Compiled and written by David R. Schleper, 2022

Milo B. Apgar was the ninth of eleven children of Captain Samuel and Melinda Perry Apgar. He was born in upstate New York in 1844. Seven years later, in 1851. Milo, his parents, and five siblings, along with their neighbors, the Dimons, moved to Minnesota Territory in October of 1852. Milo was about eight years old.

Melinda and Samuel kept a small house for travelers in 1852 in Holmes Landing (later Shakopee). It was the cabin that Thomas A. Holmes and friends built before he built the bigger building next door. The children, including Milo, worked with the family.

The trek west was a bonding experience, and marriage prospects were otherwise so limited, that eventually three of the Apgar boys marriage Dimon daughters! In the spring of 1862, Milo, age 18, married 22-year-old Diane Jeanette Dimon, according to Apgar Family Association Newsletter, July 2000.

Four years later, during the U.S.-Dakota War, Milo enlisted in Company I of the Ninth Minnesota Volunteer Infantry. According to the Apgar Family Association Newsletter, Milo was chronically ill during much of his military service in the Civil War, though he did participate in a battle against Nathan Bedford Forrest in Tupelo, Mississippi in mid-July 1864. He was discharged for disability before the war ended.

Milo realized that he loved traveling, and when he was almost 48 years old, he decided to move west. Milo left Shakopee with his friend, Charlie Howe, and they headed out in 1892. Michael Dimon Apgar, Milo’s great-grandson, said that Milo had pushed his old cart all the way from Maine. Of course, he exaggerated in pursuit of a good story, especially since he had been living in Shakopee for forty years!

Within the Glacier area of Montana, physical evidence of human use dates back more than 10,000 years when Native American tribes utilized the area for hunting, fishing, ceremonies, and gathered plants and berries. When the first white explorers began arriving in the region, the Blackfeet controlled the prairies on the east side of Glacier, while the Salish, Pend d’Oreille, and Ktunaxa (or Kootenai) lived in the more forested west side.

The Indians also traveled east of the mountains to hunt buffalo. The Kootenai Indians call Lake McDonald “The Place Where They Dance.” Since time immemorial, the Kootenai had returned to the foot of the lake to dance and sing songs. Here, they received help and guidance from different spirits, according to Legends of America.

The Blackfeet name for this region is Mistakiks (Backbone of the World). The Ktunaxa name for the Glacier region is Ya-qawiswittxc’ki (Where There Are Glaciers), according to National Park Service History.

The first permanent white families reached Lake McDonald, established their homesites on Indian land, and built their first cabins as settler-colonists. The name Lake McDonald, which white people named the place, was probably named after Duncan McDonald, the son of Hudson’s Bay Company trader Angus MacDonald who founded Fort Conah (now on the Flathead Indian Reservation) and Catherine Baptiste (Eagle in the Wind) whose heritage was Nez Perce, Mohawk, and French.

In 1892, Milo, along with Charlie Howe, built homes at the lower end of the lake with the intention of farming the area. Diane, along with their two boys, Elsi Mortimer and Harvey Dimon Apgar, arrived soon after. (Their daughter, Phoebe, married and moved to Texas.) They homesteaded on land that was impossible to farm, and they had to be enterprising to remain there. Hunting and trapping in the area was no problem, so most of these men kept trap lines on a regular basis. Because farming proved impractical, the settler-colonists quickly became involved in servicing tourists visiting the Glacier National Park, which President Teddy Roosevelt established in 1910. Settlement in the surrounding area predates the park’s establishment. Land was quickly patented and much of it is still privately owned today. The National Park Service purchases this land as it becomes available and sellers are willing.

The existing wagon road up the North Fork became the western boundary of the park when Glacier was established in 1910. Forty-four homesteads to the east of the new boundary then became inholdings within Glacier. A rich history of characters, from the first rangers to innovative bootleggers, helped to define the early years of Glacier.

Milo and Charlie began catering to the visitors who occasionally got off the train at Belton and wanted to see Lake McDonald. By 1892, Milo and Charlie were offering rental cabins, meals, pack horses, guided tours, and boat trips for visitors who arrived in Belton on the Great Northern Railway.

Diane began to furnish meals. All these homesteaders saw the possibility of catering to tourists and the local miners for a potential livelihood, since several parties of visitors arrived in 1894 and the mines were “showing up fine” in 1895, according to Man in Glacier, by C. W. Buchholtz.

The family had barely scratched out a clearing and a crude home for shelter when Milo died of heart failure in 1896. He was buried in Woodlawn Cemetery in Columbia Falls, Montana. Soon after, Elsi and Harvey finished an impressive log building which would be home for the Montana Apgars, who were from Shakopee, for nearly half a century.

As these services increased, the village that grew up around them gained the name Apgar. Apgar Village is one of the main villages in Glacier National Park. Apgar is located on the west side of the park about one mile from the west entrance. Apgar has one of the most popular campgrounds in Glacier National Park and is always quite filled. Apgar Village is also home to a visitors’ center, a general store, and a large gift shop.

Bibliography

Apgar Family Association Newsletter, July 2000.

Buchholtz, C. W. Man in Glacier. Glacier Natural History Association, 1976.

“Glacier National Park Junior Park Ranger.” National Park Service History. http://npshistory.com/publications/interpretation/junior-ranger/glac-answers.pdf.

“Glacier National Park, Montana.” Legends of America. https://www.legendsofamerica.com/mt-glacierpark/.