Tippet heading home to London

The Many Glacier Hotel is a majestic sight on the shores of Swiftcurrent Lake in Glacier National Park, but inside the historic lodge, the halls were crooked and drafty, and the walls paper thin. Rooms on the sunny side got as hot as Hades in the sun, and cold as the snow-capped peaks looking down on them when the wind blew.

Ian Tippet saw these as problems for guests. Big problems. Glacier Park Inc. owner Don Hummel hired Tippet to manage the hotel in 1961. Tippet also was in charge of hiring all the staff for the Park’s lodges.

No stranger to the Park, Tippet had previously managed several of the Park’s hotels and motels. He first came to Glacier Park in 1950, working at the front desk of the Glacier Park Lodge in East Glacier.

Tippet grew up in London and survived the bombing during World War II. He came to the U.S. on a scholarship from Conrad Hilton, the founder of the Hilton Hotels chain.

The idea was for Tippet to work under Hilton for a few years in the U.S. and then return to London to work in Hilton’s hotel there. But Tippet had a summer to himself and he went to Glacier.

“I never went back to do what I was supposed to do with Hilton,” Tippet said last week. “Glacier ate me up.”

Tippet had a distinguished career, working in the Park for 63 years, but the 25 years spent managing Many Glacier Hotel were the best, he said. In order to make guests forgive, if not forget, the condition of the aging hotel, he decided to put on nightly musical shows.

“‘Oh my God’, I thought,” he said. “I’ve got to have something that offsets these difficulties.”

He hired college students from across the country, seeking out drama and music majors from every state of the union. In the 1970s, he also started making a point of putting black men and women on the staff, paying their travel expenses with his own money to get them to the Park.

It was a golden era at Many Glacier, Tippet said. The staff put on musical numbers and by mid-summer had prepared a full Broadway show.

“How glorious it was to pick my own employees,” Tippet said,

He had help from Hungry Horse News editor Mel Ruder, who allowed GPI to use an aerial photo of the hotel for their recruitment posters. Tippet also hired an assistant manager — Roger L. Stevens — who had a doctorate in music. Stevens worked at the hotel for a dozen years and produced its music programs.

The hotel staff worked an eight-hour shift, then rehearsed the night’s program. The hotel had 200 employees, and most wanted to come back.

“Word got around quickly (on college campuses),” Tippet said. “They wanted to get a job in Many Glacier.”

Tippet didn’t hire musicians and drama majors for all GPI properties. He wanted geologists and history majors to be his Red Bus drivers, and he wanted athletes at Glacier Park Lodge so they could play the Many Glacier staff in flag football and soccer. The musicians got crushed in most of those games, but it created a rivalry and unity among staff as well.

“It was good for morale,” he said.

Tippet also made it a point to integrate black employees — a lot of them didn’t even know what Glacier Park was. The move was not without risks.

“It was a time when guests weren’t sure about black men and women,” he said.

Several black employees went on to distinguished professional careers. Tippet recalled one in particular, Dr. Norwood Knight-Richardson, who now works as a psychiatrist for Oregon Health and Science University.

After 1983, Tippet stayed with Glacier Park Inc. in various roles until this summer, when he wasn’t offered a job. The company let him live in his cottage near the Glacier Park Lodge and to have his office and free meals.

But Tippet said he wants to continue working, so this is his last summer in Glacier Park. At the age of 83, he’s writing a book on his experiences.

He said several distinguished London Hotels have offered him positions. He’ll miss the Park, of course, and may return as a “tourist.”

“America has been good to me,” he said. “Especially Glacier Park Inc.”