Columbia Saloon slowly emerges from wake of fire

The Columbia Saloon, perhaps the tallest building in downtown Cathlamet, has been closed up so long it almost goes unnoticed …until … that goofy mannequin in the window moves to a different one.

To the curious, the mobile mannequin is an intriguing first insight into the nature and character of the couple that bought the building.

“We bought the saloon in 2003,” said Dave Gehrman. “We really had no idea what we were going to do with it.”

The building was a disaster when he bought it because in 1992 a fire had gutted the front part of the first and second floors. Gehrman said in the beginning he could stand on the main floor and look up and see the bottom of the third floor.

“When I bought it a friend came by and said ‘Hey! I know someone who can help you,’" Gehrman said. "Oh, ya. Who’s that? I said. "A psychiatrist, he said.'”

The first step was cleaning out ash and burnt wood that was knee-deep in the center of the room. Next was determining the best approach to rebuilding the upper floors. Gehrman said he started by reinforcing and replacing the beams and support walls on each level up to the third floor.

“Each floor of the building is 4800 square feet,” Gehrman said, “and I had to find old timbers that matched the upper levels.”

The job turned out to be bigger than Gehrman imagined. He said after he got the upper floors stabilized, his plans changed slightly and he decided to rebuild just the main floor and deal with the two upper levels later.

The marathon remodel continues today. When you enter the saloon’s front door, the first thing one notices is the 50 foot bar. The bar is now probably one of the longest old bars in Washington state, but that’s just the beginning.

Look closely at the top of the bar you’ll see that it’s been signed by dozens of people who’ve stopped by to give Gehrman a hand remodeling. “Well, some came to help,” said Gehrman, “others dropped by to offer advice or party. It is a bar after all.”

Step further into the bar and on the north wall hang the stuffed trophies of elk and deer. A bearskin rug adorns the middle of the wall and cool half-moon over-stuffed booths line the wall below the bear pelt. Of course all this stuff is covered with a fine layer of sawdust accumulated from the years of remodeling.

The kitchen is huge and filled with working and non-working commercial appliances. Above the door to the kitchen is a complete miniature model of downtown Cathlamet. Across the room are a few windows still boarded up from the county’s last big windstorm.

The kitchen is still an unknown.

“The food we serve is going to be a real issue when we open,” said Gehrman, “I want one kind and Julie (his significant other) wants another."

Gehrman said the issue will work itself out, but in the meantime, he’s looking for advice from someone who knows how to lay out a commercial kitchen.

A backwards glance back at the entrance to the saloon gives you a new view. Above the saloon’s front door you’ll find another miniature display that’s slightly larger than the one over the kitchen. This miniature is of the interior of a bar.

“I’m missing the bartender and the drunk hanging over the rail for that one,” Gehrman said, pointing to it with a chuckle.

Gehrman’s whimsical nature reflected by the mannequin in the window is starting to surface. At the back of the saloon is a large stage waiting patiently for the bands to start playing, someday. The stage is set to party.

“We’ve had some good times in this place already,” Gehrman says, “and over here is the “Executive area,” and he points to an area that’s been cordoned off by railings.

The whimsey continues in the form of a huge partially-sketched mural on the wall opposite the stage. The unpainted drawing depicts life in Wahkiakum County. When finished, a huge elk will gradually blend into the Cathlamet store, and Brusco Tug & Barge will rule the waterfront.

And like all good saloons Gehrman has a rather well endowed nude sitting on top of what might be the drugstore. “In the old days every proper saloon had a nude hanging over the bar and that’s mine,” he said.

Thoughts of the "old days" and unfinished projects fill Gehrman’s days and sum up his vision for the bar. He says he wants the place to reflect Wahkiakum’s history, and as we walk up the second floor landing he points to the thousand of tiny holes left in the stair treads by long dead loggers' "cork" boots.

“This floor is the hotel part of the building,” he said. “Up here, it looks pretty bad right now, but I plan to have six or seven hotel rooms up here when I’m done.”

The second floor of the Columbia Saloon wears its fire scars stoically. The fire of ’92 left rows of blackened wall-studs that create the skeletal outline of what was once a 20-room hotel. Piles of ash lay waiting to be tossed into the back of a dump truck.

Gehrman said the second and third floors have been his work area for the last six years but, “I’m fixing to clean it up soon.”

Even in the "mess" you sense Gehrman’s care for the past. A commercial construction worker by trade, he has collected almost anything he can reuse in his saloon from the job sites where he has worked. The front area of the second floor is stacked high with doors and lights.

“I got 30 solid core doors from one site,” he said, “it’s amazing what people throw away.”

There is a small apartment at the front of the building on the second floor.

“This was the old manager’s apartment,” Gehrman said, opening the door to the kitchen. “It has bad smoke damage but it’s still pretty much intact.”

Untouched since the fire, the apartment reflects how well firefighters did their job putting out the blaze and saving the building. The fire was so hot it lifted the paint and curled it up the walls of the tiny kitchen. Today the large blue and black chips hang there frozen as if waiting for the paint scraper. And the kitchen’s blue tile counter remains blackened and separated where the heat turned the grout to powder between tile cracks.

“This will be our apartment when we are done with the first floor,” Gehrman says as we head up to the third floor.”

The Columbia Saloon was built in the 1920’s and the third floor never finished. Neither was it damaged by the fire. The studded walls, real dimension two-by-fours, raw and bare still stand erect.

Forty eight hundred square feet is big when there is nothing in the space except stacks of reclaimed wood boards and trim. Gehrman walks to the back wall and looks out at the river. “This is going to make a great view when I’m done,” he said.

He’s right. The view is spectacular. The windows that face River Street have an unobstructed view of the entire Columbia River and nothing will ever be built in front of them.

“I’m going to put a window across the entire wall,” Gehrman said," backing up to form the picture in his mind. “The view will be incredible.”

Heading back down to the main floor Gehrman said he wants his saloon to be a place where people can come to have a good time.

“No trouble makers allowed,” he said. “People need a place to go where they can have a good time and feel comfortable.”

Gehrman hopes to have the bar open next summer. All that’s left to do is to install a sprinkler system, some electrical and plumbing, then and he’ll be ready for business.

In the end, the nagging question remains: What will be the fate of the mannequin that has entertained us for all these years?