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The history of Whitefish and neighboring Glacier National Park is intermingled with the history of the Great Northern Railroad. Great Northern was founded in 1889 by James J Hill and ran from St. Paul, MN to Seattle, Washington. Hill’s business strategy was to develop the areas the trains ran through in order to attract tourism and trade.
The Whitefish Depot was built in 1928 in the same alpine style as the GN-built National Park Lodges. The Stumptown Historical Society purchased the station and restored it in the 1990s. Today it houses a museum with exhibits on local history and is once again an active railway station for Amtrak.
With some time to kill before our dinner reservations at nearby Abruzzo, we walked around the depot.
There is a vintage Great Northern locomotive on display, an antique bus that was used to transport passengers from Kalispell to Whitefish stations and a park across the street from the station.
Location: 500 Depot St, Whitefish, MT 59937
Designation: National Register of Historic Places
Date designation declared: 7/11/2002
Date of my visit: 6/22/2018
Good timing Theresa. I’m making a road trip through Montana in June and will definitely add this to my list of places to see. Thanks
Great! The restaurant I mention in this post….Abruzzo…was one of our favorites of the trip. There are lots of shops and eateries in the town of Whitefish
Guess we were there so long ago it was before the museum. Txs.
It was in the 90s I think, that it was rescued
It’s nice to know it still functions as a depot.
Yes, lots of train activity in the area
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Love the Whitefish depot. And the monster railbus. We were there in 2017 when smoke from wildfires was bad. Have to go again.
Thanks