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Montgomery's General Merchandise in Yampa

Steamboat Springs — If you asked Ken Montgomery to write down his daily routine for opening the store he's owned for 26 years and has worked in all his life, there would be dozens of things missing.

That's not because Montgomery is a forgetful man. It's just that, after decades of spending 12 hours a day in Montgomery's General Merchandise, the store's owner finds it hard to remember all the little things that keep the place running.

"It's so routine, and you've done it so much that it's kind of hard to explain to people. You'll start writing a list, and you'll always forget sommething," the 59-year-old Montgomery said.

The same goes for the store itself, which runs today in pretty much the same way it's run since it opened in 1890 and since Montgomery's family took it over in 1947. Montgomery calls it "one of the last true general stores left from years gone past" - or in modern terms, "a miniaturized version of Wal-Mart."

"We've got just about everything. One of the previous owners, one of his slogans was, if we didn't have it, you didn't need it," Montgomery said, standing behind the counter in a store that's held on to the hardwood floors along with the adding machines, store credit accounts and general supply stock of its past.

The last true general store

Walking the aisles of Montgomery's, the "if we don't have it, you don't need it" motto proves true. The store's main room is stocked with groceries and standard supplies. It's nothing fancy, but there's not much missing. Produce fills one cooler, chilled sodas another. Canned goods are stacked on green and white wooden shelves, and frozen dinners sit in a cold case near the store's butcher stand, where employees cut steaks and grind hamburger.

Left of the cashier's counter, the store's "general" description comes in. At Montgomery's, you can find kitchen tools, DVDs to rent, scented candles, fabric, toiletries and gardening gloves as easily as hunting licenses, camping gear and T-shirts stamped with scenic images of Yampa.

"When we need something on the spur of the moment, he's usually got it - tools, hardware, pretty much anything along that order," said Ken Clark, a 6-year Yampa resident who on Thursday morning was waiting for Montgomery's daughter, Lisa Medina, to cut three thick steaks for him.

Dan Kelly, a Montgomery's regular who has lived in Yampa since 1994 and moved to Routt County in 1977, said he prefers the simple, no-hassle approach the store has kept through the years, even if that means a slightly smaller selection with slightly higher prices.

"Most products are just a little bit higher, and I can kind of understand that. But it's the difference between just going two blocks down the street and having to spend two hours in traffic and congestion in Steamboat," Kelly said. "This is a cool store. This place has been taking care of business for a long time, and it's got most of the stuff you need."

Not just a novelty

Montgomery admits there's a certain novelty to the store's old-fashioned touches. But many of those touches work as much for function as they do for fashion. Montgomery got rid of the glass case he kept candy bars in last year, but he's less willing to give up his antique cash register. It would cost more than $10,000 to swap the century-old machine for a computerized system.

"I think if we switched over, people would be disappointed," Montgomery said. Besides, the old machine works just fine, and in some ways is as advanced as a computerized cashier's station. Lettered buttons can be programmed for individual employees, so a store owner can keep track of who's opening the register and what they're ringing in.

For Montgomery, that measure wouldn't be necessary - partially because he doesn't know how the buttons work, but mostly because he has only three employees who are not members of his immediate family.

There's a level of trust at Montgomery's that probably wouldn't work in a larger store or a bigger town. Longtime Yampa residents are allowed to run charge accounts and pay grocery bills once a month, when Montgomery sends them a statement. It's a measure he wouldn't want to take with everyone who comes in - grocery stores buy their merchandise upfront, and if Montgomery allowed everyone to pay late, he wouldn't have any money to spend - but it's one that regular customers appreciate.

"It's still got that old-fashioned feel. We have an account, so we just kind of come in and put it on our ticket," Clark said. Some of the charge accounts date back to before Montgomery and his brother Floyd bought the store in 1972. Ken bought out Floyd's share in 1995. For the people who have accounts, Ken Montgomery said, charging groceries is "just kind of the way it is."

A lived-in feel

Wearing a green grocer's apron over his clothes, Montgomery is as much a customer service representative as any of his employees, who on Thursday included his wife, Cindia, and daughter, Lisa.

He chats with regulars and helps customers find what they're looking for. He jokes that he sometimes tells children from metropolitan areas they can find the bodies for the dozen or so animal heads that line the store's walls in the next room. The heads hint at Montgomery's convenience for hunters passing through Yampa before heading to the Flat Tops.

"About 95 percent of the people who come in don't have a problem with it," he said of the decorations. The other 5 percent, he said, "just think it's terrible that we have the animal heads in here."

Montgomery is OK with that and responds to those comments the way he responds to most everything: with a level head, in the interest of the store.

"That's their privilege and their right. But honestly, hunting is part of the American heritage, so :" he said, leaving it at that.

Montgomery said he plans to keep going at the store for at least another six or eight years, as the fifth generation of his family comes through its employment. More than likely, not much will change in that time.