Montana’s first oil well was drilled in what is now Glacier National Park near the head of Kintla Lake back in 1901. One hundred and twenty-five years later, Glacier will have the well plugged.

The Butte Oil Co. drilled the well near what is now the wilderness campground as there had been reports of natural oil seeps in the area from both early settlers and Native Americans.

At the time, the area was afforded no protections, it wasn’t made a national park until 1910 through an act of Congress.

Late this summer or early fall, a contractor will have supplies ferried in by helicopter and possibly by boat in order to cap and plug the well, which never panned out.

North Fork District Ranger Ty Cheatum detailed some of the plans at the North Fork Interlocal meeting a few weeks ago. He said because of the work, Glacier will not have any advanced reservations at the Kintla Lake wilderness campground and during the work, the campground will be closed entirely.

People will, however, still be allowed to walk the trail, which runs nearby. The well itself is about 20 yards from the food prep area of the campground.

The work will also have an impact on the Kintla Lake motor campground, as about half of it will be used as a staging area and parking for the contractor.

According to a story by Lynette Hintze in 2011 in the Daily Inter Lake, there is quite a history of oil exploration in the Glacier’s North Fork region.

American Indians and fur trappers knew about oil seeps in that area and early-day prospectors wondered about the potential for oil when bear hides sold at Tobacco Plains smelled of kerosene, according to a historical overview of mining in Montana compiled by the U.S. Forest Service.

Prospectors filed the first oil claims in Montana in 1892 for the Kintla Lake area, but any hopes of drilling at that point were thwarted by the financial panic of 1893. A subsequent depression forced would-be oil developers to temporarily scrap the oil district.

Butte Oil Co. revived interest in the Kintla oil fields in 1900.

At the time the area was “practically inaccessible,” Forest Service records note. It was reached from Tobacco Plains via a trail over the Whitefish Divide, along the “coal trail” on the west side of the North Fork of the Flathead River, or along the “Canadian trail” on the east side of the Flathead River from Belton at West Glacier.

Butte Oil hired workers to build an 8-foot wide wagon road in 1901, and drilling equipment from Pennsylvania was hauled to Kintla Lake.

That wagon road is still used today and is a dirt/gravel route to the foot of the lake. 

Drilling began in 1901, other oil companies formed and the state’s first oil “boom” was on, according to an article by longtime park ranger Jerome DeSanto called “Drilling at Kintla Lake: Montana’s First Oil Well,” published in the Montana Magazine of History.

Speculators filed oil claims in the area and the buzz among oil promoters was palpable.

A 1986 article by Patricia Bick, “Homesteading on the North Fork in Glacier National Park,” included a quote from a magazine writer in 1901 that summed up the excitement over the Kintla oil field:

“Perhaps there is no more beautiful region in the whole Northwest than this virgin wilderness, which the enterprise of man will soon convert into a populous and busy territory with all of the industries of a great oil field in full blast.”

It was not to be.

That first oil well on the shore of Kintla Lake was drilled to 1,400 feet, but during the winter of 1902-03 fire destroyed much of the operation. 

Wells in the area never made enough money to justify the expense, and by 1912 Butte Oil’s claims were declared void. Another oil company built a derrick a few miles below Kintla Creek, but drilling halted in 1903 due to a lack of capital.

    Kintla Lake in this file photo.