While snow removal, road openings, and avalanches received much public attention, Park Service officials in Glacier and throughout the nation revealed plans to deal with the demands of increased visitation. Travel trends to Glacier reflected the nationwide enthusiasm for national parks, and in Glacier visitation increased from 200,000 people in 1946 to 600,000 by 1954. The expectations that park roads and facilities would soon be entirely unable to accommodate such increasing demands brought a comprehensive ten-year plan for developing additional facilities and roads in the national parks. It was called "MISSION 66" after its projected completion date, 1966.

Antiquated public facilities, which today might be considered rustic, plagued the minds of Park Service planners. More modern facilities, including visitor centers, rest rooms, gas stations, and coffee shops, began to dot the park landscape in response to the growth of visitation during the 1950s and as a result of MISSION 66. (Courtesy of Glacier National Park Historical Collections)

Faced with the realities and problems of mass visitation, Park Service Director Conrad Wirth felt that "planning for today and the immediate future, and construction on that basis, can lead only to future embarrassment and to renewed demands for more of everything." Thus, in Glacier and throughout the rest of the National Park System, "reliable plans" were to be developed on the basis of a "10 year forecast," so that by 1966, when all construction would be complete and plans fulfilled, "travel development for visitor needs, and park protection [will be] brought into proper harmony."

Superintendent J. W. Emmert and his staff developed plans for Glacier and sent them on to regional and national offices for approval, and, when Mission 66 construction began in the Park in 1958, it was called the "largest and most varied construction program in the Park's history." One of the Congressional supporters of this program, Representative (later Senator) Lee Metcalf noted that excessive amounts of money had been previously spent on road construction leading to Glacier and for driving within it. Metcalf concluded: "The result is that Americans have better, safer, speedier access to deteriorating facilities."

"Varied" was the perfect word to describe the myriad of projects which Mission 66 covered in Glacier. A new administration building was constructed; housing was built for Park Service employees; campgrounds were expanded and new fireplaces, picnic tables, and comfort stations added. Older projects were complemented with Going-to-the-Sun Road sprouting new parking areas, turnouts, and picnic areas as well as two extensive visitor centers, one at St. Mary and the other at Logan Pass. The new road toward the North Fork and emerging at Camas Creek was also completed as part of this comprehensive plan. While the bulk of Mission 66 activity in Glacier was directed toward "reconstruction and renovation" of some of the "dilapidated" roadside exhibits, interpretive signs, sewage and water systems, buildings, bridges, boat docks, trails and roadways, the newer projects like a ranger station at Waterton Lake and new visitor centers received the most attention. Glacier's administrators felt a responsibility to provide for "access and other reasonable needs of visitors" but alleged that "most of the park is relatively undisturbed by man-made intrusions and should remain that way." While preservation was an announced guideline during all of this activity, the twenty-three million dollar construction program of Mission 66—even though it was primarily confined to previously developed areas—tended to overshadow preservation efforts.

Attention directed toward the ecology of Glacier Park did increase as greater scientific research and observation yielded some new evidence. Elk herds on Glacier's east side were found to be overpopulating their range because of past protection, thus during the 1950s a program of "constant harassment" was begun to force the elk to "drift out" of the park onto the Blackfeet Reservation where the Indians could harvest the surplus animals. Superintendent Emmert noted that in 1956 alone over one hundred animals "drifted out" of the park.

While this kind of active "management" may have been exceptional, Park Service specialists began to watch the elk herds at Belly River, St. Mary, and along the Middle Fork with an eye toward preventing overpopulation, overgrazing, and possible starvation because their natural predators had vanished. Similarly, by 1963, a new ranger position was introduced to devote greater attention to the problems of wildlife and fisheries management. As a result, range studies, animal census reports, and more intensified biological research were to be conducted to give scientific input for park decision making. Numerous other forestry programs of preceding years added to the "preservation" aspects of Glacier's management as Mission 66 continued.

