Gunnison History Tracker
130 Elk Avenue
Bonez
Montanya's Distillers
Probably one of the most unique and interesting pieces of Furniture / Equipment in all of Crested Butte is The Back Bar at BONEZ and is now thought to be one of the oldest Bars in CB.
The Back Bar is made of Solid Oak. It came from a town called Pluma in South Dakota on a flat car in the 1900’s then to Leads South Dakota. The Bar is 36 Feet long and 12 feet high. The first owner of the bar was James Cotton of Cotton’s Bar in The Black Hills, Leads.
How the heck did it get to Crested Butte?
I had to know so, I reached out to Eric Romer the original owner of the Famous Powerhouse Building in CB
Eric bought the Powerhouse Building with a couple others in 1981. At the time it was just a shell with a dirt floor. He had thought that at some point it would be a great building for a restaurant. He was right. Eric began looking for a bar that might be appropriate and put the word out with some antique dealers in Denver that I he had worked with since 1972.
One day he received a call from the owners of O.K. Antique Plating (no longer around) asking if he was still interested in a bar. He asked the size and when he said about 30 feet, his interest perked up. So, he drove to Denver. When he got there, he met a couple of guys that had just purchased this bar and it was broken down into a myriad of pieces on a flatbed trailer. However, they had a drawing of what it looked like. It was perfect!! So, he said if all the pieces were there and if they would deliver it to Crested Butte, He would buy it. When it arrived, he put it in storage.
It sat in storage for years then in 1988, they built the Powerhouse the bar was taken from storage and assembled in the current location, BONEZ. All of the pieces, except for the middle mirror which was broken (you do know that the original end mirrors are gold backed unlike the new middle mirror which is silver backed) were there.
The Back Bar is unique in in many ways. There a four huge oak pillers of solid oak. Presumably the carving on the back bar was done by hand, probably carved then glued on.
