Museum roundtable preserves Missoula memories of Mercantile, ski shops and downtown rebirth

Carolyn Thompson, assistant director at the Historical Museum at Port Missoula, opened the session by calling it “the first, business roundtable event in conjunction with the brick and mortar, 1 brick at a time exhibit that just opened here at the Historical Museum at Port Missoula.”

The hourlong conversation brought together former and current small-business owners, volunteers and museum staff to record memories of Missoula’s commercial life. Participants traced a downtown decline before the 1970s, a resurgence tied to downtown organizing and redevelopment, and landmark local businesses that residents said shaped the city’s identity.

The group discussed the downtown pullback before the 1970s and a revival through the next decades. “I remember pre-1970s when downtown Missoula was pretty well shut down,” one participant said, noting boarded storefronts and empty blocks. Discussants raised the Urban Renewal-era changes of the 1970s and asked whether those policies helped spur downtown regeneration.

Speakers named specific places and patterns that marked the city’s retail history. Multiple participants recalled the Mercantile as a defining downtown department store with a basement, toy department and extensive hardware and furniture sections; the museum has received donations from the Mercantile’s stock. Vendors and shopkeepers on Higgins Avenue and Alder Street, secondhand stores concentrated on Alder, and specialty retailers such as Bob Ward’s and Ogg’s Shoes also came up repeatedly.

Former shop owners described business life across eras. Fran Lawrence, a museum volunteer who said she had owned a downtown small business for 35 years, summarized long-running ties between merchants and neighborhoods. Stan Cohen, who ran a ski and sporting-goods shop on Higgins, recalled building a ski business tied to Snowbowl and told the group how local retailers sometimes lost exclusive product lines when larger stores pressed manufacturers: “Bob Ward’s put the pressure on Speedo Company and they got it,” he said, describing competition for brand lines.

Audience members added personal anecdotes — about shoplifting incidents at small stores, donated archives and photo collections, and the role local bars, hotels and entertainment venues played in social life. Museum staff and volunteers said those stories and donated items help the museum document Missoula’s commercial and social history.

The museum indicated this roundtable is the first in a planned series to collect oral histories and local business recollections for the exhibit and its collections. Organizers asked attendees to sign waivers and invited participants to contact staff with further materials or recollections.