Loading map...

1904 Map of Chief Mountain

Name: 1904 Topographic Map of Chief Mountain
Creator: U.S. Geological Survey
Published: 1925
License: https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/

USGS Topo · Published 1925

About this map

Glacier National Park was still in its early years of federal protection when this survey was updated, showing the high summits of the Continental Divide along the border of the Blackfeet Indian Reservation. The terrain is dominated by massive peaks like Mt Cleveland and the sheer walls of Chief Mtn, while the Going-to-the-Sun Hwy snakes through the central landscape. The 1:125,000 scale details a wilderness shaped by active ice, naming the Ahern Glacier and others that feed the complex drainage of Lake McDonald and the Swiftcurrent Creek.

Early outposts such as Apgar and the Rogers Ranch provide rare points of human settlement in an area otherwise defined by water and rock. Large basins including Waterton Lake and Sherburne Lakes are prominent, marking the transition from the high peaks to the lower eastern plains. This edition preserves the nomenclature of the early 20th-century surveyors, including Francois E. Matthes and R.H. Sargent, capturing the region's geography before the full expansion of modern park infrastructure.