University of Montana public history students created a digital exhibit on the Building the Going-to-the-Sun Road in Glacier National Park in collaboration with the Montana History Portal. This project came out of Leif Fredrickson’s history of the automobile course. After learning about many aspects of the automobile in American life, including the development of roads and automobile tourism, students researched the Going-to-the-Sun Road and the broader history of the relationship between automobiles and National Parks. Students dug into secondary sources and the many archival documents and images available thorugh the Montana History Portal. They worked through many revisions and refinments to create an amazing exhibit. Thanks so much to Jennifer Birnel, director of the Montana History Portal, for working with us, and to the Glacier National Park Archives for their review of the exhibit.

Photo: A section of Going-to-the-Sun Road photographed by Forest Service worker Kenneth Swan in 1966. Credit: Archives and Special Collections, Mansfield Library, University of Montana