Guide

What are the oldest bars in Montana?

Updated Oct 10, 2026

Montana's oldest working bars go back to the 1800s. The Bale of Hay in Virginia City dates its saloon to the 1860s, the Oxford in Missoula claims 1883, and the Missoula Club and Butte's M&M both go back to 1890. Nobody agrees on a single oldest, and a few took long breaks along the way.

Montana's oldest bars still pouring, oldest first. Each year is marked opened (the bar) or building (the building it's in).
Name	Town	Year	Status
Bale of Hay Saloon	Virginia City	1869 opened	Seasonal
The Oxford Saloon & Cafe	Missoula	1883 opened	Open
Missoula Club	Missoula	1890 opened	Open
M&M Bar and Cafe	Butte	1890 opened	Open
The Snag Bar	Red Lodge	1901 building	Open
The Old Saloon	Emigrant	1902 opened	Open
The Montana Bar	Miles City	1908 opened	Open
Remington Bar	Whitefish	1908 opened	Open
Great Northern Bar & Grill	Whitefish	1919 opened	Open
Jersey Lilly	Ingomar	1933 opened	Open
Club Moderne	Anaconda	1937 building	Open

Bale of Hay Saloon

Virginia City · 1869 opened

They'll tell you the Bale of Hay poured its first drink around 1863, when Virginia City was a gold boom town. J.F. Stoer was running a saloon here in the 1860s, and the Bale of Hay name came in the 1890s from the livery stable next door. Then the building sat empty from 1908 to 1946, so if this is Montana's oldest bar, it's also the one that took a nap of 38 years. The log front made it through a 1983 fire, and it still opens every summer.

The Oxford Saloon & Cafe

Missoula · 1883 opened

The Ox dates itself to 1883 and stays open 24 hours a day, every day of the year, on the corner of Higgins and Pine. They'll tell you it's been open around the clock so long there are no keys for the doors. Bar, cafe, gaming machines, and more than 200,000 orders of chicken fried steak with JJ's special gravy since 1986. Somebody kept count, which tells you something.

Missoula Club

Missoula · 1890 opened

The Mo Club goes back to 1890 and has been on West Main since 1926, and the bartenders will tell you it holds liquor license number one in the state. The neon out front has probably been there since the '20s, which is about as precise as bar history gets. The burger comes single, double or triple. The only other question is cheese.

M&M Bar and Cafe

Butte · 1890 opened

Sam Martin and William F. Mosby opened the M&M in 1890, didn't stay long, and left their initials on the place for good. It ran around the clock for more than a century, and during Prohibition it was officially a cigar store, with the liquor flowing in the back room. Fire took the original building on May 7, 2021, so today's M&M is next door, built to look and feel like the old one. Butte counts it anyway.

The Snag Bar

Red Lodge · 1901 building

The way the Snag tells it, the building on Broadway went up in 1901 and the bar has been in it ever since. The back bar is the original, and so is the pressed tin ceiling. Nobody restored it to look old. They just never got around to tearing it out.

The Old Saloon

Emigrant · 1902 opened

Abe Armstrong opened the Old Saloon in 1902 for rail passengers headed up Paradise Valley to Yellowstone, and after a fire he rebuilt it in 1907 with a back bar shipped up the Missouri from St. Louis. Prohibition shut it down, and it didn't legally reopen until St. Patrick's Day 1962, under his son Elmer. That back bar is still in use. Some things are worth the wait.

The Montana Bar

Miles City · 1908 opened

James Kenney moved his bar to Main Street in Miles City in 1908, and his name is still set in tile at the entrance. The Italian tile floor and embossed tin ceilings are original, the bar you stand at came by steamboat in 1912, and one of the glass partitions has a bullet hole from a gun that went off by accident at the door. Turn at the neon shaped like Montana.

Remington Bar

Whitefish · 1908 opened

The way the Remington tells it, it opened on Central Avenue in 1908. For a while it was the Palm, which is where Whitefish went when it wanted to get rowdy and the Northern down the street was too tame. It's open every day until 2 a.m., so the tradition is in good shape.

Great Northern Bar & Grill

Whitefish · 1919 opened

The Northern opened in 1919 on Second Street to serve Great Northern Railway workers, and moved to Central Avenue in the middle of the 1950s. Bruce Springsteen got on stage here in August 1996 and played two songs before last call, and the clippings are still on the wall. In 2026 a group of longtime Whitefish locals bought it and said they'd keep it the way it is. Good plan.

Jersey Lilly

Ingomar · 1933 opened

The building went up in 1914 as a bank, Ingomar's first brick building, and became the Oasis Bar in 1933 once Prohibition was over. Bob Seward took it over in 1948 and renamed it the Jersey Lilly. It sat closed for a few years before Suzanne Hackett-Morgan bought it on April 30, 2025, and had the doors open by May 5. Out on that stretch of prairie, nobody wanted to wait any longer than that.

Club Moderne

Anaconda · 1937 building

Club Moderne went up in 1937 with a Carrara glass front, which in Anaconda was a statement. In 2016 it won a national contest as America's favorite historic bar, and that October a fire tore through it. The owners rebuilt, kept the bar and some of the original front, and reopened in May 2017.

Know an old bar we missed? Tell us what year they claim, and we'll go check the back bar.

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