Walkerville Grocery: From boarded up to bound for bagging

Brick by brick, joist by joist, rubble and toil.

Clark Grant sat in a folding chair within a few feet of a brawny woodstove. The stove produced a notion of heat in the historic building that will someday house the Walkerville Grocery.

That’s the plan, anyway.

The building has traveled a remarkably long way. Yet key tasks still loom before merchandise lines shelves, before a deli powers up its slicer and the aroma of roasted coffee beans wafts from the basement.

Grant, an alderman in the town of Walkerville, sounded both weary and optimistic during a recent interview.

In January 2024, he predicted the grocery would open in the spring of 2025. He’s now projecting the doors will open during the spring of 2027.

“The primary challenge is just the physical effort of fixing this place,” he said. “It’s physically daunting.”

Grant smiled.

“I’m only 39 but my neck hurts, my back hurts. I’m really ready to finish the construction phase and just run the grocery store,” he said.

The chief laborers have included Rodney Norman, Jay Bressette, Grant and Daniel Hogan.

Now, the ambitious Walkerville Grocery project is far enough along that the team bringing the once-neglected structure back from ruin and rack plans to stage their second fundraiser inside the building itself.

The event is scheduled for Nov. 1.

The grocery team hopes to raise money for those brass-tacks building systems above and beyond structural repairs: plumbing, heating and electrical work.

“With a goal of $10,000, our team will use the funds to pay local plumbing and electrical contractors to install their systems throughout the building,” Grant said. “The event will include a display of interior design concepts and the latest floor plans, as well as community activities and a small silent auction.”

Grant and Hogan formed ClarDan LLC, the partnership determined to both rescue the dilapidated circa-1880 building in Walkerville and give the Walkerville community and its neighbors a corner grocery store.

The building was not beyond repair but it was close. A large portion of the roof had collapsed and prolonged exposure to harsh Montana weather caused frightful interior damage.

Driven by faith or folly or some combination, Grant and Hogan bought the building on North Main Street in Walkerville in July 2017.

“We paid $27,000 for the building at that time, but it was facing imminent collapse due to the missing roof in the back third of the building,” Grant said last year. “For about five years before we bought it, the weather just punished the interior of the building, weakening the walls in the back end and destroying the floor structure in the back.”

Work to stabilize the structure included the construction of seismic shear walls, steel reinforcement of the original roof trusses and replacement of the roof system.

Norman has been a key participant in what he has described as the building’s resurrection. Grant has said Norman can fix anything. He said Bressette shares that skill.

“Our friend Jay Bressette built all the windows in here, with help from Rodney Norman,” Grant said.

Installation of the windows transformed the look and feel of the building, he said.

“This is probably the first time all of the windows have been in this building in half a century,” Grant said. “It’s been boarded up for a long time.”

The partnership organized its first fundraiser on Jan. 27, 2024, at the Knights of Columbus in Butte. It was wildly successful. The audacious project clearly had struck a chord with people in Butte and beyond. They piled in that night to show support. The event promised a burger and side dish for $15 and the place was packed. The event raised about $20,000, a total four times what Grant and Hogan had envisioned.

“I think it goes to show there really is a desire for this kind of redevelopment here in Butte,” Grant said.

The upcoming fundraiser is scheduled for Nov. 1, starting at 4 p.m. It will be held at the future Walkerville Grocery, 1613 N. Main St. in Walkerville. A fee of $20 will access food prepared by Hogan. Grant said the menu will likely include bread and a variety of soups.

Grant acknowledged last year that holding a public fundraiser for a private undertaking might be a tad bold. Yet people in the region seem to be on board with the project in a big way.

“I know it’s kind of presumptuous, but the fact is we need the money,” he said then.

Records suggest that Joseph Broughton built the brick general store in 1880. By 1883, John Caplice and Alfred McCune acquired the building and, in 1884, “emblazoned Caplice & McCune high on the south wall,” according to Historic Montana.

Walkerville sprang up around silver mining. The Walker brothers of Salt Lake City got wind of the mining underway and sent their agent, Marcus Daly, to investigate. In 1876, Walkerville was born.

After silver prices slumped in 1893, the former general store became a church and hosted different denominations for decades. Then came abandonment and neglect.

ClarDan has invested about $170,000 in the project since 2017, tapping a combination of grants, donations from friends and personal investment. Grant said the bulk of the grant funding has come from the Superfund Advisory and Redevelopment Trust Authority, or SARTA, along with other money from the Montana Department of Commerce and the Montana Department of Agriculture.

Among other things, SARTA supports projects that promote redevelopment of properties affected by past mining activities.

“Without SARTA, we wouldn’t have gotten very far on this job,” Grant said.

He said the project also has received some substantial anonymous donations.

Grant and Hogan have ties to KBMF-LP radio in Butte. That’s how they connected with Norman, a machinist and longtime carpenter.

“Without Rodney, we wouldn’t have gotten very far with this project,” Grant has said.

The undertaking has cleared some bureaucratic hurdles with Butte-Silver Bow County and the city-county health department.

And Grant said the partners are working with Jay Doyle of the Butte Local Development Corp. to draft a business plan for the grocery.

“I really do feel like the path to completion is becoming more clear,” Grant said. “The business plan required us to think about every imaginable aspect of this project. It has demonstrated to us what it’s going to require in terms of startup money and staffing and inventory.”