290527 Mount Rainier: The Mountain That Was God

Originally, this episode of Empire Builders was simply given a topic: "Northwest Playgrounds." At some point there was an emphasis put on Mount Rainier, but it is likely the show also drew attention to Mount Baker National Forest and Glacier National Park. Without a continuity for this broadcast, it's hard to say for sure.

Magazine ad from March, 1929. Note the enticement to "tune in" to Empire Builders on NBC radio.

The episode name that was settled on appears to have been lifted from a book by the same title.

1910 book by John H. Williams of Tacoma

Glacier National Park was established on May 11, 1910, and the Great Northern Railway got to work right away constructing lodging facilities for tourists and building roads to gain greater access to the park. Before the lodges were built, pack horses took the tourists through the mountains with substantial tents and then more permanent cabins to stay in, each located about a day’s horse ride from the next. But it’s important to note the Great Northern Railway was not built along the southern border of Glacier National Park. That statement is incorrect in that it presumes the park was there first. It wasn’t. The GN built its transcontinental route across that part of Montana in about 1890, so the railroad pre-dated the park by twenty years.
 

As it is, the GN’s founder, James J. Hill, didn’t really have much use for passenger train service. He saw it as much more of an annoyance than something to pursue as part of the business. Hill built the Great Northern Railway at a time when the west was still very much in the process of being settled and established commercially. In his mind, it seems the movement of goods and commodities was all that mattered – passenger service just didn’t offer much of a profit margin. Later, his son Louis Hill took the reins of the GN. At this point, a robust railroad was firmly established – one developed for the sake of hauling the freight envisioned by the elder Hill. Louis Hill was drawn to the efforts of other railroads in promoting scenic destinations of our country, particularly the west, along the lines of the Union Pacific’s promotion of Yellowstone National Park, and the Santa Fe’s promotion of the desert Southwest. Prior to 1900, the Great Northern had taken to calling the Cascade and Rocky Mountain ranges the “Switzerland of America.” It was Louis W. Hill who seized upon the increasingly popular slogan, “See Europe if you will, but see America first.” Hill shortened the phrase to “See America First” and instructed his advertising staff to utilize it extensively, beginning in about 1912.

Prior to the establishment of Glacier as a national park (and the subsequent tourist facility development undertaken by the GN), the Great Northern Railway did still advertise tourism opportunities along its line. Prior to the creation of the GN’s Advertising and Publicity Department, this task was looked after by the Passenger Department. In the 1890’s, the GN’s efforts to promote tourism were mostly limited to locations in Minnesota, such as Lake Minnetonka and the Hotel Lafayette.  In the first decade of the new century (about 1900 to 1912), the GN promoted tourism to Lake McDonald (prior to the creation of Glacier Park), the Stevens Pass area in the Washington Cascades, and to more distant locations such as Alaska and the Orient – the latter via the Great Northern Steamship Company.

 

Tourist booklet, circa 1907. Author's collection.

 

By the time of this broadcast of Empire Builders, tourism was well-established at Mt. Rainier, Mt. Baker, and Glacier National Park. John S. Young, the show’s announcer, no doubt had a few comments at the conclusion of the show to encourage listeners to write to the GN in St. Paul for illustrated publications.