West Glacier, Montana
14 topographic sheets cover this place, the earliest surveyed in 1914 and the latest in 1994. It stands in the Glacier National Park census division. It lies in ZIP code area 59936. It lies near John F Stevens Canyon. The Survey maps it on the West Glacier quadrangle. 221 people lived here at the 2020 count. It stands 3,215 feet above sea level.
On record in West Glacier
Buildings and businesses the archive holds for this place. Each opens its own page, with the source record it came from.
On the National Register 12 of 57 shown
Granite Park ChaletNational Historic Landmark · listed 1983
Lake McDonald LodgeNational Historic Landmark · listed 1987
Two Medicine General StoreNational Historic Landmark · listed 1986- Going-to-the-Sun RoadNational Historic Landmark · listed 1997
Apgar Fire Lookoutlisted 1986
Belly River Ranger Station Historic Districtlisted 1986
Belton Chaletslisted 1978
Bowman Lake Patrol Cabinlisted 1986
Bowman Lake Roadlisted 1996
Camas Creek Cutoff Roadlisted 2014
Coal Creek Patrol Cabinlisted 1999
DESMET (boat)listed 2017
Population over time
2 figuresWest Glacier fell from 227 to 221 between 2010 and 2020. These are the recorded population figures Wikidata holds for this place, reached through the Geographic Names Information System number this page is keyed on rather than by name, so they belong to this place and not to another of the same name. Most are census counts, but not all are: an early figure may be a founding or settlement estimate, and an estimate published within five years of a census is left out. The change column is computed, and is left blank where more than 20 years separate a figure from the one before it, because a gap that long is not a change between two counts.
| Year | People | Change |
|---|---|---|
| 2010 | 227 | |
| 2020 | 221 | -6 (-3%) |
Topographic sheets covering this place
7 surveys from 14 printed sheetsMatched by testing this settlement's coordinate against the published boundary of every sheet in the United States Geological Survey's historical collection. Each opens the scanned sheet at the Survey.
- 1914 USGS Nyack quadrangle1:125000, 3 printings
- 1960 USGS Cut Bank quadrangle1:250000, 3 printings
- 1963 USGS Cut Bank quadrangle1:250000
- 1964 USGS Cut Bank quadrangle1:250000
- 1964 USGS West Glacier quadrangle1:24000, 3 printings
- 1981 USGS Hungry Horse Reservoir quadrangle1:100000
- 1994 USGS West Glacier quadrangle1:24000, 2 printings
Fires near this place
45 since 1992Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal wildfire occurrence database lists 45 fires within 5 miles of West Glacier between 1992 and 2020, burning about 747 acres in total. 6 started naturally. 2 were recorded as arson. Distance is straight-line from the map coordinates, so a fire counted here may appear on a neighbouring settlement's page as well.
| Reported cause | Fires |
|---|---|
| Recreation and ceremony | 10 |
| Smoking | 6 |
| Natural | 6 |
| Missing data/not specified/undetermined | 5 |
| Railroad operations and maintenance | 5 |
| Debris and open burning | 3 |
| Misuse of fire by a minor | 3 |
| Fireworks | 3 |
| Arson/incendiarism | 2 |
| Power generation/transmission/distribution | 1 |
| Other causes | 1 |
The most recent of them, most recent first, with the day each was reported and the service that recorded it.
