American Legion Bar closes its doors

**Editor’s note: this is the third article in a four-part series, which looks at how local economies are doing throughout Sanders County.

The bar at the American Legion in Paradise closed its doors on Saturday after serving customers since 1946. According to Legion commander Karen Sheehan, the bar was simply not able to keep the business open due to a decrease in the amount of customers coming to the establishment.

“With the decline in the economy and a lot of people leaving for the oil fields in eastern Montana and western North Dakota, we don’t have the amount of customers that we used to,” said Sheehan.

Sanders County has been especially hard hit by the oil boom in North Dakota. While the national unemployment rate sits at around 5.6 percent, the rate in Sanders County is over 14 percent according to the Associated Press Economic Stress Index. According to local business owners, people from Noxon to Paradise have been moving away from Sanders County for work.

With the collapse or delay of several aspects of the natural resource based economy in Sanders County, few jobs are available and people are moving to North Dakota where employment is plentiful. As a result of the oil boom, North Dakota has the lowest unemployment rate in the country and a billion dollar budget surplus.

Sheehan estimated that business has dropped off over 50 percent in the last year. Sheehan said that several people had come forward to help but that it was not enough to keep the business open.

Despite attempts from people who volunteered their time and worked for only tips, the decline in business was too severe in the last few months. Sheehan said the business was insulated from the larger nation-wide economic decline in 2007. Sheehan said the dissolution of the bar was a direct result of the population shift away from Paradise and Sanders County in general.

“You know you can’t blame people for leaving for a better job. What we need is support from the local community if we are going to open back up again in the future,” said Sheehan.

Sheehan said that members of the Legion voted to close down the bar but maintain the desire to open back up after what Sheehan referred to as a “hiatus.” Sheehan said the Legion will maintain a presence in Paradise but will not be able to provide the kind of support they had in the past.

“We are still going to participate in community activities. We are still going to have barbecues but we will have to charge for hotdogs and hamburgers. In the past we were able to provide food and drink free of charge but we can’t afford to do that anymore,” said Sheehan.

The economic situation in Sanders County can be traced to the collapse of the timber industry, the delay in establishing the Rock Creek Mine near Noxon, the nationwide economic downturn of 2007 and the oil boom in North Dakota. According to Sheehan, the problem of population shift compounds the issue, decreasing traffic for established businesses and causing even more people to lose jobs.

“Four people are going to lose their jobs because this place is closing down. It’s sad cause we think this is a valuable community resource that won’t be here anymore. We will try to open it back up but without some kind of support, I don’t know how it’s going to make it,” said Sheehan.