Riggins in the 1940s

In the 1940s, Riggins expanded its businesses and roadside services through places that became centers of travel and community life. In 1946, Jim and Velma Summerville built a liquor bar, cafe, and supperclub known as Summerville’s Cafe and Club, called “The Lighthouse of Highway 95,” where countless travelers were welcomed to a 24-hour cafe and local people gathered for dining, dancing, rollerskating, movies, sports, and entertainment. Everett and Lorene Taylor opened the Rodeo Club and Tim Taylor’s Cafe and Motel, and over the years their bar and cafe building was leased to various business owners under changing names including Short Branch Saloon, Broken Branch Saloon, Whisky Butte, and Ruby Rapids Saloon, before later returning to the name Rodeo Club. In the early 1940s, Jack and Bessie Beard bought property south of the Monte Carlo Hotel and established Beard’s Store with a beer parlor, card room, duck pin alley, ice cream parlor, and grocery store, a one-stop shop that later continued under other owners as a grocery store and then a hardware store while keeping much of its original exterior. At the end of World War II, L.E. “Jack” Rowe and his wife, Veda, built Riggins Motel to serve increasing numbers of automobile travelers, adding the present office and bungalow in 1946 and the center section in 1947; its neon sign made it Riggins’ first motel, and it remains much as built and is listed on the National Registration of Historic Places.

Riggins, Idaho · United States