usage Info