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Steve Parker, second from left, holds the Havre/Hill County Historic Preservation Commission ornament made of the building now housing Parker's BBQ Pit while posing for a photograph with Jennifer Small-Parker, from left, Havre/Hill County Historic Preservation Officer Becki Miller and Assocation members Lynda Taplin and Jillian Alley.
The latest Havre/Hill County Preservation Commission ornament depicts Grizzly Gasoline Co. on First Street in Havre, which now houses Parker's BBQ Pit.
Parker's BBQ Pit owners Steve Parker and Jennifer Small-Parker received this year's Havre/Hill County Historic Preservations Committee's annual Christmas Ornament.
Every year, the commission honors a historic building or location in the area, having a Christmas ornament designed to commemorate it and its historic and cultural importance to the area.
Steve Parker said receiving the ornament was an honor, but it's not exactly their honor in the end.
"We feel honored," he said. " ... But it's the building that's really getting the award."
He said the building, which his restaurant has been in since Memorial Day weekend has been doing well, but the building has a long history and had a ton of personality before they got there.
The building, often referred to as the Heltne building, was originally constructed in 1939 and served Havre as the Grizzly Gas Station.
Dan Heltne's obituary says he was working in Great Falls as a representative of Mobil Oil Company, then in 1939 went to work for Northwest Refinery Co., which became known as Grizzly Gas Co.
In 1945, Grizzly Gas Co. was purchased by Carter Oil Co.
Heltne later operated the building as Heltne's Oil Co. Service Center, and his son Doug Heltne took over after he died in 1990.
Up to its closure, in the middle of the last decade, Heltne's was known as a service station that still had a full-service pump - with an attendant filling the gas tank, wiping the windows and checking the oil - and if people took their car in for service work, it was returned with clean windows and vacuumed floors.
The structure was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1994 for its contribution to roadside architecture along U.S. Highway 2.
Before the Parkers owned the space it was owned by Steve Neiffer and housed Old Station Brewing after he bought the building from Dave Rhines.
Before becoming a brewery, the building was basically an empty brick shell with hardly any piping or electricity, but after 15 months of construction starting in 2017 the building was transformed from an old station to Old Station Brewing with a modernized the interior that retained much of the original façade.
Steve Parker said his business used to be a food truck in town, but now they have this great new location and the community has been great since they opened earlier this year.
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