Historical Great Falls nightspot Murph’s torn down

The old building on the east end of 2nd Avenue North went by several names over the last few years — the 406 Club, Mad Jacks Casino, Club Heat — however the only name most people will remember for the bar/bowling alley/nightclub near the main entrance to Malmstrom Air Force Base is Murph’s — or more properly Murph’s Party Bowl & Nightclub.

Murph’s was never the fanciest nightspot in Great Falls, but for 70 years it was an eastside destination — a place to get away with the family and bowl a few frames or to meet up with friends and hear some good blues music. On Monday, the walls of Murph’s came crashing down, victims of age, changing recreational habits and a devastating fire that gutted the building in August.

“To me it’s bittersweet, seeing the place go,” said Rich Murphy, current owner of Murph’s and son of the business’s founder, Jack Murphy. “I kind of saw the writing on the wall back in the 1990s, but I started young enough that I never did figure out that someday I’d have to have an exit strategy. Really, the business began failing and I wasn’t able to stop it.”

Jack and Elsie Murphy opened a small bar on the lot at 5515 2nd Ave. N. in 1946. Ten years later they added a bowling alley, christening Murph’s Party Bowl & Nightclub at a time when bowling was coming into its own as one of the most popular recreational activities in the United States.

At one time Great Falls was home to seven bowling alleys, and the Murphys had an ownership interest in three of them. In addition to Murph’s there was the Skyway Bowl on 11th Avenue South and the Pin and Cue, where keglers once struck pins in the same building that houses the Do Bar today.

Murph’s closed for several years in the early 1970s, but reopened in 1976 when Rich Murphy took over.

Murphy grew up in his parents’ bowling alleys and knew the business inside and out, but his first love has always been music. As a kid he learned to play the keyboards and hooked up with rock ’n’ roll when he was in junior high. In 1992, Murphy built a bar/restaurant/casino addition onto Murph’s and began booking local bands into eastside hotspot.

For more than a decade, Murph’s was the place to go in Great Falls to hear good rock ’n’ roll and blues music. Most of the bands booked there were made up of working musicians — journeymen performers who were probably never going to make it big, but played their hearts out nightly because they loved the music. Rich Murphy shared that sentiment, and as a competent keyboardist himself, Murphy was able to attract bands that might otherwise pass over the quirky bowling alley/night club on the edge of town.

“I was able to book some really good blues bands out of Chicago, California and Texas,” he said. “Those are the bands that I am the most proud of bringing in.”

In the 1990s and early 2000s, artists like Chicago bluesman Maurice John Vaughn, “Studebaker” John Grimaldi, and Nigel Mack and the Blues Attack made periodic stops at Murph’s, as did the New York rocker “Lennon” and the Canadian hard rock band “Headpins.”

“Any time they came to town and played at my venue, most of them invited me to play along with them for at least a set or two,” Murphy said of the bigger name acts he was able to book into Murph’s. “I got to jam with some really incredible people.”

“It was kind of a funky joint,” said Pete Swanson, a Great Falls bassist who described himself as “a hired gun” for several of the bands that played at Murph’s. “The bowling alley was always kind of an anchor for that place because it got a lot of people in the door, and if there was music there afterward, some of them would stick around — so they kind of complemented each other. It’s hard to put your finger on Murph’s.”

By the mid 2000s, the building Murph’s was housed in was a half-century old, and the popularity of bowling was waning. Murph’s Party Bowl & Nightclub closed in 2009, and though the building cycled through several other businesses over the next few years, none lived up to the notoriety of its original tenant.

On Aug. 17, Murph’s fate was sealed when a large fire ripped through the northern half of the building. Despite having an interior sprinkler system, the blaze penetrated a central section of the roof and gutted a large portion of its interior.

“I have the memories, I’ve got photos — I’ve still got phone numbers of some of the outstanding musicians that played here,” Murphy said. “I’ve got a couple brothers and a sister, and we’ve all got memories of growing up in that bowling alley as kids. For us, that’s probably where the joy lies, but it’s time to move on.”