Troy, Montana

Troy, Montana
City
Location of Troy, Montana
Coordinates: 48°27′36″N 115°53′28″W / 48.46000°N 115.89111°W / 48.46000; -115.89111
Country	United States
State	Montana
County	Lincoln
Area [1]
• Total	0.85 sq mi (2.20 km2)
• Land	0.85 sq mi (2.19 km2)
• Water	0.01 sq mi (0.01 km2)
Elevation [2]	1,800 ft (500 m)
Population  (2020)
• Total	797
• Density	942.08/sq mi (363.57/km2)
Time zone	UTC-7 (Mountain (MST))
• Summer (DST)	UTC-6 (MDT)
ZIP code	59935
Area code	406
FIPS code	30-75025
GNIS feature ID	0792409[2]
Website	cityoftroymontana.com

Troy is a city in Lincoln County, Montana, United States. The population was 797 at the 2020 census.^[3] It lies at the lowest elevation of any settlement in Montana. The town is on U.S. Route 2, near Montana Highway 56, in the Kootenai River gorge by the Kootenai National Forest.

Originally inhabited by the Kutenai, Salish, and Piegan Blackfeet tribes, the area was settled by miners in the 1880s. Troy was registered as a town in 1892 and grew quickly after the Great Northern Railway built a freight station there, leading to a boom in workers, miners, their families, and associates. The area narrowly missed wildfire damage in 1910 and expanded its services throughout the following years, though its population would drop due to a series of misfortunes in the late 1920s before rebounding in the following decades. Troy suffered from the area's contamination from nearby vermiculite mines contaminated with particularly fragile asbestos, leading to the town's inclusion in the United States Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) National Priorities List status in 2002 and Public Health Emergency event in 2009. According to the EPA, most risk was reduced by 2015.^[4]

Troy is on U.S. Route 2, between Yaak and Libby. Montana Highway 56 is three miles southeast and the Troy Airport is two miles northwest. The town's economy has historically been supported by mining and logging, while in recent times, mining has remained, with the addition of education, retail, and tourism. Local natural features such as the Kootenai Falls have attracted tourism to the area and have been featured in movies such as The River Wild (1994) and The Revenant (2015). There is a public school district (which created ceramic ornaments used to decorate the National Christmas Tree in 2017) and a public library, and the town is in-district for Flathead Valley Community College.