Welcome to Raynesford, Montana

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  Sluice Boxes State Park

  Photo courtesy: MTOT

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  Local Church

  Photo courtesy: MTOT

Raynesford's history began with the arrival of Edmund R. Huggins and his family 1889. Huggins purchased several hundred acres of land east of Armington. The Great Northern Railway surveyed a route between Armington Junction and Laurel in 1906 and began construction a year later. Railroad officals acquired a right-of-way from Huggins to build a water tower. He also agreed to sell them 40 acres for a townsite if they named the new town after his youngest daughter, Hernietta Ranynesford Huggins. They agreed and the town of Raynesford was born in 1907. (Copyright 2009, Montana Historical Society: Montana Place Names from Alzada to Zortman, Montana Historical Society Research Center Staff)

When mining was king in Montana, railroad tracks snaked through mountain ranges to reach small boom towns and haul ore to market. Raynesford is north the small present-day communitiy of Monarch and the ghost towns of Albright and Hughesville. One railroad ran up Belt Creek, and the abandoned railroad bed is now the main component and access route of Sluice Boxes State Park. Soaring cliffs and precipitous ledges mark the Belt Creek Canyon as it slices out of the Little Belt Mountains and winds toward the town of Belt. Sluice Boxes State Park consists of the northern most 8 miles of the Belt Creek canyon. The train bridges have been removed and visitors must ford the creek.