The wedding will take place at the storied Glacier Park Lodge in East Glacier Park. This small town is located on the Blackfeet Reservation. Cordell and Lindsay will be married on the lawn behind the lodge, in front of Dancing Lady peak, which seems fitting. The reception will take place in the same location. More details will be posted in the “itinerary” section of the website.

History of the Lodge

Built in 1912-13 by the Glacier Park Company, a subsidiary of the Great Northern Railway, the Glacier Park Lodge was designed by Samuel L. Bartlett and Louis W. Hill. Based on the Forestry Building at the 1905 Lewis and Clark Centennial Exposition in Portland, Oregon, the lobby in the original hotel building, located in the center of the structure, measures 200 feet (61 meters) by 100 feet (30 meters), enclosed by massive Douglas Fir tree trunks, which are still coated in bark thanks to being cut in the winter, and have Ionic-style capitals made of smaller logs. The exterior features more durable Cedar tree trunk columns that support the roof and multi-level porches, and both rustic log and sawn wood balustrades.

Due to the popularity of the hotel in its early years, a large annex building was built next to the original building in 1914, expanding the number of rooms in the hotel from 61 to 172, and features multi-tier porches with sawn ballustrades. The annex and original hotel were linked with an elevated sun lounge, which connects the lobby to the first floor of the annex building.

The hotel saw the addition of a nine-hole golf course in 1928, the first golf course in the state of Montana. Open only during the time between mid-May and mid-September, the hotel remains a seasonal operation, and maintains its connection to the nearby East Glacier train station, which is served by Amtrak’s long-distance Empire Builder route.

The hotel maintains a 1960s 9-door Checker Aerobus, which is still sometimes used to carry guests and their luggage to and from the nearby East Glacier Train Station. Despite being a historically and architecturally significant structure, the hotel, unlike many of the others built by the Great Northern Railway, is not currently listed on the National Register of Historic Places, and has several building systems and elements on the interior that appear to have not been touched in decades. Today, staying at this hotel features accommodations that are a bit like stepping back in time.