Welcome back to Thebeerchaser.  If you are seeing this post through an e-mail, please visit the blog by clicking on the title above to see all of the photos and the video at the end of the post and so the narrative isn’t clipped or shortened.  (External photo attribution # at the end of the post.  #1)

In Part I of this series, I listed my favorite dive bars in Oregon – Portland, along the Oregon Coast and throughout the rest of the state.  My original intent for the blog was to limit my exploration of bars and breweries to the Portland area.

After retiring in 2011, however, my wife, Janet, and I began traveling – not only throughout our wonderful state, but all over the US and one trip to Europe.  It was natural for the range of my Beerchasing visits to expand. 

Consistent with my dive bar theme, I now offer you my favorites – first in the Montana and Colorado – two ideal states for these establishments – followed by the rest of the US.

Beerchasing in the Big Sky State

Two road trips in Montana – one in 2016 and a more extended one in 2019, endeared us to Big Sky watering holes.  The latter was part of a fourteen-day road trip – 3,700-miles across the Western US to North and South Dakota.

Through a long story that began with my wish to take a 350-mile side trip to visit the Dirty Shame Saloon in Yaak, Montana – only 60 miles from the Canadian border, my wife and I negotiated. 

So while she visited our two granddaughters in Seattle, I embarked on a six-day solo trip through the Big Sky Country hitting twenty-nine watering holes.  Janet then flew into Billings and we completed the final eight days of this unforgettable journey.

As I mentioned in my last post, I used two “incredible” (no exaggeration) books by Joan Melcher – Watering Hole – A User’s Guide to Montana Bars and Montana Watering Holes -The Big Sky’s Best Bars as outstanding references. 

These were supplemented by a phone conversation with the author, herself, who was very helpful and encouraging.  As she states in the first book:

“I probably stopped in an eighth of the 1,600 bars in the state.  I’ve written about less than half of those: the bad bars and the sad bars, gay bars and play bars; the stage stop bars, migrant bars, tourist bars and bars for single cowboys; the mean bars and clean bars; the new bars, the rendition saloons, the old boot-legging bars.”

The bars were wonderful – both the people in them and the trappings – and that last term could be taken literally because virtually every bar and many of the breweries (also a lot of the hotels) had mounted (deceased!) wildlife as part of the bar’s décor. 

I’m not a hunter and some people have visceral reactions to these displays, but it accurately reflects the culture of the state:

The Montana Favorites

The New Atlas Saloon       Columbus

The Saw Mill Saloon     Darby

The Blue Moon      Highway 97 Columbia Falls

Antler Saloon     Wisdom 

The Wise River Club     Wise River

The Oxford Saloon  Missoula

The Colorado Favorites

As was the case in Montana, I had an in-depth resource to help on our trips to Colorado.  Dr. Thomas Noel, an history professor-emeritus at the University of Colorado – also known as “Dr. Colorado” and who has written more than fifty books including Colorado – A Liquid History and Tavern Guide of the Highest State.

These excerpts from his introduction give you a good idea on his enthusiasm for the topic:

“Colorado is often too hot or too cold. This helps explain why some of us patronize saloons for temperature, as well as altitude and attitude, adjustment…

Pursuing higher education as long as I could, I completed a dissertation in history at the University of Colorado at Boulder.  For that research, The City and the Saloon: Denver 1858-1916 , I systematically visited every licensed and unlicensed after-hours club, bar, lounge, nightclub and tavern in Denver – some six-hundred establishments.” (#2)

Eiler’s Place    Pueblo

Star Bar    Pueblo

Smitty’s Greenlight Tavern   Pueblo

Four Notable Others

Pinkie Master’s in Savannah, Georgia is a legendary dive where Jimmy Carter, while standing on the bar, was supposed to have announced his candidacy for the Presidency in 1978.  It closed in controversy in 2016, but was resurrected as The Original Pinkie Master’s. 

AC Tap    Door County, Wisconsin

Darwin’s Theory    Anchorage

Durty Nelly’s     Boston

This historic bar (established in 1850) labeled “Boston’s Friendliest Dive Bar” capped a wonderful eleven-day road trip in 2018 through Maine and ending in Boston.

Olympic Diving?

I’ll finish with the silver medal of US dives, if you will.  And this analogy made me think of the Olympic Games and some “questionable” Olympic sports in past and future Games. 

These include flag football (2028), live pigeon shooting (1900), tug-of-war (1900 – 1926), croquet (1900) and rope climbing (1896 -1932.  (#3)

Perhaps they should supplement future Olympic Diving with a “dive bar component” with bartenders lifting or rolling kegs, a mug-sliding competition to the end of the bar (distance and time), etc. Sorry, I couldn’t resist…..

Silver Medal – Rod-N-Gun Saloon – Stanley, Idaho

In 2004, I first visited the unforgettable Rod-N-Gun on Ace of Diamonds Street in downtown Stanley.  It’s at the foot of the beautiful Sawtooth Mountains and I was on a 2,600-mile solo road trip during a law firm sabbatical.  The history and character of this bar are remarkable.

I returned with Janet in 2016 and we had an engrossing conversation with Johnny Ray Kirsch – also known as “Idaho’s Singing Bartender” – brother of the legendary owner and musician, Casanova Jack.  (#4)

For the full story see: https://thebeerchaser.com/2016/09/08/beerchasing-in-idaho-part-ii-stanley-and-the-sawtooths/   (#5 – #8)

And there is an update – see this January 5, 2024 Facebook excerpt from Stanley Real Estate Agent, Erich Hamm:

“Congrats to Tripp Costas for purchasing the Rod-N-Gun Saloon in Stanley and to Johnny Ray Kirch and Eve Kirch for selling. During the winter of 1995, when I was 20 years old, I waited tables for Johnny Ray and Eve on the cafe side of the Rod-N-Gun. We became lifelong friends. That summer I turned 21 at the Rod-N-Gun. It was June 5th, and it was snowing.