Walton Ranger Station Historic District

Built in 1932 (National Park Service rustic). Listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1986.

From the record

“The Walton Ranger Station in Glacier National Park was constructed to "Standard Ranger Station, GNP" plans as a year-round station at Walton to replace the old Paola Ranger Station and to place a station near US 2, a well-traveled highway through the park. The National Park Service Rustic structure is typical of its time period.”
Wikipedia article Walton Ranger Station Historic District, CC BY-SA 4.0.

One of 168 National Register listings published here for Flathead County · listed in 1986 · category: District · built in 1932, National Park Service rustic.

Sources: the Wikipedia article · the case file at the National Archives · the National Register database, National Park Service

The listing

Address. US 2 near Essex, West Glacier, 59936
When was it listed? December 1986
Category. district
Also known as. Glacier National Park MRA
Census division. Glacier National Park
When was it built? 1932
Architectural style. National Park Service rustic
National Register reference number. 86003700 - the number the National Park Service assigned this property when it was listed, and the key its nomination file is catalogued under at the National Archives.

Fires near this property

41 since 1992

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal wildfire occurrence database lists 41 fires within 5 miles of Walton Ranger Station Historic District between 1992 and 2020, burning about 3,667 acres in total. 26 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
Natural	26
Railroad operations and maintenance	3
Missing data/not specified/undetermined	2
Recreation and ceremony	2
Power generation/transmission/distribution	2
Debris and open burning	2
Arson/incendiarism	2
Equipment and vehicle use	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
8 September 2006	Natural	under an acre	Flathead National Forest	PAOLA
8 September 1992	Missing data/not specified/undetermined	under an acre	Flathead National Forest	not named
2 September 2000	Natural	under an acre	Glacier National Park	SCALPLOCK
13 September 2011	Natural	under an acre	Glacier National Park	PAOLA
1 September 2011	Natural	under an acre	Glacier National Park	RAMPAGE 2
7 August 2017	Natural	under an acre	Flathead National Forest	MARION CREEK
5 August 1997	Natural	under an acre	Glacier National Park	SCALPLOCK
4 August 2015	Natural	under an acre	Glacier National Park	SCALPLOCK FIRE

Every fire recorded in Flathead County

Mines and quarries near this property

5 within 5 miles

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal mineral resources record lists 5 workings within 5 miles of Walton Ranger Station Historic District: 4 past producers, 1 producer. 1 still produces. What was taken out: Copper, Sand and Gravel, Construction, Stone, Crushed/Broken. Distance is straight-line from the map coordinates, so a quarry counted here may appear on a neighbouring settlement's page as well.

Site	Commodity	Status
Essex	Stone, Crushed/Broken	Producer
Essex Quarry	Sand and Gravel, Construction	Past Producer
Great Northern	Copper	Past Producer
Lippincott	Copper	Past Producer
Okedale	Copper	Past Producer

Every working recorded in Flathead County

Storms near this property

9 since 2004

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The National Weather Service names West Glacier, the town this property stands in, 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

Every storm recorded in Flathead County

Map coverage status

No historic map-sheet match is published for this property yet. That does not mean no map exists. This record needs a coordinate-quality review before it can be joined to a sheet boundary. Browse the county's mapped places while that work is pending.

Listed places nearby

4 within 8 miles

Other National Register properties close enough to walk or drive between, ordered by distance from this one. Both positions come from the same geocoding pass that matched these properties to their map sheets.

Property	Distance	Listed
Izaak Walton Inn	0.6 miles	1985
Scalplock Mountain Fire Lookout	2.3 miles	1986
Lower Park Creek Patrol Cabin	5.1 miles	1986
Fielding Snowshoe Patrol Cabin	6.8 miles	1986

Sources for this property

National Archives record	The nomination case file for reference 86003700 in Record Group 79.
Wikipedia article	Community-written account of this property, licensed CC BY-SA.
Flathead County	All 168 listed properties in this county.

Provenance

Listing record. National Park Service National Register of Historic Places, listed-properties dataset, current to 2026-05-22.
Map join. Address geocoded through the United States Census geocoder, then tested against the published boundary of every sheet in the USGS Historical Topographic Map Collection.
How this page is made. Listing fields come from federal records; map-sheet coverage is a labelled coordinate-to-boundary calculation, not a source-field claim.
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.
Mines and quarries. USGS Mineral Resources Data System (MRDS) https://mrdata.usgs.gov/mrds/ A work of the United States government, no copyright under 17 U.S.C. 105.
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.