| Date | Cause | Size | Reported by | Name on the report |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 5 September 2003 | Arson/incendiarism | 1.0 acres | Flathead National Forest | BED AND BREAKFAST |
| 4 September 2005 | Power generation/transmission/distribution | under an acre | Flathead National Forest | POWERLINE FIRE |
| 11 September 1992 | Smoking | under an acre | Glacier National Park | INSIDE |
| 8 August 2017 | Natural | under an acre | Glacier National Park | SNYDER |
| 8 August 2009 | Natural | under an acre | Glacier National Park | LIME SPRINGS |
| 8 August 2006 | Missing data/not specified/undetermined | under an acre | Glacier National Park | MCDONALD CREEK |
| 6 August 2017 | Fireworks | under an acre | Blackfeet Agency | DUMP ROAD |
| 31 August 2016 | Missing data/not specified/undetermined | under an acre | Flathead National Forest | BELTON |
Settlements close enough to share some of these fires:
Storms near this place
9 since 2004Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The National Weather Service names West Glacier in 9 storm reports between 2004 and 2015: 2 hail, 2 thunderstorm wind, 2 flood, 2 heavy rain. No death or injury is recorded in these reports. Each account below is quoted exactly as the forecast office filed it, from the NOAA Storm Events Database, and each date opens the federal record of that event.
| When | Event | Place named | Harm | What the report says |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| November 2006 | Flash Flood | West Glacier | $7,000,000 | The Associated Press reported 7.0 million in damages. Glacier National Park received 9.1 of rainfall in 36 hours. An additional .5 to 1.0 million in damages occurred to the park's trails. |
| February 2015 | Heavy Rain | West Glacier | - | A rockslide was reported along US-2 just east of West Glacier, MT. The eastbound lane was blocked by softball-sized rocks. Road crews cleared debris and the road was usable again an hour later. |
| July 2014 | Heavy Rain | West Glacier | - | The Glacier National Park RAWS reported 0.76 of rainfall in one hour. Other heavy rainfall reports include 0.78 40 min. ending 4:10 pm MDT 3 miles east of Creston and 0.65 in one hour via Hungry Horse RAWS at 6:11 pm MDT. |
| May 2013 | Flood | West Glacier | - | Minor flooding occurred to agricultural lands in the low lying areas adjacent to the middle fork of the Flathead River near West Glacier. |
| July 2006 | Thunderstorm Wind | West Glacier | - | no account filed |
| July 2006 | Thunderstorm Wind | West Glacier | - | no account filed |
| May 2006 | Flood | West Glacier | - | no account filed |
| June 2006 | Hail | West Glacier | - | no account filed |
| September 2004 | Hail | West Glacier | - | no account filed |
Nearest settlements
The eight closest, with where each one stands in the county. Distances are straight-line, computed from the Geographic Names Information System coordinates.
| Map | Place | Distance | Sheets |
|---|---|---|---|
| Apgar | 2.1 miles | 24 | |
| Coram | 6.7 miles | 12 | |
| Martin City | 8.1 miles | 12 | |
| Hungry Horse | 9.0 miles | 12 | |
| Nyack | 10.1 miles | 13 | |
| Lake McDonald | 10.1 miles | 24 | |
| Crystal Ford | 10.2 miles | 24 | |
| South Fork (historical) | 10.7 miles | 11 |
Elsewhere
Matched on this settlement's Geographic Names Information System number rather than its name, so it cannot be a different place of the same name in another state.
| Wikipedia article on West Glacier | An encyclopaedic summary. Its text is share-alike, so it is linked here rather than copied. |
| Wikidata item Q2841651 | The structured record the population and elevation above come from. Public domain (CC0). |
Provenance
This settlement is recorded in the Geographic Names Information System as feature 793105. The sheet list is computed by point-in-boundary test against the United States Geological Survey's historical topographic inventory. Both are works of the United States government and carry no copyright under 17 U.S.C. 105.
Wildfire. Short, Karen C. 2022. Spatial wildfire occurrence data for the United States, 1992-2020 [FPA_FOD_20221014]. 6th Edition. Fort Collins, CO: Forest Service Research Data Archive. https://doi.org/10.2737/RDS-2013-0009.6 Collected with United States Government funding and usable without additional permissions or fees.
Storms. NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information, Storm Events Database https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/stormevents/ A work of the United States government, no copyright under 17 U.S.C. 105. Narratives are quoted verbatim from the National Weather Service report and are not edited or summarised.