While Mission 66 silenced criticism that the park was "underdeveloped" or had "dilapidated" facilities, proponents of the "unimpaired status" of national parks began to argue that this program attracted people to the parks for the wrong kind of reasons. Devereaux Butcher wrote that through Mission 66 "the taxpayer unknowingly is taking part in the impairment of these masterpieces of nature's handiwork. To popularize and commercialize the national parks is to cheapen them and reduce them to the level of ordinary playgrounds." Another preservationist, Frank A. Tinker, blamed increased development in the national parks on the "newly-liberated citizen" who "comes to the woods not from any compulsion or love or interest, but from idleness or vapid curiosity; not for inspiration but for thrills." He added that the "culprits" responsible for the "abuse of America's outdoors," were the "pampered, flattered, 'normal' Americans who drive afield in their second mortgaged car to 'damn well get what's coming to them.'" Tinker went on to criticize Mission 66 for blasting roads through the "pitifully few remaining wilderness areas" and for increasing facilities in these areas.

As early as 1957, Sierra Club spokesman David R. Brower warned that expanding population and greater public use of the national parks would endanger the esthetic values of their wilderness environment. He argued that "carrying capacities" should be established and that other areas aside from national parks should be developed to provide recreation for those who wanted to be "entertained in comfort." Similarly, Kirke Wilson added that Mission 66 projects showed that "the flood of visitors forces the Park Service into projects which are incongruous with the setting and incompatible with park purpose." Other critics argued that Glacier and other parks should not be "urbanized" and should be spared "from the vandalism of improvement." While these critics did not stop the Mission 66 projects in Glacier, the idealism of the preservationists produced reverberations which would be heard for years to come.

Early campers were so few in number that their, impact was insignificant. But the addition of Going-to-the-Sun Road brought increasing numbers of automobiles and visitors seeking a pleasant yet inexpensive holiday. Demands of the camping public began to include pull-through campsites for trailers, showers, electrical hookups, sewage disposal systems, and other amenities. The self-sufficient camper of the 1920s became more sophisticated and demanding by the 1950s. (Courtesy of Glacier National Park Historical Collections)

But the "improvements" of the Mission 66 program and the criticism which followed it were not the only problems faced in the 1960s. Several natural calamities combined to produce added problems. In 1964, an unseasonally cool spring gave snow almost no chance to melt gradually. As a result, in early June, several days of continuous warm weather and rain unleashed a deluge of water which poured down the mountain streams, overfilled the lakes, and flooded nearby valleys. Most of northwestern Montana was affected by this flooding, with numerous lives lost and untold damage done. In Glacier, the flooding waters tore out sections of road, ripped numerous bridges away, devastated miles of back-country trails, ruined the old Waterton Ranger Station, inundated sections of several hotels, and collapsed the bridge at West Glacier, nearly isolating the park headquarters. The efforts of Superintendent Keith Neilson and his staff enabled the park to be reopened in record time. The flood delayed most of the Mission 66 work projects and meant that many additional "emergency" work programs were initiated to rebuild and replace damaged facilities. As a result of the 1964 flood, most park roads and buildings underwent repair, but some back-country bridges and large sections of trail were simply abandoned as too expensive to restore. This natural disaster eroded the "improvements" of Mission 66 and made continual reconstruction projects mandatory for the rest of the decade.

Floods have caused costly damage to roads, trails, hotels, and other developments in recent times. An abundance of late-melting snow coupled with several days of warm rain has caused severe spring flooding, particularly in 1958, 1964, and 1975. The flood of 1964 ruined miles of back-country trails, ripped away sections of road, tore away bridges, and caused the deletion of many of the Mission 66 improvements. (Courtesy of Glacier National Park Historical Collections)

Only three years later, in 1967, two additional natural forces combined to upset park management. Following a very dry summer, a highly charged electrical storm passed over Glacier's forests on the evening of August 11, igniting some twenty fires. Since Park Service manpower was soon depleted, smokejumpers from Missoula, firefighters from around Montana, and finally fire crews from all over the West (including Alaska) were dispatched to control these fires. A total of three thousand five hundred firefighters worked in August and September to control these fires. The Glacier Wall Fire, located along Going-to-the-Sun Road, gave fire crews particular problems because of the precipitous cliffs and because of a sixty-mile-an-hour wind which drove the fire across both McDonald Creek and Going-to-the-Sun Road and up along the Garden Wall.

