Great Northern Railway Passenger and Freight Depot and Division Office

By editor

Whitefish, Flathead County, Montana

From its founding in 1904 until 1955, Whitefish was a Great Northern division point. A railroader in 1925 called it the most distinctively railroad town on the whole system. The 1928 Tudor-style depot, designed by railroad architect Thomas McMahon, put division offices on the second floor and the working railroad—yard office, freight and baggage, tickets, waiting rooms, telegraph, smoking room, ladies’ rest—on the first.

Few depots were built in the 1920s; automobiles and trucks were already cutting traffic. Tudor stations are rarer still. This one wears a high pointed roof, stucco and half-timbering above clapboard, tall grouped windows, carved brackets, and second-floor balconies that echo Glacier Park chalet detailing—the railroad’s visual handshake with the tourist destination it promoted. In the 1980s local preservationists fought to keep the building. It still serves passengers and freight.

Railroad depots are among the few building types where the town façade matters as much as the track façade. Whitefish’s depot still greets both. In a ski town that could have paved over its railroad past, the Tudor pile remains the argument that Stumptown was built by trains before it was branded by powder.

See also

• The Bruck at Whitefish, Flathead County
• Hori Cafe Building at Whitefish, Flathead County
• Cadillac Hotel at Whitefish, Flathead County