Flushing National Park, What Could Have Been

Greetings from Glacier National Park in Montana.

Mary and I are here with our Westport friends Art, Kevin and Serge on a six day bike tour. As no other riders signed up for this tour, we have the equivalent of a private tour. Sweet! As an added bonus, one of our tour guides is a retired tax attorney.

Today we had a spectacular 38 mile ride from Hungry Horse, Montana to Apgar Village in the Park. It was a good warm-up ride for what is to come this week, with relatively gentle grades on the ascents. We all felt strong, which was great. The last part of the ride was an out and back on a road along Lake McDonald:

The history of Glacier National Park is interwoven with the history of railroads. With a “build it and they will come” philosophy, James J. Hill, nicknamed “The Empire Builder”, built the Great Northern Railroad (now the “N” in BNSF Railroad) from Minneapolis to Seattle in the late 19th century through then uninhabited lands. To increase usage of his railroad, Hill encouraged immigration to the Dakotas, Montana and Eastern Washington for mining and agriculture. He also helped create the port of Seattle. The lowest pass through the northern Rockies, Marias Pass, is just south of Glacier National Park and Hill created a tourist industry for his railroad by lobbying Congress to create Glacier National Park at the same time that he was building a number of fancy lodges here.

An American hero? Well, Hill got his start by colluding with the bankruptcy Trustee of a Minnesota railroad to swindle Dutch bondholders by persuading other bidders that the railroad assets had little value. In the realm of “you can’t make this stuff up”, the Trustee then had the chutzpah to sue Hill for allegedly failing to pay promised compensation for committing this illegal act. Covering his bases, Hill also bribed the bondholders’ New York attorney to recommend Hill’s bargain basement price deal to his Dutch clients. Proving that he had some honor, Hill then fulfilled his promise to the bondholders’ attorney by giving him a secret ownership interest in the new railroad venture.

Coincidentally, at the same time time Hill was creating Glacier National Park, another great railroad was being built into largely undeveloped lands — the No. 7 train:

The No. 7 train is the only New York City subway built with the idea of developing areas, rather then servicing existing populations. What if there had been a more enlightened development plan? Imagine if the last stop of the 7 train was “Flushing National Park”, rather than just plain old “Main Street, Flushing”? Let your imagination run wild:

(Courtesy Mary Cooperman Photoshop Collection). But no, the “national monuments” built in Flushing were like this:

43-10 Kissena Blvd where I grew up — the “Eighth Wonder of Flushing” since there were seven other similar apartment buildings on the same block. The First Wonder of Flushing was clearly Shea Stadium and I invite blog readers to share their thoughts of two through seven. My suggestions are Lorabie’s Bakery and the stickball court that blog readers Larry and Steve created.

While I didn’t grow up in a national park, I’m going to enjoy this trip to Glacier National Park. Tomorrow we are a doing a bucket list ride, Going to the Sun Road which is an ascent over Logan Pass on a CCC created road that is supposed to be spectacular. We’ll be going to the mountains on the other side of this lake where we are right now.

Rain is in the forecast tomorrow so fingers crossed. And our trip leader just informed us at dinner that he saw a bear on the road last week. So wish us some luck. In the meantime, here is a musical coda for this railroad inspired park:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m4tJSn0QtME