Coffee Creek, Montana, located on the high plains of northeastern Fergus County, is undoubtedly best known today as the backdrop for a series of Harlequin romance novels. The setting and the starkness of the landscape is probably not what you envision in a romance novel but it does convey the reality of what Coffee Creek was, and is, today.
Coffee Creek was a railroad town, established in the same year as many of its neighbors, in 1913. Unlike Denton to the east or Stanford to the south, Coffee Creek never grew beyond its booster beginnings. Like the others it had a state bank, a post office, school, churches. Today the post office remains–one of the best rural historic post offices of the region–but most everything else is closed. The church is a well-kept example of early
20th century vernacular Gothic design, but it no longer holds regularly scheduled services. It remains a community landmark.
Another community landmark is the building above, which I believe is a Community Hall from the 1920s or 1930s. Throughout rural Montana in the 1920s a movement began to build structures where the homesteaders who stayed could gather and have events, play basketball, or dance the night away. New Deal agencies in the 1930s built many more, like the one this blog has already recorded in Sanders, Montana. This building in Coffee Creek reminds me of the Sanders community hall–hopefully someone reading this blog can add details about it.
The volunteer fire hall, like the post office, is one community institution still in service to local residents and surrounding ranches as is the town cemetery, perched to the north, high on a hill overlooking the town, Highway 81, and ranches as far as you can see.
As the buildings of Coffee Creek fade away, here the cemetery will record the names of those who staked out this place as their home, while those who return to pay their respects will keep the memories of this disappearing place alive for as long as they remember to return.
Montana's Historic Landscapes 
Growing up in the Coffee Creek community in the 50’s and 60’s, I remember attending wedding receptions at the town hall and the annual community Halloween party. Locals used the facility for club meetings, birthday parties, pot lucks, and basketball practice. The teenagers from Denton used the hall in the late 60’s to gather for weekly roller skating.
My great-grandparents, Fred and Bessie Murray, were homesteaders in Coffee Creek at the turn of the century. Bessie played the piano for the Saturday night dances, probably in the building pictured above. Fred Murray and his brothers established the first dray line and livery barn in Coffee Creek, and Fred was the chief of the first Coffee Creek Fire Department.
Thanks for the great information!
My grandparents were Earl and Elmo Murray. Earl was Fred Murray’s brother.
Earl and Elmo came to Montana in 1909 bringing my dad, Ray Murray with them.
He was 8 months old.
My great grandparents, Teunis and Maaike de Winter, came to Coffee Creek with their 14 children around 1911. I believe my great grandmother was the first one buried in the Coffee Creek cemetery. I was able to visit her grave a few years ago, it’s a beautiful place. I hope to come back to see the town someday.
I think we are related!! I believe your great grandparents were relatives of my grandma, Marjorie DeWinter (Smail by her married name). My grandpa is buried in the Coffee Creek Cemetary, Ray Smail. I have seen Teunis and Maaike listed in our family tree. And I have relatives who named their children Maaika!!
You are absolutely right! My grandma was Cornelia “Kitty” de Winter (Spence). She and Marjorie were sisters. I think that makes us 3rd cousins? I knew we had Smail relatives so when I was at Coffee Creek cemetery I took photos of all the Smail headstones I could find. So nice to find another cousin!
My grandmother was Elmo Jestina Smail ( married to Earl Murray) whose oldest brother was Silas Walter Smail. Ray Smail was the oldest son of
Walter and Inez Smail. Earl and Elmo are also buried in the Coffee Creek cemetary. I grew up on the property that was homesteaded by Earl & Elmo in 1909 and spent many occasions in Coffee Creek as a young child.