Donald Trump’s Wednesday night rally in the Flathead Valley will mark the first time in 51 years that a sitting president has visited Northwest Montana.

Trump is speaking at the Majestic Valley Arena on Oct. 14 as part of a last-minute tour to stump for Republican candidates across the country ahead of November’s midterm elections. The president will be traveling to the Kalispell area after attending events in Bullhead, Arizona earlier in the day on Wednesday. He is expected to take the stage about 6:15 p.m.  

The last time a sitting president visited Northwest Montana was in 1975, when President Gerald Ford attended the dedication of the Libby Dam. About 7,000 spectators gathered at the 420-foot-tall dam on the Kootenai River to watch Ford and Canadian Minister Donald Macdonald ceremoniously flip the power on, according to a 1975 article from the Daily Inter Lake.  

Ford lauded the dam as a symbol of the harmony between technology and the environment. Attending the dedication during the energy crisis of the mid-1970s, Ford told the reporters and spectators in attendance that it’s up to each individual country to meet its energy needs. 

“This is one more indication of why our energy dependence is an absolute necessity to the well-being of our nation. Although Libby Dam will provide power for this region, it is not the answer to energy scarcity nationally,” Ford said. 

Just a few years prior, President Richard Nixon visited the region with an itinerary that included stops at Glacier National Park, the Hungry Horse Dam and the Libby Dam. Nixon had planned to fly over the park in a helicopter, but bad weather fouled the trip, according to the Hungry Horse News.  

About 18,000 people stopped by Glacier Park International Airport on Sept. 24, 1971, to greet the then president and First Lady Pat Nixon as they boarded a helicopter to fly to the Libby Dam with other Montana dignitaries. It was considered at the time to be one of the largest crowds ever assembled in the Flathead Valley, according to the Hungry Horse News. 

Ahead of Nixon’s arrival, Columbia Falls Mayor Llyod Alrich and Whitefish Mayor Larry Bjorneby declared Sept. 24 “President Richard M. Nixon Day.” Chief Earl Old Person, who was chair of the Blackfeet Tribal Council at the time, was set to welcome Nixon along with four other tribal members in full regalia.  

Daily Inter Lake Managing Editor Burl Lyons was one of five “newsmen” allowed on a U.S. Army helicopter that accompanied Nixon and his entourage to the Libby Dam. Lyons was joined by Hungry Horse News Editor Mel Ruder, KGEZ’s Gene Loffler, Al Herriges with KOFI and Dale Burk of the Daily Missoulian.  

In 1971, the Libby Dam was still under construction. After being shown plans for the $426 million structure, Nixon was enthused by the recreational possibilities from the dam and remarked that “people were clamoring for wide open spaces.” 

En route back to the helicopters, Nixon stopped to shake the hands of the newsmen and told them “that was a great crowd at your airport today —  so warm, so friendly,” according to Lyons.  

Nixon’s stop in Northwest Montana came as he headed to Anchorage, Alaska to meet with then-Emperor Hirohito of Japan.  

THE REGION’S impressive dam projects were a common draw for visiting presidents in the mid-20th century.  

President Harry Truman and his daughter Margaret visited for a dedication of the Hungry Horse Dam on Oct. 1, 1952. On a chilly October morning, thousands mobbed Columbia Falls as Truman spoke from the rear platform of his 17-car train.  

“From there, the prize horse of the Democratic Party traveled by caravan to the Hungry Horse Dam where the Bureau of Reclamation presented him with a hard hat. The same token of Hungry Horse accomplishment went to his daughter Margaret,” wrote Daily Inter Lake Regional Editor Bob Petty in 1952.  

Truman watched a huge turbine-generator assembly and “showed his knowledge about civil engineering by asking some pointed questions about the dam,” according to the Missoulian.  

After the tour of the dam, their caravan continued on to Kalispell, where Truman spoke at Flathead High School. Petty estimated that there were 7,000 people greeting Truman as he made his way between Columbia Falls and Kalispell.  

