06/09/2026
“If you build it, they will come”…..a simple mantra most notably associated with the 1989 movie, Field of Dreams. Easy to say, yet not always easy to accomplish as it’s all about a dream come true for those who believe it can be done. And so it was with the Beartooth Highway….a dream of so many whose dreams came to be in 1936 some 90 years ago.
Hard to believe that dream began in 1872 when the pass was first crossed by Civil War General Philip Sheridan and 120 men returning from an inspection tour of Yellowstone Park. Rather than take the long detour down the Clarks Fork Yellowstone River to Billings, Sheridan took the advice of an old hunter who claimed intimate knowledge of the Beartooth Mountains. When the highway opened in 1936, it essentially followed Sheridan’s route over the pass.
It too was the dream of Dr. J.C.F. Siegfriedt, a Bearcreek physician, who dreamed of creating a tourist attraction that would bring prosperity back to Red Lodge after the closing of the area’s mines. It was 1919 when he sought support from the county enlisting federal aid in rebuilding the Black & White Trail, an obsolete route running the east side of Mt. Maurice. Of course, this plan was later abandoned in favor of the present-day highway.
Some years later, the citizens of Red Lodge once again rallied about the dream, sending O.H.P. Shelly, a local newspaper editor, to Washington to push for Congressional passage of the National Parks Approaches Act, then part of the Leavitt Bill. This was a tremendous win in 1931 as the bill authorized the Secretary of the Interior to construct and approve national park approach roads, such as the Red Lodge to Cooke City Highway. For his efforts, Shelly soon became known as the “Father of the Beartooth Highway”.
And so, construction of the Beartooth Highway began in September 1931, under the supervision of Engineer H.F. Mitchell with contracts being awarded to Morrison-Knudsen, a Boise-based company, and McNutt & Pyle of Portland, Oregon. The 68.7 mile highway was built on a 3-6% grade with miles and miles of switchbacks enabling a rise in elevation from Red Lodge at 5,500 feet to 10,947 feet at the highway’s highest point. No doubt an engineering feat utilizing high altitude construction methods that came with many setbacks.
By 1934, there was still no official name for the highway. The National Park Service called it the Cooke City Road, the Billings Gazette the Beartooth Highway, and the citizens of Red Lodge the Red Lodge-Cooke City Highway. It is still referred to by all three names today though most often as the Beartooth Highway, its official title in the National Register of Historic Places.
In June 1936, the dream came true as the Beartooth Highway officially opened at a cost of $2.5 million dollars. The mountains, lakes, forests, plateaus, glaciers, wildlife and plant life viewed along the highway were unbelievable. It was top-of-the-world viewing where one could reach out and touch the sky.
As it was then, it still is today….open for travel from late May to early October, weather permitting. A breathtaking, bucket-list drive for sure, so much so that Charles Kuralt, CBS’s “On The Road Correspondent” named the highway, “the most beautiful drive in America”. We couldn’t agree more!
This history sharing provided by CM Whitcomb for Buses of Yellowstone Preservation Trust.
