“…I shall greatly appreciate if you will autograph one of your photographs and send it to me here. I assure you it will have an honored place in my collection…” From a letter to Stephen Mather from Howard Hays October 1929.
Stephen Mather and Howard Hays shared mutual admiration. From Shankland’s Mather biography, “Mather liked him [Hays]…and pushed his application for the permanent-camp franchise.” Years later, Hays wrote of Mather, “I thought of him as my greatest benefactor.”
Who was Howard Hays?
Howard H. Hays (1883-1969) was a native of Metropolis, Illinois and in 1905 moved to Montana to “seek healthful outdoor employment.” An entrepreneur whose career ranged from driving surreys in Yellowstone to running a newspaper in Riverside, California, he was above all an unmatched force in developing and controlling transportation services in National Parks from Glacier to Sequoia.
By 1919 he consolidated the many camping and transportation companies in Yellowstone NP to become president of Yellowstone Camps Company. In 1924, Hays sold his Yellowstone interests to recuperate from exhaustion. He wasn’t long out of the concession business, though, returning in 1926 to operate the transportation concession in Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Park in California.
In 1926 he purchased the Glacier Park Transport Company from Roe Emery. Hays quickly won essential respect from Great Northern officials. Hays was responsible for beginning the trend of hiring only college students as drivers and, In 1936, Hays came up with the now famous Drivers’ Manual, a 200-page book "chock full of practical information" to assure accurate answers to the inevitable tourist questions.
Early Glacier Park Transportation Company bus on a dirt road-Glacier NP Archives
(L-R) H.H. Hunkins, Howard Hays, Stephen Mather, Frank Miller
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