Salty Dawg Saloon
Encyclopedia
Homer Spit
The Homer Spit is a geographical landmark located in Homer, Alaska on the southern tip of the Kenai Peninsula. The spit is a long piece of land jutting out into Kachemak Bay. The spit is also home to the Homer Boat Harbor. The harbor contains both deep and shallow water docks and serves up to...
in Homer, Alaska
Homer, Alaska
Homer is a city located in Kenai Peninsula Borough in the U.S. state of Alaska. According to 2005 Census Bureau estimates, the population was 5,364. One of Homer's nicknames is "the cosmic hamlet by the sea"; another is "the end of the road"...
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History
The Salty Dawg originally was one of the first cabins built in Homer in 1897, soon after the establishment of the town site. It served as the first post officePost office
A post office is a facility forming part of a postal system for the posting, receipt, sorting, handling, transmission or delivery of mail.Post offices offer mail-related services such as post office boxes, postage and packaging supplies...
, a railroad station, a grocery store, and a coal mining
Coal mining
The goal of coal mining is to obtain coal from the ground. Coal is valued for its energy content, and since the 1880s has been widely used to generate electricity. Steel and cement industries use coal as a fuel for extraction of iron from iron ore and for cement production. In the United States,...
office for twenty years. In 1909 a second building was constructed, and it served as a school house, post office, grocery store. And at one time, it housed three adults and eleven children.
It was acquired in the late 1940s by Chuck Abbatt to be used as an office for Standard Oil Company. In April 1957, he officially opened it as the Salty Dawg Saloon. By 1960 the Salty Dawg Saloon had a building adjacent to it, coinciding with The Alaska Territory becoming the 49th state of the union in January 1959.
Earl D. Hillstrand (1913-1974), an attorney
Attorney at law
An attorney at law in the United States is a practitioner in a court of law who is legally qualified to prosecute and defend actions in such court on the retainer of clients. Alternative terms include counselor and lawyer...
, small businessman and member of the Alaska House of Representatives
Alaska House of Representatives
The Alaska House of Representatives is the lower house in the Alaska Legislature, the state legislature of the U.S. state of Alaska. The House is composed of 40 members, each of whom represents a district of about 15,673 people . Members serve two-year terms without term limits...
, purchased it in 1960. Although an Anchorage resident, Hillstrand had a homestead
Homestead principle
The homestead principle in law is the concept that one can gain ownership of a natural thing that currently has no owner by using it or building something out of it...
near Homer and was in the process of developing the nearby Land's End Resort at the time.
After the March 1964 Good Friday Earthquake
Good Friday Earthquake
The 1964 Alaska earthquake, also known as the Great Alaskan Earthquake, the Portage Earthquake and the Good Friday Earthquake, was a megathrust earthquake that began at 5:36 P.M. AST on Good Friday, March 27, 1964...
, he moved the structure to its present location. The distinctive lighthouse tower was added to cover a water storage tank, thus completing one of Homer's more historical and recognizable landmarks.
The Salty Dawg Saloon is currently owned and operated by John Warren.
The saloon has been featured on Deadliest Catch
Deadliest Catch
Deadliest Catch is a documentary/reality television series produced by Original Productions for the Discovery Channel. It portrays the real life events aboard fishing vessels in the Bering Sea during the Alaskan king crab and C. opilio crab fishing seasons.The Aleutian Islands port of Dutch Harbor,...
on the Discovery Channel. The bar is known for the thousands of dollar bills signed by visitors and tacked to the walls. This practice started many years ago, when a visitor tacked a dollar on the wall, explaining that his friend would be by later. The dollar was intended for buying the friend a drink.