In the fall of 1909, a Great Northern Railway survey crew came through this area, and by 1912 all of the surrounding land except the badlands had been homesteaded. The early years were difficult for settlers, who had no roads, no railroad, no market, no grain elevators, and in some years no crops. In 1911, homesteader Clyde Richey applied for a post office to serve the area, and the town has carried his name ever since. As the railroad advanced in this direction, a squatter town appeared on the prairie, and farmers sold stock to build an elevator. In 1916, Great Northern officially surveyed a townsite and sold lots. Merchants from the old town quickly moved near the depot, and the first newspaper began publication. On Steel Day, Dec. 2, 1916, the community celebrated the arrival of the first train, which laid the last ties before it as it came. Great Northern had intended to extend the line across central Montana into Lewiston, but World War I interrupted those plans, and the line ended at Richey. Like many nearby places, other small towns declined as the railroad town became the trade center. In February 1986, the BNSF Railway Company removed the tracks, and Richey was once again without a railroad.