Remember This? The Merc and The Bon in Downtown Missoula

The Missoula Mercantile goes back to Edwin Bonner and Daniel Welch, who came through the Missoula Valley in 1864 to start a store, according to the Historical Museum at Fort Missoula. R.A. Eddy and A.B. Hammond came in after Welch retired in 1871, and the Eddy-Hammond business was known as the Missoula Mercantile by 1885. It dominated wholesale and retail in town for decades.

The museum’s description of the building is the part people remember: a third floor for overstock, big skylights over two shopping floors, and a basement that came with stories, including a passage John Wayne supposedly used to get to the Florence Hotel, and circus animals kept down there when Ringling Brothers was in town.

Allied Department Stores bought it in 1959 and kept the name and most of the staff. In March 1978 the ads switched to The Bon Marche, so if you grew up in the ’80s, it was probably The Bon to you. It became Bon-Macy’s in 2003, then Macy’s. In January 2010, the museum says, the building was emptied and the lights turned off. Downtown Missoula Partnership’s Linda McCarthy put the closing at March 1, 2010, when she spoke at the new hotel’s opening.

The building sat empty until 2017. After a fight before the Historic Preservation Commission and the City Council, HomeBase tore it down and built the Residence Inn by Marriott. The city made the developer keep the historic pharmacy, and that corner survived a 5.8 earthquake in 2017 while standing on its own during construction, Missoula Current reported. It is now the hotel’s two-story presidential suite. The hotel opened February 28, 2019, and Mayor John Engen, who remembered visiting Santa at the Merc every Christmas, went to see Santa there again.

Remember this place? Tell us what you remember.