History: A hot day played a big role in Glacier National Park's creation

By CHRIS PETERSON

Hungry Horse News 

It’s easy to take the grandeur of Glacier National Park for granted nowadays, but 114 years ago, a hot day and a change in the way the U.S. House of Representatives did its calendar played a big role in getting the legislation that created the park across the finish line.

The struggle is detailed in a paper entitled “Recollections Concerning the Establishment of Glacier National Park,” written by Charles N. Pray, the former “Congressman at Large” for Montana from 1907 to 1913. 

Pray was the chairman of the subcommittee for public lands at the time and spoke favorably of the bill to create the 1 million acre park. It was met with opposition almost immediately “from Members who were desirous of establishing parks and monuments in their own bailiwicks,” he recalled. 

They saw Glacier as being too large a burden to carry in the way of parks legislation and it would conflict with their own park plans in their states. 

Still, after two or three hearings, Pray said the full Public Lands Committee authorized him to craft a bill that could be presented to the full House. Still, the Speaker of the House and the appropriations committee members, which controlled the government’s proverbial purse strings, opposed the bill and it died in the 60th Congress. 

“Members of the Appropriations Committee said Montana did not need another Park; that we already had one of the finest parks in the country on our southern boundary (a reference to Yellowstone National Park) ... and that if this bill were enacted it would create a perpetual drain on the federal treasury for which they did not care to become responsible,” Pray said. 

But in the 61st Congress there were rule changes enacted (called the Wednesday Calendar) that eventually allowed Pray to bring the bill out of the committee to the full House. 

Pray had been lobbying the bill to anyone in the House that would listen. 

“If I could ever get the bill up for a hearing,” Pray said. “The vote would be favorable for passage.” 

The weather most certainly helped. 

“The extremely hot weather that afternoon no doubt had the effect of reducing the membership in attendance, which, of course, was no disappointment to me, as it seemed to have quieted the leading opponents who probably had not followed the progress of the committee call as closely as they might have done,” Pray said. 

Pray said he was prepared for a “battle royal” but it never transpired. 

“I still think the hot weather was helpful to the lone member from Montana,” he said. 

The bill passed the House and then the Senate (where there was no opposition to speak of) and was signed by President Howard Taft on May 11, 1910. 

But there was still work to be done. Pray recalled the new park needed money to operate and the Secretary of the Interior estimated it would cost $175,000 to maintain the park, no small sum at the time. 

Pray had to go back to his colleagues and seek the funding. Some accused him of “sneaking” the park legislation through. 

“...They refused to give me a cent and advised me that I should have figured out just how the park was to be maintained before going to so much trouble in passing the bill,” Pray noted. 

But  Pray argued they had all the notice they needed. All they had to do was check clerk’s office, the Congressional record and “by occasionally visiting the Chamber and keeping track of the parliamentary situation.” 

Whatever the case, they relented and gave the Park Service $50,000 for maintenance that first year. 

Pray would serve one more term in Congress and then go on to become a United States District Court judge in 1924 and was chief judge from 1948 to 1957.  

He died Sept. 12, 1963 in Great Falls. The town of Pray, Montana is named after him, as is Pray Lake and Pray Shelter in Glacier National Park. 

He first visited Glacier in 1907 and he was enamored with the place, saying he and his wife, Edith, seldom missed a summer visit to Glacier until her death in 1951. 

“Perhaps no one ever had greater enjoyment out of contact with this fascinating place than we did,” he said.