The Moose Creek Ranger Station in the Ten Mile drainage west of Helena was constructed early in the 20th Century. Evidence from old maps and records, and a pencil date exposed on a wall during restoration work, indicate that the ranger station was built in 1908. Agency correspondence indicates that the station was fully operating by 1910. Walter Derrick was the ranger in 1911 but by 1919 he had been replaced by D.H. Lewis, who kept this job until 1928 or 1929 when the Moose Creek and McClellan Ranger districts were combined. During the 1930s, Ranger Bert Goodman was in charge of the facility.
The building is very similar to other early Forest Service-built ranger and guard stations in Region 1, such as the Burnt Hollow RS on the neighboring Deerlodge NF. The building was intended to be both economic and functional, with office, kitchen, sleeping and storage space. Site plans dated to 1921 shows a barn and tool shed on the north side of Moose Creek, but nothing except a grassy meadow is found there today. Moose Creek functioned as a guard station and, in the 1930s, served as the access point to a lookout atop Colorado Mountain (which was removed by the Forest Service in the 1960s). Today, the site is comprised of the old ranger station, root cellar and garage.
The Moose Creek RS played a role in the CCC-operated Camp Rimini, located directly across the road in what is now Moose Creek Campground. Camp Rimini (or Camp A-76) was opened on June 11, 1939, during the waning years of the Great Depression. The camp housed from 137-200 young men. They preformed a variety of work on the Helena NF, including campground improvements, road maintenance and fire hazard reduction.
World War II soon led to the closure of Camp Rimini in 1942. It was quickly transformed into an army dog-training facility—or War Dog Reception and Training Center. It accommodated some 235 military personnel and 700-900 dogs of various breeds. The dogs were to be used for the proposed Allied invasion of Nazi Europe through Norway. When these plans were abandoned for an alternative plan to invade through northern France (Normandy), the camp refocused on training dogs and men for Artic Search and Rescue units. Forest Service personnel stationed or working out of Moose Creek RS also indirectly helped in the management of this facility (i.e., laying out dog sledding trails, rescue of lost men, bear control).
The Camp Rimini dog training facility was closed in March of 1944. The Forest Service held a public sale of many of the portable buildings at Camp Rimini. Because ranger district headquarters had been moved to Helena, the old Moose Creek RS was also sold. The building complex (cabin, garage and cellar) had a succession of private owners (who used the cabin under a Special Use Permit authorization) until 1998, when the cabin came back into FS ownership.
In 2001, the Helena National Forest began restoring the old ranger station for use as summer educational facility and winter rental cabin. The facility was opened for public use in the summer of 2005, the Forest Service’s centennial year. The cabin is now available for rent for $65 per night year-round. By checking recreation.gov the public can reserve this and other local cabins, as well as sites across the nation.