Fulton paints picture of historic downtown
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POLSON — Fewer ladies' stores, bars and doughnut shops occupy Polson’s Main Street as a group of Polson history enthusiasts found when they joined Sharon Fulton for a walking tour on Thursday, Aug. 18.
Working with the Polson Flathead Historical Museum prior to guiding the tour, Fulton spent about a year researching buildings on Main Street. She went to the Lake County Courthouse but “the records don’t give occupancies, just ownership” so Fulton prepared a list of owners of different buildings. Since she grew up in Polson she also remembered a lot.
The walkers peeked into Polson’s past as different buildings unearthed memories.
The tour started at the Veterans of Foreign Wars building. Fulton said when the building was built in 1949 or 1950, it contained “the best thing that ever happened to Polson — a bowling alley.”
Fred Funke commented that they also had boxing in the upstairs, and Fulton remembered attending O’Neill’s School of Dance upstairs when she was a young girl.
The Mission Mountain Natural Foods store stands where the Pend ‘Oreille Restaurant was in business. Before that, Funke said, it had been a livery stable and a bowling alley where the pins were set up by hand, according to his dad and granddad.
As the tour progressed, memories shared by members of the group further fleshed out the framework Fulton had prepared and painted a historical picture of downtown Polson.
The doughnut shop was next to Mission View Gifts, and Fulton remembered the doughnut machine was in the window.
“You could also get a 45-cent BLT for lunch,” Fulton noted.
“They had pasties on Thursdays,” Jan Nelson Scott added. She said teachers, such as her dad Toby Nelson, frequented the doughnut shop after school.
The shop had 12 stools, and customers hurriedly ate their lunch to make way for the next person.
A colorful character named Dempsey Emerson operated the Mint Bar in the southern part of what is now the First Resort. According to local legend, years after the Mint Bar was gone, a man doing some ceiling work for the beauty shop going in made an interesting discovery. He found one exposed light bulb still burning brightly over the where Mint Bar patrons had illegally played poker and gambled.
Scott and Janice Smith-Kasson recalled the sturgeon hanging on Fay McAlear’s wall when they were children. McAlear Realty was located next door to where DeVoe Electronics does business today.
The various locations of the Smokehouse Bar were a big topic with the tour. The Bandidos, a motorcycle gang on par with Hell’s Angels, hung around the Smokehouse in the early 1970s when it was located next to Home Floor Covering.
Fulton received a round of applause at the end of the tour. Copies of the walking tour information are available at the Polson Flathead Historical Museum.
