The locale was originally established in 1924 as a station on the Southern Pacific Cascade Line named "Knott" during construction.[2] The station's name was changed to Chemult when the line opened in 1926 and a post office was established the same year.The area around Chemult is commonly used for hiking, snowmobiling, cross-country skiing, dog sled racing, fishing, and hunting.Chemult has the typical continental Mediterranean climate (Köppen Dsb) of the more humid parts of the Intermountain West, featuring dry summers with large diurnal temperature swings and cold winters with cycles of heavy snowfall and dry spells.Owing to being closer to the Sierra-Cascade crest, however, Chemult is one of the snowiest inhabited places in the contiguous US, with a thirty-year average of 109.4 inches (278 cm), and it also has among the highest frequency of nights below 32 °F (0 °C), with an average of 257.6 nights each year falling below this temperature, including 13.4 in the summer months of July and August when days can skyrocket to 86 °F (30 °C) or higher.