Montana U.S. Senate Race: At Pisser’s Palace In Walkerville, No Politics Allowed

Editor's note: Political reporter Leo Wolfson is on assignment in Montana covering the U.S. Senate race.

WALKERVILLE, Mont. — Pisser’s Palace is about as dive bar as it gets.

The small rectangular building stands like a cinder block fortress in the small mining town of Walkerville, Montana, beckoning all who dare to enter from its glowing sign outside, lighting up the street in the heart of the quiet town.

Outside the cinderblocks, the high-stakes U.S. Senate race between Democratic Sen. Jon Tester and Republican Tim Sheehy, which promises to swing power in the U.S. Senate.

Inside, the nation’s hottest political battle isn’t a topic of conversation at the bar on a typical Friday night even as commercials for both candidates blared incessantly on TVs in the background.

The establishment really only has one rule — no politics.

It’s probably a safe call considering the area is relatively evenly split between Democrats and Republicans, and the bar’s colorful reputation for being a bit of a physical battlefield when politics get involved.

“It just starts fights,” said bartender Katie Mattson. “We don’t go there.”

A Walkerville Fixture

Pisser’s dates back to the late 1970s and is named after an original owner whose nickname was Pisser, Mattson said.

The bar embraces the reputation the name promotes; however, its logo is a three-legged dog with a peg leg joyfully urinating on the sidewalk. You can buy a T-shirt with the logo image prominently displayed, $20 each, white or black color schemes.

Pisser’s long held a reputation for being the place to go when people wanted to get in bar fights, Mattson said.

Those days appear long gone. Now, just a few gray-haired regulars warm the black cushioned stools of the tavern on Friday night.

But some of the floor scuffs from those legendary tangles still remain, along with people who’ve left their names and messages on the ceiling.

Pisser’s still has its moments, though.

Last weekend, the bar hosted an alternative country band that filled the cinderblock bunker with customers. There were so many people they had to move the pool table to the corner of the room.

Back In The Day

Walkerville is a tightknit, blue-collar mining town and independent enclave of about 700 people right outside Butte, a central Montana city with a fabled past.

To get there, one must travel about 500 vertical feet uphill from Butte to get to the community some press outlets refer to as a “suburb” of Butte.

Walkerville is named after a foursome of Walker brothers who ran successful mining operations in the area.

Copper and silver were king in these parts, a legacy to some extent still remains as the last remaining mine run by Montana Resources still pulls out copper and molybdenum.

One can see the mining heritage in Butte as well, a town that used to be home to around 100,000 residents working in the mining community, which in 1910 was the largest producer of copper in North America. Today, its population is around 35,000.

Still, many of the 19th and early 20th century-built brick buildings remain, some with historical paintings and graphics still attached.

The multistory buildings and dense urban corridors give a small taste of the days when the city was a bustling mining city.

New Era

By 1990, Walkerville had hit a low point, with many of the mining operations closed up and little source of replacement revenue yet discovered.

“Those were tough times,” Mattson said.

A patron named Josh reminisced fondly over memories of boxing with his friends as a child outside Pisser’s Palace while waiting for the school bus.

“We’d wear gloves, but they were so hard it felt like it was a rock hitting your face,” he remarked.

After they got done boxing, they’d often go up to the outdoor ice rink on which they’d play tackle football.

Josh doubted that these kinds of activities would be allowed for children to participate in today.

Today, Butte and Walkerville have a much brighter future.

New businesses have popped up around the city in recent years and the big city’s downtown now boasts plenty of nightlife, give a hint of what is already possibly starting to become a hipster’s paradise.

It’s a rebirth seen in many former industrial and mining cities, where a growth in tourism and new generation of businesses has spurred new revitalization. Some locals like Josh are a little more pessimistic about the change, citing the drastically increased housing prices that has come with.

But just up the hill, Pisser’s and Walkerville remain, little changed since their heyday, besides maybe a few fewer fights and scuffles.

And except for those incessant Tester and Sheehy commercials on the television, no politics allowed.

Leo Wolfson can be reached at leo@cowboystatedaily.com.