Marias Pass Monuments, Montana

Just outside the southern end of Glacier National Park is Marias Pass, where the Continental Divide crosses US Highway 2, and the tracks of the Great Northern Railway. Highway 2 is the country’s northernmost continental highway, running from the Great Lakes in northern Michigan to Puget Sound in Washington State. A wayside at the pass has a number of monuments, the largest of which is a stone obelisk. It was erected by the federal highway bureau in 1930, when the highway through the pass was completed. It is dedicated to US President Theodore Roosevelt, in commemoration of his leadership in conservation, and quotes him as saying, “The forest problem is in many ways the most vital internal problem of the United States.” Next to the obelisk is a more modest monument commemorating the trapper and prospector who lived here and gave up his land for the Roosevelt memorial. On the other side of the obelisk is a figurative statue of John F. Stevens, the railroad engineer who “discovered” the pass, which had long been in use by Blackfeet and other tribes. Stevens was there when the statue of him was dedicated in 1925. Great Northern Railway built its main line over the pass in 1891, one of a few transcontinental rail lines connecting the nation in the late 19th century. It connected St. Paul, Minnesota with Seattle in 1893, helping the Seattle region to rise as a Pacific metropolis. Great Northern Railway was also the primary developer of Glacier National Park, with stations at West Glacier and East Glacier, providing access to the area decades before roads were built over the Divide. Amtrak’s Empire Builder passenger railway still stops at West and East Glacier, bringing tourists who stay in the grand Swiss style lodges built by Great Northern inside and outside the park.