Eagles from the start: general store marks centennial

The Eagle's Store as it now stands was designed by Bozeman architect Fred Willson, with balconies looking west and south. The story goes that teenager Bettie Eagle and her best friend Peg would stand out on the balcony of her room on the south side and flirt with the "gear jammers" or touring bus drivers, as they motored by on the street below.

Built between 1927 and 1930, the second and third floor of Eagle's Store was the family residence. Sam and Ida Eagle occupied the room with a west facing balcony. They could look out at the mountains of the Continental Divide in the distance and over to the bustling train station on Yellowstone Avenue.

Henry, the oldest of Sam and Ida's ten children, was born in 1907, and for the first year of his life they lived as winterkeepers at the old Fountain Hotel in the Fountain Geyser region in Yellowstone Park. The family moved to the new townsite of Boundary in 1908, when Sam and Ida built their first store in partnership with friends Alex and Laura Stuart.

With Sam Eagle's help, the Stuart's son Walt became the first baby born in the new town. Laura had gone into labor early, so Sam ran over to the depot where a train had just arrived, to see if a doctor might be on board. Luckily, it contained a whole convention of doctors, and Sam brought one of them back for the historic delivery.

By late 1908, the new town was called Riverside, then on November 17,1909, the name was changed to Yellowstone, Sam Eagle was appointed Postmaster and the post office was located in Eagle's Store. The town's name would be changed a final time, to West Yellowstone, in 1920.

In 1910, the Stuarts bought another business and the Eagles tore down the store and built a new one. In 1914 they did it again, improving it each time as business prospered.

The Murray Dance Hall was built across the street about 1909. In addition to serving as a dance hall it was used as a community center for public meetings, and in 1917 the first indoor church service was held there. Sam Eagle wrote that during the winter months, skiing off the roof of the dance hall was a favorite afterschool and weekend activity.

The Eagle children, Henry, Ed, Sis, Bud, Bill, Bettie, Rose, Harold, Joe and Wally, helped in the store as soon as they could manage a broom. Joe remembers sweeping the floor at age five, and Wally, the youngest of the brood, said it was an oiled wood floor that seemed to take forever to sweep.

Wally recalls chopping alot of wood, moving up to selling general merchandise and finally fishing tackle. The ice for the soda fountain was kept in the ice house out back, he said, which was two cabins built one inside the other, with sawdust inbetween the walls to keep it cold. The boys kept the soda fountain supplied with blocks they'd cut and haul in from the ice house.

The family made the ice cream they sold in the fountain. Joe said that Wally would turn the crank at the start, he would turn it when it got harder and Harold would finish it up.

Henry's son Rich, says they would come up from their home in Idaho Falls often during the summer and, in bed at night, he could hear the live music through his window.

Rich helped haul gasoline from the "bulk plant" at the other end of Yellowstone Avenue to the tanks at their gas station in front of the store, sometimes making 4 or 5 trips a day. He remembers once putting ethel gas in the regular tank before he realized his mistake, and Joe saying, "It looks like somebody's going to get a bargain."

The boys in the family would pump gas and the girls worked the soda fountain. Rich says he also reupholstered the fountain stools and painted green around the windows.

Wally remembers that Chet Huntley's mother cooked for the Eagle family and their employees during the time that Chet and Bud Eagle were on the debate team at Montana State together.

When Sam died in 1951, Joe helped Ida run the business each summer and finished up at Montana State College in the winter. He met his wife Kay at the Union Pacific Dining Hall where she was a "beanery queen," what we now call a waitress. They and their daughters, Karen and Linda, all live in West Yellowstone. Dusting windowsills and vacuuming dressing rooms was the girls' first job at the family store. Now Karen is general manager of Eagle's Store and vice president of the Eagle family corporation.

Wally taught school and was a ski coach at Bozeman High after graduating from Montana State. He married Frankie, whose grandparents homesteaded the Parade Rest Guest Ranch north of West Yellowstone. She worked at the Silver Spur Cafe while they were dating. They had four children, who now live in Montana and Michigan. Wally and Frankie moved back to West when he retired in 1981 after 30 years of teaching, but they always spent summers at Eagle's Store.

Wally, Frankie and their daughter Kendra are in charge of this year's centennial celebration committee. Wally noted that Eagle's is the Woolrich Company's oldest account west of the Mississippi, another family company, and this summer the Woolrich president and his family are coming to help celebrate the Eagle's Store 100th birthday.

Bettie, Rose, Joe and Wally are the surviving children of Sam and Ida Eagle. Bettie and Rose now live in Bozeman. Rose's two sons, Craig and Kurt Menzel, both live and have businesses in West Yellowstone.

"Family tradition goes way beyond our family with Eagle's Store, other families have traditions with us as well." Karen says, "Katie Carr is the ninth member of her family in three generations to work at Eagle's. Connie Cusick (WY High teacher & coach) worked here during college, plus her sister Mary, her brother Mike, Mike's wife and her sister did too.

"Stephen Covey has been bringing his family in for cherry chocolate milk shakes for over thirty years, either before or after the Playmill. Now he brings his grandkids in, or even comes alone for one.

"Linda Seely has a long tradition with chocolate sodas at Eagle's Fountain," Karen said. Linda agreed. "I've loved Eagle's chocolate sodas since our first summer here," she said in a phone call, "It's that homemade chocolate syrup, grandma Ida's special recipe. I'm totally hooked."

The Eagle's Store 100th Anniversary Open House on Saturday and Sunday, June 28-29, from 1 to 5 p.m. will feature refreshments, memories and special activities, and will commemorate Sam Eagle's 25 years with the postal service. Visit www.eagles-store.com for a list of anniversary activities.

"In a conversation with a long-time customer last summer," said Karen, "He said he didn't know how old he was when he first realized that Eagle's wasn't Yellowstone!"

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