Whitefish exists because of a grade calculation. In 1904, the Great Northern rerouted its main line to avoid the steep climb over Haskell Pass, and that pragmatic decision dropped a railroad through what had been logging country and Kutenai, Pend d'Oreilles, and Bitterroot Salish hunting ground. The town incorporated in 1905; by 1910 it was a city. One railroader called it "the most distinctively railroad town on the whole Great Northern system" in 1925. The depot the railroad built — Tudor Revival, designed by Thomas McMahon, its half-timbering and pointed rooflines deliberately echoing the Glacier Park chalets the Great Northern was simultaneously selling to the world — still stands at Depot Park. Amtrak's Empire Builder still stops here. The Stumptown Historical Society runs a museum inside. BNSF leases the upper floors. A town born from a reroute, still living on the line.