As these forest fires occupied park crews, other more tragic events occurred. In two separate incidents in the early morning of August 13, two grizzly bears attacked two separate groups of back-country campers. At the Trout Lake campsite and at Granite Park campground near Granite Park Chalet, separated by some ten miles of mountains and valleys, two girls, Michele Koons and Julie Helgeson, along with Helgeson's companion, Roy Ducat, were mauled by the grizzlies. Both of the girls died that same morning. Certainly these were not the first encounters between bears and visitors in Glacier Park, but the maulings produced the first recorded deaths in park history caused by this unpredictable animal. The idea that two deaths occurred in a single night compounded by the fact that both were attractive, college-aged women, drew national attention toward this event. Speculation that "thunderstorms may have goaded the animals into a killing rage" or that the bears were drunk on overripe huckleberries was countered by more rational minds suggesting that the victims did not follow elementary back-country procedures and invited disaster. Again, the critics of the Park Service claimed that shoddy back-country management allowed these bears to travel in and out of the campsites and chalet areas to feed on garbage provided by campers and chalet employees. And critics felt that the park officials who had been aware of grizzlies frequenting these areas had done nothing to eliminate their food sources or to discourage people from visiting those areas. One local writer added that the two girls' deaths were unnecessary since they were "sacrificed to the stupid policy 'Let Nature take its course' followed by the bureaucratic running of our local Glacier Park."

Feeding bears at garbage dumps was common in Glacier and in other national parks for many years. Upon realizing that allowing bears to depend on unnatural food sources might provoke bear human confrontations, dumps were eliminated, back-country users were alerted to pack items out that were packed in, and greater attention was given to actively eliminating problems of bear and human contact. (Courtesy of Glacier National Park Historical Collections)

Thus, fires and bears brought the Park Service in Glacier under more severe criticism than ever before. Superintendent Keith Neilson felt that "public relations and press coverage" served to animate even the most mundane issue which may have been originally "erroneous and misleading." Even though public relations were undoubtedly a problem, changes in management began to occur with emphasis placed upon eliminating bear encounters in particular. For example, trail crews were directed to clean up garbage around back-country campsites; chalet crews were directed to stop dumping garbage which might attract bears; hikers were told to pack out whatever they packed in; and directions for safe travel and proper use of the back country were placed at every trail head. And later, bear locations were noted after observations occurred, "troublesome" bears were transported away from developed areas, people were warned of bear activity in particular areas, and, finally, some trails and areas were entirely closed to the public if bears were present.

Thus, by the late 1960s. these events turned the public eye toward Glacier as never before. One particular issue kept the public attention through the later 1960s and into the following decade. Through the efforts of national preservationist groups, the Wilderness Act was passed by Congress in 1964, making it mandatory for park officials to delineate those areas of their parks which would be classified as wilderness. These "wilderness" sections of the national parks would reaffirm the "preservation" objective of the parks and would insure their protection by law from any additional "development." This wilderness could not contain any "permanent improvements or human habitation."

