Yesterdays: Many Glacier twister
Tom Lee and a big cabbage, Oct. 14, (Mel Ruder photo)
70 years ago
Oct. 23, 1953
Glacier National Park handed out paper trash bags to visitors and campers to try to keep people from throwing things out along the roads and into the woods. — it worked. The Park reported that it probably saved them about $10,000 in cleanup costs parkwide. About one hunter in five brought an elk out of the Flathead National Forest, a story said.
60 years ago
Oct. 23, 1963
A twister (tornado) in Many Glacier flattened the 60-by-120-foot transport garage near the Many Glacier Hotel. The freak storm scattered the structure across the parking lot. The structure was nearly empty. The Hotel itself had some roof damage, but was largely spared. The storm was reported by Ole Clark, the caretaker at the hotel. It happened about midnight.
50 years ago
Oct. 26, 1973
A public hearing was scheduled for proposed cloud seeding up the South Fork of the Flathead. The idea was to raise the amount of precipitation by 10% so there would be more snowpack, and thus runoff to fill the Hungry Horse Reservoir for power production.
40 years ago
Oct. 27, 1983
A Wildcat oil well was being drilled up Star Meadows on private land, but the land was wet so they were hauling in more than 1,000 trucks of gravel so the roads would support the heavy equipment. The drillers needed a Forest Service permit to access the site, which was surrounded by federal land.
30 years ago
Oct. 28, 1993
Research by seasonal Glacier Park ranger Steve Everett found that about 14 grizzly bears used the Granite Park chalet area, which included four family groups. The number was a bit lower than previous years, even though the chalet was closed to visitors and it had been a wet summer, with fewer hikers. Everett went to the chalet everyday from mid-June to Sept. 1 and made observations at several points along the way.
20 years ago
Oct. 23, 2003
High winds derailed freight cars in East Glacier and stoked a 10,000-acre wildfire near Cut Bank that burned down a rancher’s home. The freight cars blew off the trestle above Midvale Creek in East Glacier.
10 years ago
Oct. 23, 2013
A mosquito fossil, filled with blood, was discovered in the Middle Fork of the Flathead by young geologist Kurt Constenius. It was estimated to be about 46 million years old.