Dennis Seglem, Director of the Glacier County Historical society, which operates the Glacier County Museum and Archive, said the Pioneer Bar building will be an important addition to the museum s collection.
Seglem said Cut Bank had its beginnings in 1892 as a small ranching community on the west fork of Cut Bank Creek. In 1909 the area east of Cut Bank Creek was opened to homesteading, which brought an influx of settlers to the area.
In 1911, the Great Northern Railroad established Cut Bank as a division point, which meant an array of railroad facilities, including a roundhouse, cooling tower, repair shops and a hotel. The railroad erected its facilities on the other side of Cut Bank Creek from the original settlement, so many of the original town s buildings were moved across the river to the new town site.
Among those buildings was the Pioneer Store, a business founded in 1902 and operated by P. P. Lee and Martin Jacobson. In 1912, Lee and Jacobson built a new brick building for their store a building that also still stands.
The Pioneer building housed the Cut Bank Post Office for a period, and then housed an automotive dealership selling Mitchell cars. Seglem notes that they don t know anything about Mitchell automobiles other than they were sold from the Pioneer building.
The earliest indications of the building becoming a bar are when a Peter Ruetten bought the building in 1918 and made it into a "cigar and billiard hall" that later became known as the Pioneer Bar.
Seglem notes that when he and Tanya Harper went through the back corners of the Pioneer Bar they found receipts for purchases from the Kalispell Bottling Works for pure apple cider. This was during Prohibition of course, and Seglem speculates, I wonder how pure it was. Seglem relates that in the 1920s, Prohibition enforcement officers raided various establishments around town. You could probably bet that he was serving alcohol.
As to those Prohibition days, Seglem related that a prior editor of the Cut Bank Pioneer Press published a book of stories from Cut Bank s early days. The book tells of a local harness maker, one Grover Pott, who received an order for what ordinarily would be a year s worth of business. It was a major sale, but Mr. Pott was concerned as the buyer told him he d write a check for the purchase amount. He was worried about taking a check that big, so he checked with the local bank about it. The banker assured him, Don t worry, his check is good. He s a big bootlegger, so he has lots of money.
Having survived the Prohibition years, the Pioneer kept going, and Seglem says they have newspaper ads from the 1940s, advertising the Pioneer as a bar and café.
As for the meat market fixtures that Seglem plans to move into the building, he notes that the meat market was built during the World War II years when the Army Air Corps built an air base at Cut Bank for training B-17 pilots. The base closed at the end of the war, though the airfield survives as Cut Bank s municipal airport. Another local historical preservation group is working to preserve the old military hangar and related facilities.
The war years were another of the many cycles that have boosted and depressed the Cut Bank community over the years. Seglem notes that a prolonged drought, beginning in 1917, put the area agricultural economy into a depression, with many of the homesteaders of the previous decade forced out of business.
The Great Northern eliminated the Cut Bank division headquarters in 1928, which was another major hit to the local economy.
An oil boom in 1931 rescued Cut Bank from the Depression, and Cut Bank became known, or at least local promoters dubbed it as, The Oil Boom Capitol of Montana.
During the height of that boom, the town s population grew to 4,500 people. The oil era wound down in the 1980s when area oil fields were mostly depleted and the Cut Bank oil refinery closed. Cut Bank s current population is 3,100.
After reviewing the ups and downs of Cut Bank s history, Seglem says, We re waiting for the next chapter to be written.
As for the acquisition of the Pioneer Bar building, Seglem is looking forward to the challenges and opportunities the building presents. The Society is currently soliciting bids from local house movers. The straight line distance from the current to future location is just three-fourths of a mile, though the actual move will cover two miles.
Seglem and his colleagues with the historical society are looking forward to putting the building and its various features under a magnifying glass. He notes, for example, there s a door on the building s second story. There s no way to get to that door except by a ladder. He s learned that a shed had once been added to the building and the shed s roof was the access to that door, which opens to a room that was likely used as an office.
He also is eager to determine just where wider doors would have been installed to allow automobile access during the car dealership days.
In addition to using the building to feature displays of an old-time general store and an early bar, Seglem anticipates being able to use the building as a place to hold meetings, host school tours, or even to hold dances or other public events. Plans also call for a catering kitchen, so that the facility can be used for hosting additional meetings.
Seglem sums it up: That s what s neat about this building: it has served this community since its earliest days.
Tanya Harper is beginning a new chapter in Cut Bank s downtown business district when she opens the new Pioneer Bar and TNT Casino. The venerable Pioneer Bar building, after years as a general store, post office, auto dealership, Prohibition-era cigar store and small town bar, begins a new chapter as an example of Glacier County s living history.
As the Glacier County Historical Society s fundraising brochure says, The Pioneer is a survivor.
Save the Pioneer
The Glacier County Historical Society is holding a fund drive to raise the money needed to move the existing Pioneer Bar to its new home at the Glacier County Historical Museum, and to restore/refurbish the building for its next century of service.
Tavern Times readers wishing to contribute to the project can send contributions to:
Save the Pioneer Project
Glacier County Historical Museum
PO Box 576
Cut Bank, MT 59427
For more information, call the museum at 406-873-4604, or e-mail to
gcmuseum@sofast.net.
Source: The Montana Tavern Times, Jan., 2007, published monthly by Continental Communications, 125 W. Granite St., Suite 102, Butte, MT 59701.