Park administrators began to plan which areas of Glacier should be designated as "wilderness" and which areas should retain "development" such as roads, hotels, motorized vehicles, and the like. The solution in Glacier seemed to be the establishment of "corridors" of development—such as that along Going-to-the-Sun Road—or "enclaves" of development such as the campground at Bowman Lake or Sperry Chalet. The term "wilderness threshold" was used to describe developed areas. At public hearings environmentally minded citizens overwhelmingly argued for the inclusion of more of Glacier's area into the protected "wilderness" status. And under pressure from Congressional wilderness advocates, like Senator Frank Church, the park planners went back to their drawing boards to erase the enclaves and corridors and then resubmitted a proposal with a maximum of Glacier's back country in the wilderness classification. Areas of necessary development, such as fire lookouts, snowshoe cabins, or Going-to-the-Sun Road, would remain, but their extension was to be prohibited by law, and the Wilderness Act evolved into a major preservation program for Glacier. Even though Park Service officials argued that their attention was directed toward the letter of the law, that the Wilderness Act was not explicit, and that the concept of "wilderness" and its definition was slow in evolving, their leadership in preservation appeared stalled as others advocated the preservation idealism for Glacier Park.

Beginning in 1969, Glacier National Park became the center of environmental controversy in Montana. Early in March, a Hungry Horse News headline read: "U.S. Facility Pollutes Center of Glacier." This revelation that sewage from the Logan Pass Visitor Center escaped treatment and flowed directly into Reynolds Creek and then into scenic St. Mary Lake shocked many citizens. In June, Superintendent Neilson's transfer was announced and a Park Service "troubleshooter" William J. Briggle became the new superintendent. Briggle, an experienced Recreation Area superintendent and a forceful individual, was told to clear up the problems of bears, pollution, and charges of mismanagement which had hit the headlines and plagued the Park Service in previous years.

The construction of a boardwalk on Logan Pass in 1971 developed into a public controversy regarding its unsightliness or acceptability in the alpine area near, the visitor center. Termed "an experiment" by some and "an atrocity" by others, the boardwalk symbolized a growing appreciation for the natural condition of Glacier and the sensitive nature of any additional "improvements" within the national park. (Courtesy of Dr. James R. Habeck)

But Briggle came under the now-sharpened eye of an environmentally awakened public. When he announced in December that Glacier lay dormant for nearly eight months of the year and that "the potential for development is tremendous, but there is no organized effort at the moment to do it," some environmentalists immediately took issue. Jim Rice of Whitefish, Montana, responded: "I'd like to remind Supt. Briggle that he is bound by law to protect Glacier and all that is enclosed by its boundaries. I for one frankly hope he devotes the bulk of his time to that goal, rather than promotion." Another Glacier Park-watcher, Dr. James R. Habeck of the University of Montana, an author of fifteen scientific studies on Glacier, concurred with Rice and, by 1971, pointed out that Briggle was managing Glacier as a recreation area rather than a natural area and he felt that the Superintendent had trouble defining what was "appropriate use" in Glacier. Habeck charged that allowing water skiing, promoting snowmobiling, constructing a boardwalk at Logan Pass, all constituted "the introduction of undue artificiality in a natural setting."

Thus, during the early 1970s, charges and countercharges filled the Montana newspapers, spotlighting the problems of Glacier. Superintendent Briggle and his defenders argued that his administration was not guilty of such environmental "sins" as the problems of sewage on Logan Pass, but that they had solved the problem by transporting it out of the area by tank truck. Answering charges that the "creosoted [sic] boardwalk" was unsightly and an atrocity, Superintendent Briggle's 1972 annual report termed it an "experimental section of wooden walkway" and the following year noted that any "adverse effect" was "reversed and eliminated by replacing treated wood with untreated wood." Other defenders of Superintendent Briggle felt that his implementation of a stricter bear management plan brought a cleaner back country in Glacier and his attention to fluoride-damaged vegetation in Glacier brought investigations and public disapproval of a nearby polluting aluminum reduction plant.

William C. Everhart, author of The National Park Service, has written: "The national parks arouse powerful concerns and deep commitments from many people who are pledged to their protection." Glacier Park was no exception. In the late 1960s and early 1970s, Glacier National Park experienced the zenith of its historical problem: how to achieve a balance between "resource protection and public utilization." Many of America's other national parks experienced similar controversies regarding building programs, proper use, or environmental degradation which potentially affected the enjoyment of the natural area. Everhart noted: "No facility for public use, no policy of resource management, no proposal of any kind has been advanced but that park people have pondered and examined—and argued—just how best to respect the demanding requirements of preservation and use. The issue is never clear cut."

