Whitefish History.gif)
 |
| Downtown
Whitefish, Montana |
Whitefish,
MT, began rather late in life as far as towns go. While
people had been living around the area of Whitefish
prior to the arrival of the railroad, primarily doing logging,
no official town existed. However, in 1901, it was announced
that the Great Northern Railway would build through what
is now Whitefish and establish a new division point. Following
this announcement, over the next 3 years, clearing for a
new town site was done and materials for the construction
of the site flowed in. In 1904, the Great Northern Railway
officially arrived in Whitefish – marking the official
date of the birth of Whitefish.
Whitefish
was initially called “Stumptown”,
and for good reason. Before the arrival of the railroad and
people, the area around Whitefish was heavily wooded (and
really still is today). To make room for a town site, a huge
number of trees had to be cut down, all of which left stumps
behind. These stumps created problems almost immediately
in the form of creating traffic problems and making it a
pain for new additional construction – as all these
stumps had to be painfully removed.
 |
| Great
Northern Railway Engine in Whitefish |
Happily,
the name “Stumptown” never really stuck – with
the official name becoming Whitefish in a few years. Whitefish,
as it dated to the arrival of the Great Northern Railroad,
was not surprisingly a railroad town. The first buildings
were all built around the railroad – and for much of
the next 40 years – the railroad would be one of the
towns’ biggest employers. Additional industry in and
around Whitefish consisted mainly of logging – done
up in the thickly forested mountains and hills that lie just
outside of town.
Following the arrival of the railroad, Whitefish grew quite
quickly. The influx of railroad workers, loggers and trappers
combined to give Whitefish a solid foundation (unlike many
of the boom/bust mining towns that died off once the gold
ran out). Yet, despite its beautiful location at the base
of a big mountain and having a beautiful lake a long stones
throw away from downtown, Whitefish for most of the 20th
century remained a pretty quiet place. While employment with
the railroad declined a bit over the years, new industries
to cater to tourists helped keep Whitefish relatively healthy
economically.
Then,
beginning in the 1980’s – and accelerating
in the 1990’s and continuing today – Whitefish
began to get recognized for its spectacular setting. The
towns close proximity to Glacier National Park, the ski area
that lied just out of town and a general boom in “trophy
home” construction that happened throughout Montana
in the 1990’s, greatly fueled the town’s growth.
Next
Page : Whitefish Today
Top
of Page
|
