Crime Scene and Trauma Cleanup in Saco, MT

Saco is an incorporated town in Phillips County, Montana, set in the Milk River Valley along U.S. Highway 2 on the Hi-Line, about 28 miles east of the county seat, Malta.

Saco got its start as a watering station and section-house stop on the Great Northern Railway, and a town grew up around the railroad.

Saco's post office opened in 1892, and the town was incorporated in 1918.

Two stories explain the town's name: one says a Great Northern Railway official spun a globe and landed on Saco, Maine, while another says the name is a contraction of "Sacajawea."

The population of Saco was 159 at the 2020 census.

Saco's population peaked at 539 in the 1950 census and has declined steadily since, falling from 197 in the 2010 census to 159 in 2020.

The 2010 census counted 102 households in Saco.

Saco covers only about 0.3 square miles of land at an elevation of roughly 2,182 feet, and it has a semi-arid climate.

In 1999, Saco residents set a Guinness world record by making the world's largest hamburger, a 6,040-pound burger built from the beef of 17 cattle, and the town held the record for two years.

NBC newsman Chet Huntley, co-anchor of the Huntley-Brinkley Report, attended the one-room Huntley School in Saco as a boy; the 1916 schoolhouse, built on land donated by his father, was moved and restored by the Saco Garden Club in 1961 and now serves as a local museum.