Cooke City is an

unincorporated community An unincorporated area is a region that is not governed by a local municipal corporation. Widespread unincorporated communities and areas are a distinguishing feature of the United States and Canada. Most other countries of the world either have ...

and

census-designated place A census-designated place (CDP) is a Place (United States Census Bureau), concentration of population defined by the United States Census Bureau for statistical purposes only. CDPs have been used in each decennial census since 1980 as the count ...

(CDP) in Park County,

Montana Montana () is a state in the Mountain West division of the Western United States. It is bordered by Idaho to the west, North Dakota and South Dakota to the east, Wyoming to the south, and the Canadian provinces of Alberta, British Columb ...

, United States. As of the 2010 census, it had a population of 75. Prior to 2010, it was part of the Cooke City-Silver Gate CDP. The community sits northeast of

Yellowstone National Park Yellowstone National Park is an American national park located in the western United States, largely in the northwest corner of Wyoming and extending into Montana and Idaho. It was established by the 42nd U.S. Congress with the Yellowst ...

on the

Beartooth Highway The Beartooth Highway is an All-American Road in the western United States on a section of U.S. Route 212 in Montana and Wyoming between Red Lodge and the Northeast entrance of Yellowstone National Park. It crests at Beartooth Pass in Wyom ...

, which leads east to

Red Lodge, Montana Red Lodge is a city and county seat of Carbon County, Montana, United States. As of the 2020 census, the population of the city was 2,257. History On September 17, 1851, the United States government signed a treaty with the Crow Nation, cedi ...

, on a scenic route climbing to in elevation through the

Beartooth Mountains The Beartooth Mountains are located in south central Montana and northwest Wyoming, U.S. and are part of the Absaroka-Beartooth Wilderness, within Custer, Gallatin and Shoshone National Forests. The Beartooths are the location of Granite Peak, ...

and across the Beartooth Plateau. The town's chief industry is tourism, which during the winter includes skiing and snowmobiling. It is named for

Jay Cooke Jay Cooke (August 10, 1821 – February 16, 1905) was an American financier who helped finance the Union war effort during the American Civil War and the postwar development of railroads in the northwestern United States. He is generally acknowle ...

, financier of the

Northern Pacific Railroad The Northern Pacific Railway was a transcontinental railroad that operated across the northern tier of the western United States, from Minnesota to the Pacific Northwest. It was approved by Congress in 1864 and given nearly of land grants, whi ...

Geography

Cooke City is near the southeast corner of Park County, bordered to the south by the North Absaroka Wilderness within

Shoshone National Forest Shoshone National Forest ( ) is the first federally protected National Forest in the United States and covers nearly in the state of Wyoming. Originally a part of the Yellowstone Timberland Reserve, the forest is managed by the United States ...

in the state of

Wyoming Wyoming () is a state in the Mountain West subregion of the Western United States. It is bordered by Montana to the north and northwest, South Dakota and Nebraska to the east, Idaho to the west, Utah to the southwest, and Colorado to the s ...

, and to the west by the community of Silver Gate, Montana. The two towns sit in the valley of Soda Butte Creek, which flows southwest into Wyoming to join the

Lamar River The Lamar River is a tributary of the Yellowstone River, approximately long, in northwestern Wyoming in the United States. The river is located entirely within Yellowstone National Park. History Prior to the 1884–85 Geological Survey of the ...

. The valley is part of the

Yellowstone River The Yellowstone River is a tributary of the Missouri River, approximately long, in the Western United States. Considered the principal tributary of upper Missouri, via its own tributaries it drains an area with headwaters across the mountains a ...

watershed. U.S. Route 212, the Beartooth Highway, passes through the center of Cooke City, leading southwest into Yellowstone National Park, and east over Colter Pass in the eastern part of the CDP to continue southeast back into Wyoming in the valley of the Clarks Fork Yellowstone River and thence into the

Climate

Cooke City has a subarctic climate ( Dfc) or subalpine climate due its extremely high elevation, at , with only two months averaging above . Summers consist of mild to warm days with crisp, cool mornings, and winters are long and very cold, with many nights falling below zero. Snowfall is abundant, with most of it falling between the months of October to May, though snow does occasionally fall in the months of June and September. Cooke City is listed as the snowiest community in Montana.

Demographics

References

Census-designated places in Park County, Montana Census-designated places in Montana {{ParkCountyMT-geo-stub