HOM: Blacktail Mountain Books

I always liked to hang out in book stores, and Books West was the main one in Kalispell in the late 70's. Guest's Photo Art on the other side of Main Street had some books on the balcony/second floor, but they were always a sideline there. Guest's, by the way, started my book collecting habit when I found a nice new copy of John Hunter's "Hunter" there. It was the first book I read on African hunting and laid the foundation for my book interests today. Yes, I still own it! I spent a fair amount of time hanging out in BW and visiting with Jerry Knutson. Jerry had been running searches for out of print books while he was working there and in 1977 had finally gone into business, progressing from part time while he was at BW to opening his own second-hand book store (Blacktail Mountain Books!) in the basement under Books West. The two business complemented each other pretty well, upstairs for new books and downstairs for used & out of print books. Jerry had thrown his private book collection into the business and purchased 3,000 paperbacks from a dealer out on the coast, so he had a good basic inventory of out-of-print and older books. Bec & I would stop by there to visit & browse on my way to work before I dropped her off. I liked Jerry and loved books so it was pretty much my favorite spot. We built up a great friendship over a couple of years. TBC (Me) (Blacktail Books)