A feat that probably wouldn't be accomplished today, the East Shore Highway from Bigfork to Polson is over 100 years old and was built with prison labor. The Flathead Beacon's "Flathead Living" magazine's Fall 2022 issue has a fascinating article written by Butch Larcombe with amazing historic photos courtesy of Montana Historical Society Research Center Photograph Archives.

Excerpt:

While travelers from afar could reach the upper Flathead Valley via passenger train starting in the early 1890s, and were able to venture north from Missoula to Ravalli by train even earlier, the stretch between the rail points often involved horses, wagons a boat or a very long walk.  “Flathead Lake itself served as both an obstacle and as the means of traveling north and south,” area historian Henry Elwood noted in his history, “Kalispell, Montana and the Upper Flathead Valley.” “Early settlers in the region generally found travel extremely difficult.”