On what was known as the
Pacific Extension, which extended the MILW lines in the Midwest to the Pacific Ocean, this one time railway station would have been built in about 1907 or 1908. The 2,300 mile long extension was built in 1906-1909. One of the premiere passenger trains ever to run on this continent, the
Olympian Hiawatha, stopped here until it was discontinued in May of 1961, ostensibly for lack of passenger traffic. Replacement trains continued to make Deer Lodge a stop until 1964, when the western terminus of passenger service was pulled back to Aberdeen, South Dakota.
Though we can't say what, or who, occupied the station in the interim, but it is today home to the Community Evangelical Free Church. This may be the first church we've run across that has taken over an old railway depot. Who knows, had the congregation not seen this as a viable location for their church the station might not be with us today. Unfortunately, the church has no website so we can't tell you anything of its history.