Locomotive Bells in Glacier National Park

News and Adventure from Glacier National Park

Believe it or not, locomotive bells were once placed atop four mountain passes in Glacier National Park. Why were they placed there, who pushed the idea, and what became of them?

To further enhance the Swiss experience for park visitors, W. R. Mills, an advertising agent for the Great Northern Railway, and H. A. Noble, manager of the Glacier Park Hotel Company, requested permission from the park in 1925 to place locomotive bells atop the summits of several passes. According to Donald H. Robinson’s administrative history of Glacier National Park, the request originated from on an old Swiss custom of placing bells on mountain tops and passes so that hikers and horseback riders could ring loud bells in the mountains, and signal to people in the valleys that they had reached their destination. In September of 1926 the request was finally approved to place bells at Swiftcurrent Pass, Siyeh Pass and Piegan Pass. Three years later a fourth bell was added at Scenic Point in Two Medicine. Visitors continued ringing the bells until the fall of 1943, at which point they were removed by the hotel company and donated to a World War II scrap metal drive.

Today, the stone platform that supported the bell atop Piegan Pass still stands. This is what it looked like just a few weeks ago:

Jeff
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