Troy is a city in Lincoln County, Montana, United States. The population was 797 at the 2020 census. 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 and other Interior Salish peoples as well as the Piegan Blackfeet, 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. They lived in base camps and seasonal camps based on the availability of plants and fish: "lower elevations in the winter and... uplands in the summer and fall," with spring camps near camas prairies, which had edible bulbs. Due to the area's geography and settler fears of the Kutenai, the area remained unsettled until gold was discovered in the 1860s and galena and vermiculite in the 1880s. In 1886, the first miners arrived, prospecting on the Kootenai River at a tent camp first known as "Lake Camp, Lake Creek Camp, and Lake City", and making land claims on Grouse Mountain. In 1892, a William O'Brien surveyed the Lake City claim, renaming it Troy. The town's first hotel, then called the Windsor Hotel, was built. One transplant described the town as such: "Fifteen saloons gaily lit filled to the doors with “wild men and wild women” yelling, singing, dancing, and cursing, with glasses held high, such was Troy. Two large dance halls were in evidence, one grocery store run by John Bowen, several 'beaneries' (called restaurants by some), one drug store owned by 'Doc' Sailey and many shacks and tents where the 'wild women' congregated. Fights and ribaldry were the order of the days and nights."
alt=one story whitewashed concrete jail on a road. it has the words "troy jail" painted in block letters above the rectangular door|thumb|The [[Troy Jail]]
Vermiculite cleanup
After citizens, media, and local government raised concerns, the United States Environmental Protection Agency began in 1999 to investigate the contamination of the area surrounding Libby and Troy from vermiculite mines in Libby, which were themselves contaminated with a toxic and easily crumbled form of tremolite-actinolite series asbestos, sometimes named Libby Amphibole asbestos (LA).
Geography
Troy lies in a valley along the Kootenai River between the Purcell Mountains to the northeast and the Cabinet Mountains to the southwest.
According to the United States Census Bureau, the city has a total area of , of which is land and is water. Troy has an elevation of approximately above sea level and is the lowest town in elevation in Montana. Troy is from the border of Montana and Idaho. Troy's next closest city is Libby, which is away.
The Troy Mine, which produced silver and copper, was scheduled for closure in February 2015.
An early worker described the original flora of the city site as "a carpet of velvety green grass, thickly studded with wild flowers of most every hue and color."
Troy is located in the Kootenai River Gorge, which is geologically composed of "sandstone and thin layers of shale, with folds from compression that dates back 50 to 100 million years ago. The rock was deposited 1.5 million years ago, when much of Montana was covered by water. Ancient ripple marks and large stromatolites (the remains of algae mats) are visible in the canyon."
Climate
This climatic region is typified by large seasonal temperature differences, with warm to hot (and often humid) summers and cold (sometimes severely cold) winters. According to the Köppen Climate Classification system, Troy has a humid continental climate, abbreviated "Dsb" on climate maps. Troy's annual mean temperature is and its annual mean precipitation is . Flooding is an issue for the area.