Saloons

44 Locations | Curated by Julian Boughton

Saloons rank among the West’s most iconic buildings. Carried over by European colonizers, the term saloon was synonymous with other drinking establishments like bars and taverns. Use of the term flourished during westward European settlement, forever tying the name to images of cowboys and gambling in the pre-Prohibition American West.

Saloons proliferated and changed as towns grew. Early mining camp saloons were mere tents or lean-tos. Later, permanent communities boasted more ornate, multi-story saloons, some equipped with dance halls, bowling alleys, lodging rooms, and gambling dens. The fanciest early saloons had decorative back bars shipped via steamboat. As rail transportation arrived after 1881, saloon numbers increased exponentially to serve thirsty crowds of farmers, cowboys, soldiers, and miners. Livingston—a division point on the Northern Pacific Railroad—had three thousand residents and thirty-three saloons in 1883. Saloon girls, present in all but the most respectable establishments, provided patrons company while encouraging them to purchase more drinks.

Montana saloons display great architectural diversity. Builders favored brick or stone for sophisticated saloons, a material that reflected a community’s permanency. Owners chose contemporary commercial designs ranging from the elegant Queen Anne to the creative Eclectic style. Incorporating elements from various styles added to each building’s character. Some featured rich interior decoration, such as pressed-metal ceilings, taxidermied animals, and ornate back bars. The Atlas Bar in Columbus still features especially extravagant front and back bars carved from mahogany as well as a menagerie of taxidermied mounts.

State Prohibition laws enacted in 1918 brought an end to alcohol sales and to most saloons. Many businesses converted into cigar shops or “soft drink parlors.” Some continued to illegally operate out of back rooms as speakeasies, such as in Butte’s M&M Cigar Store and Billings’s Rex Hotel. After Prohibition ended in 1933, a small percentage of Montana’s pre-1918 saloons reopened as bars (the term “saloon” never regained its previous popularity). Today, Montana’s historic bars recall the state’s most beloved boomtown-era business.

