Page 34 - Flathead Living Fall 2014

trucks make fewer trips. The Thronsons take turns hauling trailers to Kalispell and Great Falls to pick up supplies.
But they also know it’s worth it when a father and son visiting the area are able to find a fishing rod and tackle at their store, when a local rancher doesn’t have to drive far from home to get fresh produce, when a community depends on you and you’re up for the chal- lenge. They know how hard it is to walk away from 90 years of tradition.
“I hope they really do want to do it,” Debbie says. “It means a lot.”
bob burNs was borN on the Blackfeet Reserva- tion in 1943. He remembers the collective excitement when electricity brought the wonder of television into reservation living rooms, though as he grew older TV interested him far less than the land, as a source of both economic bounty and family pride.
Burns says his grandmother, beginning in 1900, originally owned the land on which his businesses sit today, at the intersection of Highway 89 and Route 3 leading to Many Glacier inside the park. His family opened a restaurant there, which was converted into a bar in 1954 after the reservation’s alcohol prohibition ended. Burns purchased it from his father in 1974.
Throughout the 1970s and early ‘80s, the Babb Bar established a reputation as a wild, rough-and-tumble tavern where tough locals, both native and not, tested their alcohol tolerance, and often their streetfight- ing prowess, against bikers, seasonal park employees
BREAKINg DOwN BABB
BY THE NuMBERS
5
number of Thronson generations that have run family business
86
age of epiphyllum orchid cactus hanging in Thronson store
8,000
dollars made in single day at Babb Bar in 1970s selling $.25 beer and $.75 drinks
and any other free spirit who was up for the test. Sometimes Burns kicked them out. Sometimes he joined them.
Burns, whose chis-
eled ranching hands and
big-shouldered bear frame
suggest he could still hold
his own in a tussle, refers to
barfighting with a much gentler euphemism: “rolling around in the gravel.”
“Back then, you know, a couple guys might get a little wild and go outside and roll around in the gravel for a bit,” he says. “Then they’d go inside, get a drink, and maybe go back out and do it again. It wasn’t too big of a deal. That’s just how it was.”
In 1986, Burns decided to open a steakhouse, the Cattle Baron Supper Club, to transition away from the rowdy bar days as he grew too old for “rolling around in the gravel with the kids.”
“I figured I’d feed them a big steak instead,” he says.
He was instrumental in every phase of construct- ing the impressive high-ceilinged steakhouse: “from the forest to what you see.” With a background in construction, in addition to farming and ranching, he logged the timber himself, processed it at his own sawmill and then built the restaurant to his own tastes. The murals and artwork adorning the walls reflect his deep pride in his Blackfoot heritage.
Though his hand-built eatery has treated him
aboVe Bob Burns – co-owner of
the Cattle Baron Supper Club and The Bunkhouse Cafe – talks about the history of his establishments in Babb.
32 FLATHEAD LIVING | FALL 2014