Built in 1910 by the Great Northern Railway, the Belton Chalet complex was the first lodging built in the region for tourists traveling through the newly-established Glacier National Park.  Belton Chalet was designed with much more direct inspiration in its detailing from the Swiss Chalet style than later hotels built by the Great Northern Railway, with features including extensive finished wooden brackets, rustic stone bases, a clipped gable or jerkinhead roof on the lodge building, sawn balustrades, broad overhanging eaves, a three-story exterior staircase on the dining hall building, and an asymmetrical “ski jump” front-gable roof on the dining hall building.  The hotel, though the first built in the area by the Great Northern Railway to serve guests traveling to and from nearby Glacier National Park, was located relatively far from the park’s major attractions, and the opening of additional hotels in and around the park led to its importance being diminished.  By the 1920s, the hotel was no longer operating at its original full capacity, and only saw occasional usage as a hotel by the 1930s.  In 1946, the hotel was sold by the Great Northern Railway to a private owner, and it remained largely disused for half a century.  During this time, the dining hall building was home to multiple bars and restaurants, some of which had very notorious reputations for the antics of the patrons.  The Belton Chalets were listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1978, at which time they were in a state of neglect.  In 1997, the hotel was sold to a couple whom spent over $1 million dollars restoring the hotel and dining hall back to its original grandeur, reopening the property in its full capacity for the first time since the 1920s, with the hotel fully reopening for the 1998 summer season, winning multiple awards for the massive undertaking that rescued the historically significant structure from decades of severe neglect.  In 2000, the chalet was included with other Great Northern Railway buildings around Glacier National Park in being designated as a National Historic Landmark.
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