Liquid Louie's celebrates 71 years of cocktails and community

SWAN VALLEY - Liquid Louie's, Condon's oldest bar, celebrated 71 years full of rich history, warm memories and shenanigans with a party on Saturday, July 28.

The bar had humble beginnings. It was started by Louis and Marian "Mame" Krause in 1947, in a small shack built onto the side of the Krause's log home, according to the Upper Swan Valley Historical society and archived interviews with Mary Lou Krause Wilhelm, one of the Krause's daughters.

In the small "beer parlor," benches lined the walls and a galvanized tub sat full of ice and mostly local, Montana-brewed beers. That little shack was dubbed the Swan River Tavern. Wilhelm told the Missoulian in a 2007 article that no one ever called the bar by its proper name. Even in its early days, everyone called the place Louie's.

Within a year, the bar had its liquor license approved and it moved from the shack into the log cabin, while the Krause family moved to a house down the road. The bigger building had an actual bar inside but the same benches still lined the walls. That same building now sits just a few hundred feet from the current Liquid Louie's in its new home at the Swan Valley Museum, where the benches still line the walls.

Wilhelm said in 1952, her father Louis took a hard fall and died shortly after. Two years later, Mame moved out of the home where she raised her family and moved the bar into it. This was the bar's final move and it remains in the same building, along Highway 83, to this day.

"There were a lot of people moving in here at that time," said Wilhelm in the book "Montana: Voices of the Swan Stories From The Upper Swan Valley Oral History Project." "It just became so popular and with the tourists going through, [the log cabin] wasn't big enough."

About 20 years after Louis's passing, Mame sold the bar to its next owner. Only then, and with her permission, did the bar's official name become Liquid Louie's.

Over the years, Louie's has had around nine different owners, though no one can quite remember how many, or even who some of them were. Some owned the bar for such a short time that some current Louie's regulars will tell you that those owners don't "count."

"'I'm either Louie the Eighth or Louie the Ninth," said the bar's current owner Valli Bigley referring to the joke that whoever owns the bar becomes a "Louie."

The bar came into Bigley's possession after her ex-husband, Rollie Bigley, passed away in 2015. Rollie bought the bar in July of 1987 from Norris and Lila Denton. He was the proprietor through some of its wilder times.

Lloyd Hahn, one of the bar's regular patrons during that time, made his name by bringing things into the bar that he claims "probably didn't belong in the bar." This included a mule, one Fourth of July and a snowmobile one winter.

"I rode my mule, Miss America, right up to the bar," Hahn said. "And I got myself a drink and I got my horse a drink too."

Riding his snowmobile into the bar wasn't the only winter hijinks, either. Once, when Hahn's snowmobile was parked outside, his friends hoisted it onto the roof.

"It was a really bad winter, so the snow was almost deep enough to drive it up there anyway," he said. "Three or four people just gave it a little extra push and it was up there. It became a tourist attraction, they left it up all year."

Condon residents Ted and Karen Richardson remembered the '80s as the bar's glory days as well.

"When the log yard was here, this place was hoppin'," Ted said. "On Friday nights, it was jammed at five o'clock. It was full of all types of people and lots of families."

Despite the crazier antics from Hahn and his contemporaries, the family atmosphere at the bar was strong.

"This place has practically been a daycare at times," Karen said. "I couldn't begin to guess how many diapers were changed on that pool table."

The Richardsons have catered the annual summer party for more than 30 years. Back in the early days, they'd roast a whole pig, which would take all night.

"We used to start at 2 a.m. and I was here all night," Ted said. "We'd buy a case of beer and tend the pig. I'd sleep on the bandstand."

Though the Richardsons are no longer running their catering business and Ted no longer has to sleep outside to roast a whole pig, their attachment to the bar remains strong.

"The clientele has really changed," Karen said. "Now there's a lot of people who leave in the winter, but we have a place close to here. We've had a connection with [the bar] all this time."

One thing that hasn't changed is the importance of the summer party. People of all ages gathered in the backyard of Liquid Louie's to eat, drink, laugh and reminisce.

"The summer party has always been our big event," Bigley said. "People even plan their vacations around it."

Bigley's familial roots drew her to the Condon area in the late 1980s, when she met, married and later divorced Rollie.

"All my life, all we did was come [to Condon] for vacations," Bigley whose great-grandparents and grandparents both lived in the area, said. "Rollie and I met while I was in the area in 1988 and we got together in '96."

Owning a bar isn't a constant party, however, and Bigley spends most of her time tending the bar or managing the business. A For Sale sign hangs prominently in the front window of Liquid Louie's.

"I would like to retire. We were getting ready to sell the place when Rollie died," she said. "Hopefully the right person will come along to buy it."

Despite all that has changed, the bar is still a gathering place in the community, even if it's a different kind. Bigley's commitment is to keep it open for those who see it as a place to connect with others.

She said that the people who are still coming in, the people who grew up and were raised in the bar who come back and visit, and the people that live here all the time and need a place to socialize are the people who keep the bar open.

"It's still a gathering place," she said. "That's why Louie created the business, it was to have a gathering place for people to go."