It was at Flathead High School that Truman gave his official dedication to the Hungry Horse Dam, where he flipped a switch to signal the start of first power production, according to the U.S. National Archives.  

“Most of the audience during the president’s speech was attentive, but at least three babies slept through it all, while several small children kept up a running commentary of their own,” wrote Petty.  

Truman gave a short talk to Flathead High School students immediately after his main speech. He left for Eureka and Libby by rail from the Whitefish Train Depot at about 12:45 p.m.  

The first sitting president to visit the region was Franklin Delano Roosevelt in 1934, who stayed at the Two Medicine Chalet with his wife Eleanor and their three sons.  

Roosevelt gave one of his famous public radio broadcasts from the chalet. With his Secretary of the Interior designating 1934 as “National Parks Year,” Roosevelt spent much of his speech outlining the importance of these protected parcels of federal land.  

“Today, for the first time in my life, I have seen Glacier Park. Perhaps I can best express to you my thrill and delight by saying that I wish every American, old and young, could have been with me today. The great mountains, the glaciers, the lakes and the trees make me long to stay here for all the rest of the summer,” Roosevelt said in his broadcast.  

Roosevelt’s visit on Aug. 5, 1934 marked the first presidential visit to the park, according to the National Park Service. Along with his reverence for the natural beauty of Glacier, Roosevelt praised the National Park Service and lauded the projects carried out by the Civilian Conservation Corps.  

“Hundreds of miles of firebreaks have been built, fire hazards have been reduced on great tracts of timberland, thousands of miles of roadside have been cleared, 2,500 miles of trails have been constructed and 10,000 acres have been reforested ...  This is but another example of our efforts to build not for today alone, but for tomorrow as well,” Roosevelt said.  

SEVERAL OTHER prominent White House officials have visited the area over the years. Then Vice President George H.W. Bush camped in Apgar with his wife Barbara while stumping for President Ronald Reagan’s reelection campaign in 1983.  

During his 36 hours in the park, the future president fished in Hidden Lake with Wyoming Sen. Alan Simpson. Bush caught a small trout on a spinning rod and Simpson caught three fish on a fly rod, according to the Hungry Horse News.  

Former President Bill Clinton spoke at Flathead Valley Community College in 2008, when his wife Hilary was running against Barack Obama in the Democratic primary. Soon-to-be first lady Michelle Obama also visited Kalispell that same year while on the campaign trail.  

Laura Bush visited Glacier National Park twice: Once in 2004, when the then first lady stayed at the Many Glacier Hotel with friends from her hometown of Midland, Texas, and then again in 2011 to attend a fundraiser for the Glacier National Park Fund, now the Glacier National Park Conservancy.  

Then Vice President Al Gore visited Glacier in 1997 to showcase the effects of climate change and talk about the importance of protecting national parks. During his visit, he hiked to Grinnell Glacier to highlight the loss of glaciers in the park.  

“To President Clinton and me, preserving America's special places isn't just good public policy — it's a moral obligation,” Gore said in his 1997 speech. 

During his campaign for the presidency with the Progressive or “Bull Moose” Party, former President Teddy Roosevelt also came through Northwest Montana. Though there is not as much hard evidence about where he spent his time in the region, he wrote in his book “The Wilderness Hunter,” about his excursions in the Thompson Falls and Kootenai areas.  

It’s possible that Roosevelt visited the Conrad Mansion during one of his trips to the Flathead Valley. Alicia Conrad, the wife of Kalispell founder Charles Conrad, is said have told her circle of friends that the Conrads had lunch with Roosevelt at some point, according to the Daily Inter Lake.  

TRUMP’S VISIT comes about halfway through a 32-day campaign tour, which has already been through 14 states. At Wednesday’s event, Trump is expected to stump for Aaron Flint, Republican candidate for Montana's western congressional district. Flint is vying with Democrat Sam Forstag for the House seat in a closely watched race.   

Trump’s last visit to Montana was in 2024 when he was campaigning for his second term in office. He hosted a rally in Bozeman in support of Tim Sheehy’s ultimately successful bid for a seat in the Senate.