The owners of two small town bars hope to bring back some life to the sparse downtown strip of Bovill.
The Elk Saloon will open its doors this weekend, while Bailey's Bar next door is set to open soon after.
The two bars, along with the boarded up Irish pub in between, have been closed for years now, said Bovill local Brad Dammerman, the co-owner of The Elk Saloon and owner of Timberworks Inc.
He said he remembers visiting the building when it was still The Elk Tavern years ago.
"I live here in town and it was sad to see these places shutting down," he said. "It's sad to see the town like this, the main strip, it was like a ghost town."
Dammerman said the goal for him and his business partner, Don Martin, isn't to make a living off the bar, but just to reopen it so the community has a place to come have fun, socialize and share a few drinks.
Together, Dammerman and Martin bought the bar June 1 and plan to open to the public this weekend with performances from Kelly Seidel of Lewiston's Coltrain. The tavern will be open seven days a week, from 9 a.m. to roughly 2 a.m.
The Elk Saloon will serve a variety of hard alcohol, wine and beer, but no food. Hours may change if an early morning coffee crowd starts coming around, Dammerman added.
"All I care is that it pays its way," he said. "You can't make a living off this in these small towns."
The building the saloon stands in was originally built in 1914 and served as a bank for 15 years before being turned into a bar and run by numerous owners through the years, he said. The old bank vault will now serve as the saloon's freezer.
"We are trying to keep it as original as possible," Dammerman said.
The original hardwood floors have been refurbished and cleaned up, while the original window framing was stripped and fixed up. Reworked timber from Dammerman's other business, Timberworks Inc., fills the inside of the small bar, much like a rustic log cabin.
"They don't have trees like these anymore," he said.
Some of the wood used in the door framing and bar countertops have roots in the area, he added. Weyerhaeuser and Potlatch used trees from the Bovill area to build sawmills in Lewiston back in 1926. Now a few of those mills are being dismantled and Dammerman is using them inside The Elk Saloon.
Next door, Bill Hartman is also working to keep Bailey's Bar as authentic as possible pending new ownership. Hartman bought the bar nearly 20 years ago, after retiring as a Boeing electrician in Everett, Wash.
After leaving Everett, he and his wife were looking to get away from the city. That's when they found Bailey's Bar for sale.
"It seemed like a good place and a good fit," he said, as Lucy, the bar's guard dog, laid curled up next to a bar stool. "It's a ma and pa kind of place."
Hartman sold the bar about three years ago, but the previous owner closed the doors last July, he said. He then repossessed the building and began working Monday to update frozen pipes and the heating system, among other issues, while the sale is in the works. He said the new owner is hoping to open within the next month or two.
"I just got power back on this morning," Hartman said as he was working to replace broken pipes and leaks throughout the building. He said the new owner is planning to install a kitchen and begin serving food as well.
Looking around the bar there isn't a whole lot of room for a kitchen, but he said taking out the stage may be a possibility as the music scene isn't as big around the area anymore.
"We used to have music on a pretty regular basis," Hartman said. "We stayed pretty busy."
Back in the day, he said they used to get a lot of college students stopping in during the "Bovill runs." The event no longer happens, but during its peak numerous college students would load into cars, vans and trucks and make their way from town to town, such as Bovill, Troy, Potlatch, Deary and ending in Moscow, drinking at the local bars along the way.
"The young people tend to be a good time and a lot of fun," he said, laughing.
With the end of the Bovill runs, though, the amount of young people in the area has diminished, making it hard to keep the music scene alive, he said.
"It has been in a business for a long, long time," Hartman said of the building.
Inside, the shelves behind the bar are topped with trophies of the old Bovill Babes, a women's only softball team the bar sponsored.
"The original gals are all grandmas now," he said, although he has heard some younger women are looking to start up a local co-ed team again this year.
Spending the past 20 years here, Hartman said he has enjoyed meeting a wide range of people, many of whom he is still close to today, but he is looking forward to some downtime.
"If everything goes well, I'll actually be retired soon," he said.
Samantha Malott can be reached at (208) 883-4639, or by email to smalott@dnews.com.
