Original owner of Casey's bar dies
Pat Casey pours a beer with a smile at Casey’s prior to his retirement in December 2003 in this Pilot file photo.
Patrick Casey, the original owner of the infamous Casey’s bar, has died at the age of 80.
Casey took over ownership of the bar from his stepfather Bill Murr in 1970 and changed the name to Casey’s. He eventually sold the bar in 2003. The bar was known as the place to congregate with a unique history — a place where a poker game allegedly lasted for 22 years straight and there was said to be bullet holes in the walls upstairs.
In a 2003 interview with the Pilot as Casey prepared for retirement, he reflected on his years owning the bar recalling that loggers and railroad men once frequented the establishment on the corner of Central Avenue and First Street. “I’m a bar like in the old days,” he said. “It’s always been a working man’s bar.”
Casey was born in 1936 in Chicago and moved with his mother and brother to Tacoma, Washington, before moving to Kalispell. He attended school in both Kalispell and Great Falls before graduating from Flathead High School in 1956.
Casey’s stepfather Bill Murr purchased the saloon in 1944 renaming it the Club Bar. They ran the bar as partners from 1962 to 1970 when Casey bought the bar outright.
On the wall of the bar, hung a Leprechaun painting traded for a bar tab, and horses and Harleys were known to ride through the bar during Winter Carnival. At one time over 320 Jim Beam collector bottles adorned the bar, a part of a collection Casey started.
“It’s just a place where everybody hangs out,” Casey said in 2003. “I wanted to make it just the way it is.”
The original two-story structure that housed the bar when Casey was the owner was constructed in 1903 and remained one of the oldest commercial buildings in Whitefish until it was torn down in 2011 to make way for the new building that houses Casey’s bar today.
As the owner of the bar, Casey was known for his generosity.
“He’s good to everyone,” Joe Gwiazdon told the Pilot in 2003. “Nobody walked in needing something that he wouldn’t give. He’s a gambler, even on people.”
Casey retired to Idaho before returning to Montana in 2016 living in Kalispell.
He also had a love of golf and was a member of the Whitefish Lake Golf Club, Buffalo Hills Golf Club, and Meadow Lake Golf Club. He won the Whitefish Club Championship in 1997.
He is survived by his wife Sally of 30 years.
Casey died on April 17 at Kalispell Regional Hospital after a brief illness, according to an obituary in the April 23 edition of the Daily Inter Lake. A celebration of his life is planned for June 17 at Village Greens Community Center in Kalispell with time and details to be announced.