Berne Roadside Park

Mike Berne told a Forest Service historian how Hungry Horse got its name. In the fall of 1900 the Printiville brothers, freighting to the Kintla Lake oilfields, lost their lead team, Tex and Jerry, at a South Fork ford. Given up when snow came, the horses were found starving near what is now Hungry Horse Creek; Berne packed in hay and oats and broke a trail out. In Columbia Falls a bystander called it hungry horse country, and the name stuck. An older Highway Commission marker at this pull-out tells Bad Rock Canyon's own story.

What the plaque says

Berne Roadside Park Bad Rock Canyon was a popular stopping place for tourists either taking a break from the road or wanting to wet a fishing line in the Flathead River. Some stopped just to enjoy the scenic beauty of the narrow canyon. A natural spring provided water to locals and, during the early days of automobiles, helped cool more than a few overheated radiators. In 1954, James and Hazel Simpson donated this wide spot in the road to the Montana Highway Department on the condition that it be named Berne Roadside Park for her uncles, Billy and Mike Berne. Brothers Billy and Mike Berne came to the upper Flathead area in 1889 or 1890 from Butte, where they had been employed as miners. Although they came to the valley to speculate on coal deposits in the North Fork of the Flathead River country, they instead found better opportunities in the arrival of the Great Northern Railway. The brothers manufactured brick for many of the new buildings in recently platted Columbia Falls. In 1906, Billy purchased a small farm from Frieda Herrig at the mouth of Bad Rock Canyon and spent the rest of his life farming and promoting the area for tourism. Mike worked as a farmer for most of his life west of Columbia Falls. The Montana Highway Department developed Berne Roadside Park as one of the state's first rest areas in 1956.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Hungry Horse Dam — 5.1 mi
  Named for two freight horses that nearly starved in the snow, and home to the tallest morning-glory spillway in the world.
• Conrad Mansion — 16 mi
  Kalispell's founder built it in 1895; in 1974 the town's voters said no to owning it.
• Lake McDonald Lodge — 19 mi
  A hunting lodge built with its front door on the lake, because in 1914 its guests arrived by boat.
• Trail of the Cedars — 24 mi
  A Pacific forest that runs out of ocean air at the foot of the Continental Divide.

More markers nearby

• Howse House — 21 mi