Most of Helena’s earliest commercial buildings fell victim to the fires that plagued the gulch. This simple 1860s commercial building, originally a single story of stone construction, was a notable exception, surviving a disastrous conflagration in 1874. Early occupants include the Sands Brothers…
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Virginia City grew up almost overnight after William Fairweather found color in Alder Creek. Miners rushed to the rich diggings, leaving Bannack, Montana’s first major gold camp, practically a ghost town. Among the Bannack merchants to follow their customers to Virginia City was J. E. McClurg, who…
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Thomas K. Dane established a hotel on this corner in 1875 when Helena became the territorial capital. On a busy thoroughfare just off Courthouse Square, the establishment had become the Rodney Hotel by 1883 and the original frame building fronting Rodney Street soon assumed its present L-shape.…
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Courthouse Square was already the busy seat of county government when the territorial capital moved to Helena in 1875. Isaac Alden, clerk of the Territorial Supreme Court and later state court commissioner, financed this circa 1880 multi-purpose brick building just steps from the courthouse.…
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Railroad anticipation sparked a frenzied building boom prompting a shortage of brick that postponed completion of this popular watering hole for nearly two years. Begun in 1880, Phil Skeehan’s Tivoli Beer Hall finally opened in 1882. William Beall was both designer and contractor. The Italianate…
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One of a network of Jewish merchants who supplied miners in the Rocky Mountain West, nineteen-year-old Benjamin Pizer arrived in Helena from Poland with his wife Jessie Silverman and their newborn son David in 1869. With limited capital, he purchased fifty pounds of dry goods, which he peddled to…
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Anaconda grew practically overnight. Platted in June 1883, Anaconda already boasted eighty buildings by December 1884, including a wood-frame clothing store on this corner, built by pioneering Jewish merchant Wolfe (William) Copinus. In 1888, Copinus hired architect D. F. McDevitt to design this…
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An 1886 fire destroyed the one-story tin shop and hardware warehouse that originally occupied this lot. Two year later, meat merchant and rancher John Harvat purchased the property. Livingston’s premier Gilded Age architect, I. J. Galbraith, designed the Harvat Block, which was completed in 1890.…
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The Brunswick Hotel, built 1890-1891, is an excellent example of vernacular commercial architecture, with a Queen Anne emphasis. It is one of Missoula’s oldest remaining hotels associated with the beginning of the railroad era here, when hotels arose to serve rail workers and passengers. The…
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Once considered the “wrong side of the tracks,” Minnesota Avenue was known for its many bars, brothels, cigar stores, and Chinese restaurants. (Chinese districts often bordered red light districts, serving inexpensive food to the working women and other patrons.) Around 1893, German saloon keeper…
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Built around 1893, the Bon-Ton is one of four remaining pre-1900 masonry structures in the Central Business Historic District. The term bon-ton means “a good or elegant form or style; regarded as fashionably correct.” This structure is an excellent example of early brick remodeling on stone and its…
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Billings rancher and businessman James R. Conway built this handsome, brick, double-front store with an upstairs boardinghouse in 1900. Conway opened the Crystal Saloon in the west half and J. C. Staffek ran a cigar shop in the east half. The two businesses were among many saloons, cigar stores,…
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Constructed during Wibaux’s transition period from a cattle town into an agricultural center, this Queen Anne commercial style building originally housed the Smith Saloon. Partners William H. Smith, John R. Cornell, and W. H. North built the saloon between 1904 and 1906 and later sold the business…
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A one-story wood-frame building stood here between 1897 and 1907. Reflecting the mining town's early hard-drinking culture, it first originally housed two saloons. When Swedish immigrants Charles Carlson and George Edman purchased the lot in 1907, the town's prospects looked strong. The…
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The inscription in the corbelled cornice of this two-story residential/commercial block identifies its first owner, William Bowen, and declares its construction date as 1907. By 1909, the Eagle Saloon occupied one of the two storefronts while proprietor John Skubitz lived upstairs with his wife and…
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A twist of fate landed 16-year-old German immigrant Alfred Heimer a job with Buffalo Bill Cody’s Wild West Show in 1894. Although the irascible Colonel Cody fired young Heimer three times during that first day, the youth remained as steward of Cody’s private railway car until 1903, developing a…
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After the turn of the twentieth century homesteaders poured into Montana, and by 1910 the area’s land office at Great Falls processed between a thousand and fifteen hundred homestead filings per month. The peaceful little river town of Fort Benton boomed again. Increased population meant more…
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Newlyweds Lot and Hilda Borden arrived in Whitehall early in 1900, and for the next seventy years, their business contributed to the local economy. At first, Lot ran a saloon and Hilda a cafe. The Bordens built the east portion of the present building in 1913 as a billiard hall, saloon, and…
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Completion of the “Milwaukee Road” brought hundreds of homesteaders to Ingomar during the 1910s. By 1914, wood-frame homes and a small commercial district proclaimed the town a permanent settlement. On July 2, 1914, the Ingomar Index announced that a bank would soon open, marking an important…
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Billings architect Curtis Oehme designed the Atlas Block, constructed in 1915-16 of locally quarried sandstone. Rusticated pilasters project above the roofline, and a checkerboard patterned frieze enlivens the cornice. The solid two-story building has always served as Columbus’s social center. Even…
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As Prohibition became the law of the land in 1920, Charles Eybel briefly opened a restaurant in this new commercial building. Although it officially sat vacant after 1922, legend has it that the party began long before Hap’s became a legitimate bar. Local businessman Einar Larson claimed that…
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It was a grand and gala event on October 9, 1937, when John “Skinny” Francisco debuted his luxurious establishment to an eager public. Souvenir roses and etched liquor glasses commemorated the long-awaited occasion. Club Moderne is today a premier example of the Art Deco style, especially…
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