Page 51 - Flathead Living // Spring 2016

MARTIN CITY
It’s spring and we’re ready to get outside, go exploring, take a road trip. No matter where we end up, we’re going to get hungry – and thirsty, obviously. In Montana, the highways are long and the roadside stops are few.
and the age of the children in your family, perhaps you generally seek pitstops that lack the rough edges of some of those listed here. But reputations, even if well- earned, can be deceiving. Ownership changes, generational shifts take over, priorities evolve, and edges get smoothed.
That doesn’t mean, however, that a pitstop on a spring highway can’t – and shouldn’t – be just rough enough to stay true to the spirit of its geography and cli- entele. The burgers still taste good, and the beer is always cold. And if you smooth the edges too much, they just get dull.
timber for the Hungry Horse Dam and subsequently for dam workers. Orig- inally called the Hungry Horse Bar, it was the second of 13 taverns that lined a single street in Martin City during the 1950s. The rst, Deer Lick Saloon, is still there, too.
Thirteen bars might sound like a lot until you consider that there were 26 brothels, a tidy 2-to-1 ratio. The madam of the brothels, described in lore under the euphemism of “Sunday school teacher,” was a central gure in town, a generous, community-minded woman who is still discussed with reverence today.
While the saloon’s busiest time of year is Cabin Fever Days, it also draws a loyal local following year round, as well as a current of tourists through summer. It has a spacious outdoor beer garden, fenced with beautiful vistas of Glacier National Park’s mountaintops, and it employs Pruett family members who are invested in maintaining a wel- coming, down-home atmosphere. Bar- tenders know regulars like extended family. It would be hard to say whether Nonie or Monty is friendlier, so we’ll call it a tie. Monty can always fall back on his barstool title.
Stop in, but remember to follow the rules and etiquette suggestions, detailed on signs throughout the tavern: “Come Back With a Warrant,” “Hippies Use Side Door,” and, of course, “Check Your Guns at the Bar.” FL
If you nd yourself on a lonely stretch of highway in the Swan or Yaak, or in the expanse of timber between Kalispell and Eureka, or maybe just in Badrock Canyon or somewhere south of Kalis- pell, you may nd yourself longing for
a burger and a beer. This yearning is a powerful force of nature that must be answered, and fortunately you’ll have this handy little guide to show you the way to Destination Satiation.
Depending on your particular tastes,
1
SOUTHFORK SALOON
A SIGN AT THE entrance to Southfork Saloon clearly states, “Check Your Guns at the Bar.” But 22 years ago, one man didn’t get the memo.
The patron in question was wrap- ping up a hard day’s session with a bottle of Black Velvet when he got into a dis- agreement with a fellow whiskey enthu- siast. One thing led to another and the man ended up ring his shotgun in the parking lot. When police arrived, more shots echoed into the night. Fortunately, the only casualty was the man’s pickup, which was riddled with bullet holes.
To this day, you can purchase a tee- shirt that declares, “I Survived the Martin City Shoot Out 1994 (at the Southfork Saloon).” A souvenir to pass down to the grandkids, perhaps.
Though it’s the most prominent example, the shootout isn’t the lone gun incident in the bar’s history. A pre- vious owner pressed the muzzle of a shotgun to the oor, for reasons only clear to him, and blew open a hole. It’s still there. There are similar battle scars
hiding behind posters and sports mem- orabilia on the walls.
Those tales, however, belie the bar’s current state. Though it can still get rowdy, the Southfork Saloon, under the ownership of Monty and Nonie Pruett since 2004, is more salt-of-the-earth than bullet hole-in-the- oor. But that doesn’t mean the Pruetts are running from their establishment’s history. They’re proud of its evolution, a sentiment that could be extended to the community as a whole.
The Southfork Saloon is the epi- center of the wildly popular Cabin Fever Days, and is the originator of the o beat festival’s famous Barstool Ski Races. In fact, Monty won his division last year. The winning sled is hanging from the ceiling. There’s also an abundance of signed dollar bills dangling from the roof. Recently, a patron called to request that his dollar be removed or updated with his current girlfriend’s name. The bill couldn’t be located.
The Southfork Saloon was built in 1946 to accommodate crews clearing
FLATHEAD LIVING S SPRING 2016 49