[5] By the early 1900s, they consisted of three Cree families living at Lake Nagagamisis, along with a number of Ojibwe who were possibly originally from Heron Bay.

Hornepayne differs from a number of older Northern Ontario settlements due to its distance from major waterways, making it relatively inaccessible before the advent of rail transportation in the north.

[4]: 87  The townsite was originally surveyed in 1877, when possible routes for the Canadian Pacific Railway transcontinental mainline were being explored.

[4]: 87 In the steam era, the railway system was labour-intensive and required many workers for maintenance of way, crew changes, and to resupply trains with coal and water at fixed intervals.

Sections of track were broken up into subdivisions, which were approximately 200 kilometres (120 mi) long and were separated by divisional points.

Additionally, most steam trains needed to be resupplied with coal at least once and water at least three times when passing through each subdivision, requiring railways to maintain even more permanent or semi-permanent settlements to support these operations.

[4]: 88 Throughout the 1920s, Hornepayne grew, and soon was home to several grocery and general stores, as well as a butcher shop, a dress shop, a pharmacy, a Hudson's Bay Company store, two barbershops, a town hall, two restaurants, a bowling alley, two pool halls, and two hotels, one of which was owned by CN and one of which was independent.

Rail traffic slowed during the Great Depression, and the town struggled, with some residents finding employment on highway construction under government public works funding.

[4]: 91 In the 1970s and 1980s, Hornepayne underwent a considerable redevelopment push, spurring the southern highway extension, the opening of the Hornepayne Municipal Airport, and the creation of the mixed use Hallmark Centre "mall", merging together a number of commercial, recreational, and institutional aspects of the town.

At various times, it included residences for CN temporary workers (an evolution of the CN bunkhouses which were demolished in the 1950s), a post office, the local high school, a hotel, a library, a swimming pool, a gym, apartments, and a Hudson's Bay Company Northern Store department store.

Boulders, small rocks, and clay, are scattered throughout the area, part of the glacial wash. A typical volcanic core is to be found about five miles north.

Hornepayne experiences a unique subarctic microclimate (Dfc) due to its elevation of 336 meters (1,101 feet) and location in Northern Ontario.

Hunting- and fishing-related tourism in the area (particularly just north of the town in nearby Nagagami Lake Provincial Park) is served by several small companies.

[15][16][17] The township of Hornepayne has been the proposed site of a low level nuclear waste storage facility for some time.

The town's community liaison group chose to withdraw from this development in the early 1990s,[18] but as of May 2010 the township is still being considered for nuclear waste management/storage.