Similarly, in Glacier, the issues were never clear cut. Environmentalists argued that promoting tourism or enacting environmental "atrocities" within Glacier could not be tolerated. Decisions made by Superintendents Neilson and Briggle received greater public scrutiny than any others in Glacier's history. A general concern for Glacier's future became the main issue.

During the 1970s, Glacier and its environs were overwhelmed by proposals for extensive natural resource use. The idea of damming the North Fork of the Flathead continued; clear-cutting forested private land within the park or in the adjacent national forests occurred; allowing gas leasing or coal mining in areas near Glacier loomed as a possibility; and adverse effects from grazing trespass could be found on Glacier's east side. The threats to Glacier in the 1970s were not unlike those before—since they were based primarily upon economic expediency—but their damaging visual impact or polluting effects could be more severe than any experienced before. (Courtesy of C. W. Buchholtz)

Eventually, the more controversial aspects of Glacier's management gave way to concrete programs not only to improve pollution problems but also to improve its wilderness or back-country use. In addition, plans were made to study the impact of wildfire upon the ecosystem and to give greater attention to specific problems such as bear management, law enforcement, and cattle trespass on Glacier's east side. The potential development of mineral and industrial resources near the North Fork of the Flathead River caused substantial concern as did problems of use along the mutual boundary between Glacier and the Blackfeet Indian Reservation. These and other problems continued to confront the park officials and public alike.

The value of Glacier as a preserve was shown on September 17, 1974, when the United Nations selected the park as one of its "World Biosphere Reserves." As a World Biosphere Reserve it was designated as an area worthy to be guarded for future ecological research, as a natural ecosystem for comparison with modified areas, and possibly for the future Global Environmental Monitoring system.

By the mid-1970s, nearly a million and a half visitors annually entered Glacier, with most arriving by automobile during June, July, and August. It was estimated that nearly one hundred thousand of these attended a lecture, a campfire talk, or some other naturalist-conducted program. Those visitors who desired to hike or camp in Glacier's back country found their movements restricted by "carrying capacities" which determined when a campground was filled. The automobile tourist could still find lodging at the historic hotels. The only major restriction to the motorist was the size or length of his vehicle, which determined whether he could journey across the narrow Going-to-the-Sun Road. Nearly a quarter of a million visitors used the various campgrounds, with some facing overcrowded conditions during the month of July. Private lands in Glacier generally escaped the visitor's eye since less than one thousand acres remained in private hands. Visitors still relied on the major concessionaires in the park for services like transportation, food, and lodging, but only four companies remained: Glacier Park, Incorporated which took over the Great Northern hotels and transportation in 1961; Belton Chalets, Inc. which ran the Granite Park and Sperry Chalets; Glacier Park Boat Company provided water transportation; and Rocky Mountain Outfitters, Inc. continued to provide the historic saddle horse for visitors in Glacier.

The average visitor would drive through Glacier in less than half a day, and many would stop at the Visitor Center at Logan Pass. Aside from using the "controversial" rest rooms and boardwalk, Glacier's visitors could also chat with an informative park naturalist or take a self-guiding nature trail. While the average visitor may never have heard of Mission 66 or any of the park's environmental controversies, he could be secure in thinking that Reynolds Creek remained unpolluted. Even if he picked up a copy of the Hungry Horse News and read about the lack of progress on the Wilderness Act or of problems with bears, the concept of Glacier as a unique scenic attraction would still be etched upon his memory. Thus, the controversies over use and preservation, over the plans, policies, and programs of the National Park Service guardians, as well as among the people of Glacier's past, had only as much impact as perceived by the present visitor to the park and, most importantly, as Glacier's "unimpaired conditions" are examined by future generations.