New Beginnings

In 1979, Len Kobylenski purchased the Buckhorn Camp and changed the name to the Mission Mountains Mercantile. To prove that fact is stranger than fiction – the only document to survive the devastating fire two years ago was the original Buy/Sell Agreement that he had signed. It was found under a pile of charred debris that somehow survived.

Kobylenski was a banker during the 1970s, and spent almost all his vacations out west. He came to Montana from upstate New York for the first time in 1972. He once backpacked from Jaspar Provincial Park to Glacier National Park.

Yearning for the wilds of Alaska, Kobylenski quit his banking job around 1978, sold his house, and took off to do some canoeing. He spent a year guiding and trapping in the Alaska bush.

A year later Kobylenski came back to Missoula and signed up for an avalanche course at the UM taught by longtime wilderness ranger Cal Tassinari. As part of the field studies, Tassinari took the class to the Swan Valley at the Owl Creek Packer Camp. The group snowshoed up the packer's trail overlooking Holland Lake. When Kobylenski saw the view of the valley from that vantage point, he was astonished at the expanse of the surrounding countryside. "I'd just come from Alaska, but this view was as good as anything there," he said.

After experiencing Swan Valley, Kobylenski knew he had to come back. As luck would have it, the next weekend he was traveling the Swan Highway and he stopped at a little store called Buckhorn Camp. There he met the owner Tom Himes. When Kobylenski inquired about available real estate, Himes quipped, "I'll sell you the store."

Himes described the 40 acres with the Swan River running through it. An expert canoeist, Kobylenski's ears perked up when he heard the word, 'river.' He and Himes eventually made a deal, and Kobylenski bought the 40 acres including the store, the post office, a two-room house, three cabins, meat locker and also a big Malamute name Heija. Kobylenski commented, "Everything needed work, but boy, what a view out the back!"

"I like to tell people about the Buckhorn Store . . . it had central heating. That wood stove was right in the middle of that store. When it got cold in the winter, you'd stoke up the fire when you closed the store at night. If it was 20 below or more, you came over at two a.m. and fed it some more," Kobylenski explained.

Approximately 1200 square feet, the Buckhorn Store's attic insulation was a bunch of old flattened Eddy Bread boxes. "They weren't exactly fireproof," Kobylenski quipped.

"We had the lockers in the back. They were refrigerated boxes in like a filing cabinet. We rented those out, by the month or the year," Kobylenski said. One year they had a problem when packages of meat kept disappearing from several customers' lockers. Having a master key, he was able to locate where the problem was. To alleviate the problem, Kobylenski enlisted the help of a horse. "The horse was able to give us a product that we wrapped and labeled as rib elk steaks, got them thoroughly frozen, and inserted them into this deviate renter's box. That eventually cured the problem," Kobylenski laughed.

A year after he bought the store and took over the post office contract in 1979, the U.S. Postal Service announced the possible closing of the post office. With strong backing from the community, Kobylenski successfully circulated a petition, sent it to the Postmaster General in Washington, D.C., and saved the post office. Unfortunately, Kobylenski lost the contract when the postal service decided to appoint a bona fide postmaster in Condon. "I figured it was time for me to do something else; that's when I started doing real estate. By 1982 we had a real estate office," Kobylenski said.

Many more changes were ahead when newly married Kobylenski and his wife Cindy decided they wanted a modern store and started to rebuild in 1986. They hired building contractor Tom Sanford and his crew to do the job. "What was different from today is that we were able to keep the store open; we never closed," Kobylenski said. They were actually open longer hours during the building project. "We could not close; we didn't have a door to lock," he added.

"The only way we got it done in 44 days is that the crew worked on it every day. I think the guys only took two days off out of 44," Kobylenski said. At the end of each day, they would move inventory from the old part to the newly finished section. One night they didn't have enough helping hands to move all the inventory and refrigeration. "It was around nine o'clock at night, and we knew it was going to be an all-nighter. We needed more help," Kobylenski said. Someone called the Liquid Louie's Tavern and explained the situation. "Knowing there was an adequate supply of beer down here, a whole hoard of guys and gals showed up . . . It went on until two in the morning. I don't know how much beer was involved, but the job got done," Kobylenski remarked.

At one point the construction crew had to figure out how to separate the post office portion from the main part of the store. Without notifying the post office in Missoula nor the temporary postmaster, the work crew got out chainsaws and cut off the south one third of the building, put it on logs, got a four-wheel drive truck, and rolled it onto the parking lot. The crew quickly built a stand by the window so that patrons could walk up to the window to get service. "They started the chainsaw operation with the temporary postmaster in the post office, and did not announce to him what was going to go on," Kobylenski recalled.

As the building project neared completion, Kobylenski told the work crew that he didn't have the funds to add the porch to the store. The building contractor Sanford insisted that the store needed a porch. "I don't have any more money," Kobylenski explained.

"You're a banker guy; you'll figure it out," Sanford quipped.

In the end, the construction crew built the porch. "He just went ahead and did it. It was beautiful," Kobylenski said.

In 1988 the U.S. Postal Service decided the Condon Post Office needed to have its own space with a lobby that could be open 24 hours. That's when Kobylenski sold one acre to Mike Laabs, owner of Snow Country Construction. Laabs built the building that currently houses the post office. Kobylenski was able to purchase the building and one acre back again about five years ago.

In 1997 additional space was added to the south side of the building, and a walk-in beer cooler was added to the north side.

"In all those years, I was only closed on Christmas, and maybe one or two Easters. We had the store open for 13,567 days," Kolylenski said

Tragedy struck thirty years after the 44-day building project when the Mission Mountains Mercantile burned to the ground in a devastating fire on May 18, 2016. On the night of the fire Kobylenski and his partner Grace Siloti woke to an unidentified hero banging on the door yelling, "Get out of there. It's going to blow!"

When the fire fighters arrived on the scene the blaze was in the back of the store, but quickly engulfed the whole building. "It didn't take long to realize that when you saw the back of the store, you knew it was going to go," Kobylenski said.

The decision to rebuild the store did not come lightly for Kobylenski. "It's hard to talk about because it was a tough decision. That's where Cindy worked for years, that's where my kids grew up working, and that's where Cindy died." Kobylenski said.

Nearing retirement age, Kobylenski wasn't sure he wanted to start all over again. The world had changed from the days of the 44-day building project. In today's world it would be a much more detailed process, reviewed by every agency imaginable.

Kobylenski and Siloti were overwhelmed by the outpouring of support from the community. They were both overcome with emotion when they read the numerous comments from well-wishers posted on the store's Facebook page.

Kobylenski's goal in rebuilding was not simply to construct a store, but ultimately to help the community. And Siloti's enthusiastic encouragement played a big role in his decision-making process. "Without Grace, it wouldn't have happened," Kobylenski said.

Self-described workaholics, Kobylenski and Siloti are convinced it will be worth it when it's all done.

"I'm hanging on by a thread, just to see it finished. It's literally been 24/7 since it burned to the ground," said Siloti.

Kobylenski summed up the decision-making process the best, "I just thought it was a grocery store out in the middle of nowhere. The bottom line is this is just a helluva place to live."

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Len has consistently supported the Upper Swan Valley Historical Society (USVHS) through the years. When the USVHS started selling huckleberry ice-cream after the 4th of July parade in the mid-1980s, Len donated the cones and often the ingredients for the ice cream. It is estimated Len donated 7,750 cones during over 30 years of support!