Horse Trail Underpass, Beneath Going-to-the-Sun Road Northeast of West Glacier Entrance, West Glacier, Flathead County, MT

Significance: The Horse Trail Underpass is one of approximately seventeen prominent masonry and concrete structures on Going-to-the-Sun Road in Glacier National Park. The 51-mile stretch of scenic road is significant as a unique engineering accomplishment of the early twentieth century, and as the first product of a 1925 cooperative agreement between the National Park Service and the Bureau of Public Roads. Ironically, however, while the engineers made every effort to accommodate horses as the traditional means of transportation, the road was built to encourage motorized vehicles in the park; and this, inevitably, caused a dramatic decrease in the popularity of horseback riding throughout the park.
Unprocessed Field note material exists for this structure: FN-6
Survey number: HAER MT-72
Building/structure dates: ca. 1937 Initial Construction