Essex is an

unincorporated community An unincorporated area is a parcel of land that is not governed by a local general-purpose municipal corporation. (At p. 178.) They may be governed or serviced by an encompassing unit (such as a county) or another branch of the state (such as th ...

and

census-designated place A census-designated place (CDP) is a Place (United States Census Bureau), concentration of population defined by the United States Census Bureau for statistical purposes only. CDPs have been used in each decennial census since 1980 as the counte ...

in Flathead County,

Montana Montana ( ) is a landlocked U.S. state, state in the Mountain states, Mountain West subregion of the Western United States. It is bordered by Idaho to the west, North Dakota to the east, South Dakota to the southeast, Wyoming to the south, an ...

, United States. Located in the northwestern part of the state, Essex lies along the Hi-Line railroad line, near Glacier National Park, southwest of East Glacier and southeast of West Glacier. Amtrak's ''

Empire Builder The ''Empire Builder'' is a daily long-distance passenger train operated by Amtrak between Chicago and either Seattle or Portland via two sections west of Spokane. Introduced in 1929, it was the flagship passenger train of the Great North ...

'' makes a

flag stop In public transport, a request stop, flag stop, or whistle stop is a bus stop, stop or train station, station at which buses or trains, respectively, stop only on request; that is, only if there are passengers or freight to be picked up or drop ...

at Essex station, westbound at 7:41pm and eastbound at 8:55am. The Izaak Walton Inn hotel is close to the Amtrak station platform. Essex also is home to a small

BNSF Railway BNSF Railway is the largest freight railroad in the United States. One of six North American Class I railroads, BNSF has 36,000 employees, of track in 28 states, and over 8,000 locomotives. It has three Transcontinental railroad, transcontine ...

yard. Historically, it was used to provide coal and water for steam trains, and to station helper units used to push freight trains over

Marias Pass Marias Pass (elevation ) is a mountain pass in the Rocky Mountains in the western US state of Montana. Lying on the southern border of Glacier National Park, it is traversed by US Highway 2 and by the BNSF Hi-Line Subdivision. The pass is ...

. It is still used to base snow-clearing crews in wintertime. Named for a county in England, Essex (originally known as Walton) began as a small town on the Great Northern Railway’s main line in 1890.Montana Place Names from Alzada to Zortman; Aarstad, Arguimbau, Baumler, Porsild, Shovers; Montana Historical Society, 2009; page 78 Essex is also home to the Glacier-Waterton hamfest, which claims to be the oldest continually running such

amateur radio Amateur radio, also known as ham radio, is the use of the radio frequency radio spectrum, spectrum for purposes of non-commercial exchange of messages, wireless experimentation, self-training, private recreation, radiosport, contesting, and emer ...

event in the world, beginning in 1934 and held during the third full weekend in July at an area RV park.

Demographics

References

Further reading