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The matriarch of the Glacier Park gateway By JIM MANN for The Associated Press 98-year-old Margaret Black and her progeny own much of the town that ushers visitors into Montana�s famed national park, an influx she and her husband prepared for shortly after their marriage in 1932. ST. MARY, Mont. � Standing on a ridge above St. Mary in a bright red dress, Margaret Black looks very much the matriarch of the town that has grown beneath her. The views haven�t changed much since Black first came to St. Mary in 1929, but the Glacier National Park gateway town surely has. "I thought it was beautiful when I first saw it," said Black, now 98. "I fell in love with Montana." At the time, St. Mary was nothing more than a couple buildings along the tracks of the Great Northern Railway. There was no Going-to-the-Sun Road, and Glacier National Park was a 19-year-old destination for affluent travelers who spent weeks in the backcountry on guided horse trips. Now St. Mary is a real town � with nearly every building constructed and owned by the Black family. There are two lodges, one of them completed just this year, along with gas stations, restaurants, a grocery store, a sporting goods store, houses and cottages. The timeless backdrop is a succession of rocky peaks � Singleshot, Otokomi, Goat, Going-to-the-Sun � towering over Sun Road and sparkling St. Mary Lake. At the center of St. Mary is the small cabin that Margaret Black built with Hugh Black, the dashing young park ranger she married in 1932. "We built six small, white cabins," said Black, who came to Glacier from St. Paul, Minn., to work as a secretary for the general manager of the Glacier Park Hotel Co. "Hugh had been a ranger and he knew there would be a call for cabins." Those small cabins, which still stand not far from the family home, served as the start for the couple�s budding lodging business. Margaret Black vividly recalls her early days in the park. "I had a great time that first year. I had lots of fun, and lots of boyfriends," she says with a laugh. She remembers going to swing music dances at a tavern called Mike�s Place in East Glacier, and she had a favorite horse named "Midget" that she rode on the park�s rugged east side. Black said her friends back in St. Paul tried to discourage her from going to Montana. "They didn�t want me to come out here," she said. "This was wild country back then." At East Glacier, Blackfeet Indians in full traditional dress had an encampment of tepees in front of Glacier Park Lodge. Black recalled that the group, led by a man named Two Guns White Calf, greeted park visitors as they stepped off the train. She met Hugh Black on a hike near the Two Medicine Ranger Station where he worked. He went on to become one of the first patrol rangers on Going-to-the-Sun Road after the famous mountain highway was finished in 1933. Soon after they were married, the young couple had a small restaurant called the Curly Bear Cafe, a small store, their home and the six guest cabins. The business grew gradually, starting with construction of a larger restaurant called the St. Mary Cafe in 1938. By then the Blacks had started a family that would eventually include six children. Roscoe Black, the middle child who grew up to assume management duties at the resort, recalled that his mom ran the day-to-day operations while his father was the "idea man," continually building, buying land and adding to the business. The couple started with 300 acres, but now the family owns 6,000 acres. In addition to bookkeeping and hiring and scheduling employees, Margaret home-schooled her three oldest children. During World War II, Hugh Black ran horses and cattle on the family�s pastureland, Roscoe said, and he picked up extra money wherever he could find it. Hugh cut ice on frozen lakes from Williston, N.D., to Spokane, stocking ice houses along the railroad�s Hi-Line before the advent of refrigerated rail cars. The family�s hard work paid off in 1952 with construction of the 27-room St. Mary Lodge, a gift shop and a new St. Mary Cafe. That same year, Ronald Reagan stayed at the lodge when the actor and future president was filming "Cattle Queen of Montana" with Barbara Stanwyck. By the time all six children were born, the family was spending winters in St. Paul. But every summer was spent at St. Mary. "They all came down that banister and none of them got hurt," Margaret Black said, nodding toward a rickety stairway railing in the family home. Roscoe Black, 61, said he grew up riding horses, hiking and fishing across the vast landscape that surrounds St. Mary. Sally Welder, the family�s youngest child at age 52, recalled that the entire family worked during the summer. "It was a lot of hard work, and we worked from the time we were real little," said Welder, who teaches at the Montessori school in Kalispell. There was always time for hiking and horseback riding, and there were monthly chuckwagon dinners. Welder worked at the resort until she was a young adult, meeting her future husband there. After 72 summers at St. Mary and 98 years of life, Margaret Black still has her own teeth, she reads the newspaper without glasses, and given the opportunity, she�ll set aside her cane for a dance. Up until just two years ago, she continued to work in the resort�s bookkeeping department, opening the office every morning at 7 a.m. She still serves as president of the Hugh Black St. Mary Enterprises board of directors, signing off on major projects, such as the $2.5 million Great Bear Lodge which was completed this year. On the ridge above St. Mary, Margaret Black had six cottages built for her children to use. For herself, she prefers the original house that she and her husband built in 1932. "This is home," she said. On the Net: St. Mary Lodge: http://www.glcpark.com/index.html Mail Tribune Home | Ottaway Newspapers, Inc. | Dow Jones & Co., Inc. | Privacy | Contact Us Copyright � 2001 Mail Tribune, Inc.