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History · Rapelje

Rapelje’s post office opened in 1917, and 48% of its homes were built before 1940

Below: maps from 1892 on.

1917first post office
0on the National Register
48%homes built before 1940
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Photo: USDA NRCS Montana · Public domain
Quick answers

How Rapelje began

When was Rapelje founded?

1917

The Rapelje post office opened in 1917, the earliest record of the town by name. Another post office, Lake Basin (1913), opened inside today’s town and later closed.

2020 census: 88109 years
Founding year: the first Rapelje post office (Blevins & Helbock, CC0).The full story ↓

What stands out about Rapelje’s past

Read from the archive, the National Register and the record. The page puts what stands out first.

A history waiting to be writtenNo old photos of Rapelje are in the public archives yet. The rest are in attics and albums.Old housesHalf of Rapelje’s homes were built before 1953.
★ What stands out · Help out

Start Rapelje’s collection

The first neighbors to add old photos shape how Rapelje’s history is told.

Decades since 1900 with photos
00s10s20s30s40s50s60s70s80s90s
0 of 10 decades. The empty ones are waiting for someone’s album.
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The story

How Rapelje came to be

From Wikipedia’s history of Rapelje.

Read it all →

Rapelje was originally called Lake Basin due to its geographical landscape, but in 1913 it was named after J.M. Rapelje, who was one of the heads of the Northern Pacific Railroad. Rapelje was first established as a town where local railroad workers of the Northern Pacific Railway would live in the late 1800s. As more people began to work at the railroad, the town grew bigger in both size and population. They had multiple establishments such as a hotel, a grocery store, a town hall, a K-12 school, and many other things. A post office was established in 1913, and the four grain towers (which are still there today) were put in business. A railroad destination point, Rapelje developed into a reasonable town with a number of grain elevators, its own school district, an evangelical church, a cafe, and later a violin shop and clothing business. In 1980, the railroad was taken out of Rapelje, a…

Text from Wikipedia, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0.

Timeline

Rapelje, 1892 to 1917

Woven from the archive, old maps, post office records, the National Register and the people born here.

  1. 19th century
  2. 1892On the mapFirst mapped by the U.S. Geological Survey
  3. 20th century
  4. 1913Post officeThe Lake Basin post office opens
  5. 1917Post officeThe Lake Basin post office closes
  6. 1917Post officeThe Rapelje post office opens
By decade

No old photos in the archives yet

Weddings on Main Street, storms, parades, school pictures, the old store. If it’s in your family album, it belongs here.

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On the map

Rapelje on the map, 1892 to 1956

Every edition of the U.S. Geological Survey’s map of Rapelje. Tap a year, or press play to watch the town change.

Rapelje on the 1892 USGS mapRapelje on the 1956 USGS map1892Stillwater sheet · 1:125,000

U.S. Geological Survey historical topographic maps (public domain), via Esri’s collection of the scans. The red ring marks the center of Rapelje.

Places that used to be

Lost post offices and places now gone

Rapelje’s post office has been open since 1917. Another post office, Lake Basin, opened and closed inside today’s town.

Lake Basin
1913–1917
Rapelje
1917–today
19101970today
Gone or out of use
Rapeljelocale

US Post Offices dataset (Blevins & Helbock, CC0). Places and cemeteries from the USGS Geographic Names Information System (2021).

Questions about Rapelje’s history

What year was Rapelje founded?

The Rapelje post office opened in 1917, the earliest record of the town by name (U.S. post office records).

Memory lane

What the archives can’t tell you, neighbors can.

Town Square →
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Sources

Where this page comes from

Founding dates: Wikidata, Wikipedia, the U.S. post office records of Blevins & Helbock (CC0) and the Census. Homes by year built: Census ACS 2020–24. National Register of Historic Places: National Park Service (list of May 22, 2026). Old photos, postcards and papers: Wikimedia Commons, the Library of Congress and other public archives, credited on each item’s page. Maps: U.S. Geological Survey historical topographic maps (via Esri) and Sanborn fire-insurance maps (Library of Congress). History text and census tables: Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0). Places that used to be: USGS Geographic Names Information System (2021). How TownRatings grades history →

From Wikipedia, U.S. Geological Survey historical maps, the US Post Offices dataset (Blevins & Helbock) and the USGS Geographic Names Information System. Archive images are copied here with their credits and licenses, shown on each photo’s page. Refreshed monthly.