Old Missoula

Huge Montana Mercantile Co. Dates Back to Early Period

The beginning of the Montana Mercantile Co., largest wholesale hardware operation in the Treasure State, goes back to the early days of the Garden City.

In 1865 E. L. Bonner started a store at Bear Gulch and not long after that a log trading post in Missoula at the present site of the Missoula Mercantile Co. retail store in conjunction with R. A. Eddy and D. J. Welch. A. B. Hammond became a partner in the business and it was known as Eddy, Hammond & Co., until 1885 when it was reorganized and became the Missoula Mercantile Co.

McLeod General Manager

C. H. McLeod, who had arrived by stage in 1880 to become a clerk for Eddy, Hammond & Co., was named vice president and general manager in the reorganization and became president in 1890.

It was under his guidance that the store grew into one of the largest operations in the Northwest. It was only natural that the store, which handled practically every item of general merchandise on the market, would branch into wholesale business as the smaller stores in the area constantly sought out the Mercantile when any item was needed in a hurry.

McLeod began working for the firm the day after he arrived here and he continued for 61 years until his retirement in 1941, when Walter H. McLeod, who had learned every phase of the business from his father, took over as president.

New Name Adopted

When the retail store was sold to Allied Stores Corp. Aug. 1, 1959, the new name of Montana Mercantile Co. was adopted for the wholesale hardware and implement departments with McLeod as president; Kenneth J. Egan, vice president and treasurer; Nancy Lagerquist, secretary, and Preston J. Dobb, credit manager. The Kalispell Mercantile Co. at Kalispell is a wholly owned subsidiary.

Headquarters for the Montana Mercantile Co. is the huge warehouse completed by the company in 1957 at 1600 Harker Ave.

This $850,000 structure covers 144,000 square feet. It is about 500 feet long and 300 feet wide. To give an idea of its size, seven railroad cars can be run inside for unloading at one time. It is more than twice as large as he MSU Field House in area.

Thousands of Items

To serve its more than 1,000 dealers throughout western Montana, Great Falls, Anaconda, Butte, Helena and some parts of Idaho, the firm stocks between 50,000 and 60,000 items, making purchases from about 700 manufacturers.

The warehouse contains everything from small bolts and nuts to huge steel girders. Typical of orders made by buyers for the firm are such quantities as 25 tons of ammunition or 30 tons of bathroom fixtures or 40 tons of pipe or 20 tons of paints. The latter would be some 2,500 gallons.

The firm has approximately 100 employes in its hardware and implement departments here and in another hardware warehouse at Kalispell, with about 70 of these needed to keep the big hardware warehouse here operating smoothly and efficiently. The manager of the department store is Warren (Pat) Wilcox and sales manager is William S. Wilcox, both sons of a former Mercantile executive.

The implement department is located in the 200 block on East Front street, dealing in farm machinery of all types. Vern P. Stoterau is the manager.

The wholesale departments of the Mercantile through the years have operated warehouses in many sections of the city, the one at Spruce and Toole near the Bitter Root tracks probably the best known. For many years the Mercantile had a wholesale grocery department on North 1^st street and also a grain and feed warehouse by the Northern Pacific tracks.