Essex ‘blindsided’ by looming closure of historic Izaak Walton Inn
The Izaak Walton Inn in Essex Thursday, Feb.9, 2023. (Jeremy Weber/Daily Inter Lake)
ESSEX — Over the winter, those in the tiny mountain hamlet of Essex, on the southern edge of Glacier National Park, said something felt amiss around LOGE Glacier, the beloved old railroad lodge better known as the Izaak Walton Inn. Perhaps it was the lackluster snow covering the cross-country trails or the recent departure of a popular employee at the inn, they thought. Even when the trail-grooming machine the inn had been leasing this winter was suddenly repossessed a few weeks ago, locals hoped that maybe someone had made a mistake and missed a payment.
Regardless of what they thought, no one expected that the inn was just weeks away from shutting down as a result of “significant” financial challenges for its Washington-based parent company, which had purchased and remodeled the inn just a few years ago.
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