Stay awhile in style – The Bigfork Inn
In the early days of Bigfork there were a couple places to stay in the burgeoning town, but the best known has always been the Bigfork Hotel, one day destined to be the Bigfork Inn. Nestled at the base of a hill at the north end of town, its central location has allowed it to be a focal point of the community for decades.
The first Bigfork Hotel, at the corner of Electric and Grand Ave. was built by 1905, but its exact building date is unclear. What we do know is that from very early on, given its large size and prime location, it was a popular place. The first owners were the Sliter’s, but they owned it for only a few years. After the fire of 1912 burned the entire southwestern end of Electric Avenue, including the Hotel Nelligan, owner Peter Nelligan purchased the Bigfork Hotel from Everit Sliter. Unfortunately for Peter, his tenure of owning the Bigfork Hotel would be short lived, and here is where we first meet one of Bigfork’s early prominent citizens, Ernie O’Brien.
Ernie O’Brien was Peter Nelligan’s nephew from a large group of Norwegian immigrants living on Prince Edward Island in Canada. Ernie emigrated to the United States from Canada through the Port of Vanceboro, Maine in August 1904. He had traveled to Bigfork in 1903 to “work in the woods”. By September 1912, O’Brien had filed a “Declaration of Intention” in Kalispell to become a U.S. citizen working as a “Hotel Keeper”. In May 1916, Ernie filed a “Petition for Naturalization” in Flathead County, again stating his residence as Bigfork and his occupation as Hotel Keeper. Also, during this time, Ernie’s girlfriend, Catherine Steele, moved to Bigfork from Boston and they were married in October 1917. And while Peter Nelligan unfortunately passed away in 1913, his widow Anastacia Nelligan kept up the management of the hotel until 1922 when she finally sold the hotel to Ernie.
On January 7th, 1937, the bar in the Bigfork Hotel was filled with patrons, mostly unemployed loggers and traveling salesmen, sipping beer and passing time. The wood-fired furnace was fully stoked trying to keep the drafty, wood-framed building warm against the 20 below zero weather. Some say an earthquake the summer before may have jarred the chimney out of alignment or the fire may have been too hot. Nevertheless, a chimney fire started and the wooden building was quickly ablaze. Knowing what their priorities were, the patrons hauled out the beer barrels which froze almost instantly in the frigid air. “We lost everything but the clothes on our backs,” said Kenneth O’Brien, whose parents owned the hotel. “There was no fire department back then. Neighbors brought garden hoses, but the water just froze.”
After much convincing and sweet talking from Ernie O’Brien, the unofficial “Mayor of Bigfork”, the First National Bank of Kalispell finally approved the loan he needed to rebuild the hotel. Ernie’s vision was for a Swiss chalet- style building, resembling the stunning lodges in Glacier Park. He hired Fred A. Brinkman to design the structure (the original blueprints still exist). Mr. Brinkman was a renowned Kalispell architect and many of his projects are in the National Register of Historic Places.
Harry Elton, then caretaker of the C.J. Kelly Estate on Swan Lake, was contracted to build the new hotel containing eighteen rooms, several bathrooms, and an apartment for the O’Brien family. Elton was paid $3 a day; the workers were paid $1 a day. The log work was done primarily by the Fenby brothers of Swan Lake, who also hand-split the cedar shakes that are still on the building. Less than seven months after the fire, the construction was complete enough that guests could stay in the hotel, albeit they had to walk on planks to get to their rooms. Guests today will notice that the dining room slopes 4 inches from east to west! A recent engineer’s review revealed the foundation in that area was built upon the old piled rock of the original hotel…most likely a time saving decision in 1937.
The hotel has always been a central meeting place and has attracted many celebrities over the years. Comedian Red Skeleton was a frequent summer guest as well as artist Charlie Russell. Virginia Hill, the famous girlfriend of gangster Bugsy Siegel, also stayed in the hotel, although Hill’s room was believed to be used more as a drop-off point for money than an actual living quarters. Reviewing decades of newspaper clippings reveal the intense involvement that the O’Brien’s had in the development of Bigfork and surrounding area. Ernie O’Brien died in 1961 and his wife Catherine ran the hotel with their sons Edward & Kenneth until 1967.
The hotel had its name changed to the Bigfork Inn in 1972 and went through several owners before Bob and Suzie Keenan bought the building in 1982. They owned and operated the Bigfork Inn from 1982-2018. During that time, they added the library, the “red room”, the balcony, and the deck. The hotel portion was phased out and the Inn became solely a restaurant & bar, while the Keenan’s raised their family there. The Inn sold again in the summer of 2018 to a group of investors who brought in Francois Zanni (a Fourth Generation French Chef and Bigfork resident since 2005) to manage “Traditions” at the Bigfork Inn. Michael & Kelly Brooks purchased the Inn in April 2021 and are currently performing a long-term restoration of the entire facility. They are also researching and preparing a detailed historical summary of the Inn and will feature much of that history in the future.
