Polebridge Mercantile has been a North Fork outpost for more than 100 years

When visitors are met with its tall, red false facade, it’s easy to assume that little has changed at the Polebridge Mercantile in its nearly 110 years of existence.

It’s a story no one has written down, but a new book from local historian Lois Walker hopes to preserve the rich history of the store, its 10 owners, and their impact on the North Fork community.

Walker, a retired Air Force historian, said she was surprised to learn no one had written a history book about the mercantile. She and her husband bought a home in the North Fork during the 1980s and have been living there full-time for 12 years. Ever since, she’s become a historian of the area, working to catalog and make digital copies of important photographs and documents.

She never planned to put together a history book, but when she found out there wasn’t anything written about Polebridge, she decided to put her expertise to the page.

“It's not that I'm necessarily associated with the Merc, but I saw a need. I saw this void and said, ‘why don't they have a book on the history of the Merc?’ And so I wrote one,” Walker said.

Polebridge is about 35 miles north of Columbia Falls along the mostly gravel North Fork Road. Sitting on the northwestern edge of Glacier National Park, the community includes houses, cabins and small ranches in the area. At the heart of it all, is the historic Polebridge Mercantile.

Sitting down at a table in back of the mercantile recently for an interview, Walker was joined by current owner Katerina Hammerquist, who has run the store with her husband Will since 2016. He’s out getting ready for the beginning of a new season, and staff are taking in the calmness of a sunny May morning before hoards of visitors arrive and begin buying their famous huckleberry bear claws by the handful.

When Walker began researching the store, she interviewed the former proprietors who are still alive, as well as relatives of those who have died. She went back and found nearly every mention of Polebridge in local newspapers.

“In the old days, when there was a column in the paper, it was ‘so and so went to town’ and ‘so and so's building a fence’ … You can track all of that and you know who all these people are [when you are researching them.] So, I compiled a lot of research, got a lot of interviews and then it slowly sort of coalesced into this history,” Walker said.

OPENED BY Bill Adair and his first wife Jessie in 1914, the Polebridge Mercantile had plenty of eager customers from the very beginning. According to Walker’s “History of the Polebridge Mercantile,” Adair, originally from Missouri, wanted to pursue the “world of retail merchandising” when he made the decision to settle down in Montana after working for the Great Northern Railway. He learned how to operate a business under Belton Mercantile owner Edward Dow and in 1904, opened W.L. Adair General Merchandise in what is now Sullivan Meadows in Glacier National Park.

He and Jessie would then make the move to a 160-acre plat on the west side of the Flathead River, where the site of the current-day mercantile would be built in 1914. Adair had his sights set on the North Fork because of the customer base it boasted. In addition to the 120 homesteading families that would eventually occupy the area during his tenure, customer receipts from 1913-1923 reflect sales to three different oil companies, the Blackfeet National Forest, Glacier National Park, Flathead County and the local school district, among others.

“He was the man of the hour, if you needed anything to build your cabin, to live in your cabin, he had it — building supplies, windows, doors, stove, pipe, nails, tools … You could get anything from needles to chamber pots. If you needed it, he sold it,” Walker said.

It was a two-day trip to get to Columbia Falls during the early days of the mercantile, so residents and workers really depended on the store to get necessary supplies. Until a bridge was built in 1913, Adair would ford the river to deliver goods to his customers in Glacier Park.

The Adair store became a beacon of community in the North Fork and laid the foundation for the next nine owners to grow the business. Nowadays, when visitors come to the mercantile it feels like they’re stepping back in time. In reality, Walker said the store has changed a lot over the years but it still feels like you are winding back the clock to 1914.

“By the time you've come all the way up that road on the gravel road and you walk in, the ambiance is kind of the same. I mean, the merchandise is completely different than it was back then. But it's because the structure is here, because they haven't changed the decorations on the walls … It is like stepping back in time, and you're away from all the hustle and bustle in the valley and in the park,” Walker said.

Walker said it’s serendipitous that a William (Bill Adair) was the first owner of the mercantile and the current owner is another Will — Will Hammerquist.

THE MERCANTILE, under Hammerquist's operation, is more of a destination than ever. He bought the store, its associated buildings, and 23 acres of land in 2014 — the 100th anniversary of the mercantile’s opening. Since then, the owners have stabilized the store, which was leaning on its foundation three inches to the north.

“It’s now rock solid,” Will is quoted saying in the book.

Will has also added cabin rentals, employee housing, a playground, a fruit and vegetable stand, a horse barn and a bathhouse, among other structures. The family also got several Great Pyrenees dogs, which can be seen moseying around the property often, to help guard the livestock.

Katerina said they were already familiar with a lot of the history, but Walker’s book helped them connect to previous owners in new ways. She said it was interesting to see how everyone has had their own challenges running the mercantile.

“Most of them were struggling a lot with the weather, with the store not being in good shape— because it's an old building and even 50 years ago, it needed major repairs. So yeah, it's been really interesting and I'm sure every single owner gives a very specific character to the building and operation,” Katerina said.

The Hammerquists are no strangers to struggles at Polebridge, particularly when it comes to weather and wildfire.

“Being ever fire-conscious, Will purchased a used fire truck, a 500-gallon water tender and fire hoses for emergency use until outside help could arrive. He also purchased emergency AED equipment and made sure many of his employees attended AED, first aid and CPR training,” Walker writes in the book.

In addition to these changes, the mercantile is pumping out its signature baked goods more than ever. In 2019, Katerina reported that bakery staff was producing an average of 500 huckleberry bear claws a day and 1,000 for special occasions.

The mercantile’s customer base has changed from North Fork homesteaders to hungry tourists, but Walker said the goal is ultimately the same.

“I think both Bills are brilliant at what they do and figuring out who their customers are and what they need, and supplying it for them,” Walker said.

Getting ready for another busy season, Katerina said that the construction planned for many areas of the North Fork in Glacier National Park and along the road that goes from Polebridge into the park will probably have an effect on visitation. How much? Like other seasons, it’s really hard to say.

“You never know how your day will be, you never know how your whole season will be and there are a lot of things which can affect that, especially fires, which can be a big factor of when our season can change. And, yeah, we’ve experienced that multiple times over the past 10 years,” Katerina said.

If it’s one thing the owners of Polebridge Mercantile know, it’s that unpredictability is the only thing you can predict while operating the historic store on the outskirts of Glacier National Park.

“History of the Polebridge Mercantile” is available for purchase through the website, polebridgemerc.com, or can be purchased in person at the store. The mercantile is open for summer hours now, daily from 7 a.m. to 9 p.m., through Labor Day weekend.

Reporter Taylor Inman can be reached at 406-758-4433 or by emailing tinman@dailyinterlake.com.

Reporter Taylor Inman can be reached at 406-758-4433 or by emailing tinman@dailyinterlake.com.