Coram, MT

Coram is a Flathead County census-designated place seven miles southwest of Glacier National Park’s West Entrance, with 572 residents in the 2020 census. U.S. Highway 2 runs through the community between Columbia Falls and West Glacier, alongside the Flathead River valley. The road gives Coram a steady stream of park traffic, while the surrounding forest, river, and mountain corridors connect the place with the wider Crown of the Continent. Glacier Park International Airport lies about 25 miles southwest near Kalispell.

Coram began as a logging town in 1905 and expanded during construction of Hungry Horse Dam in the late 1940s. The name also lives in the Coram Experimental Forest, established in 1933 in the Flathead National Forest to study western larch regeneration and management; the forest now covers about 7,500 acres and includes research trails and an arboretum. William Coram, an early Kalispell timberman, gave the forest its name. The community today combines Highway 2 lodging and food businesses with a working-forest history and quick access to Glacier. Coram is a Montana place where a timber town became a gateway corridor.