Old Crow’s Feathered Visit: Dive Bar-Turned-Moose Lodge Welcomes Band Member

She believes in signs. So, when a member of Old Crow Medicine Show walked into the Milltown Moose Lodge before the band’s headlining show at KettleHouse Amphitheater on Tuesday, Diane Loewan knew it was a good one.

Loewan’s not normally at the lodge on Tuesdays. She has been volunteering for the Moose Lodge, serving as chaplain, for three years. She was just helping with some kitchen work when the Old Crow guitarist and mandolin player, Mason Via, came to check out the historic building that used to be Harold’s Club.

Once a buzzing bar just outside of Missoula, the old building is now home to the Milltown Moose Lodge #2714, a fraternal organization that supports members of the Missoula community as well as national efforts to aid children and elderly folks in need.

It’s a private organization, but patrons considering membership with the Moose can visit the club, including its yard and full bar, three times before signing up. Loewan shared this photo with us. Look at the joy music can bring!

Via used his first visit to check out the building as space to possibly film videos, Loewan said. The Milltown Moose is just off Highway 200, across the railroad tracks on Daytona Loop, on the way to the venue where Old Crow Medicine Show would be playing later that evening. The building has been a laundromat in the past, a dance club, and now serves as a community hangout and not-for-profit fraternal order.

Before going to serenade the crowd on the Blackfoot River, Via serenaded members at the Moose.

It was a timely visit.

Loewen said she thinks music brings people together. That’s something the Moose Lodge aims to do, too, in the Milltown community. The lodge will often have reasonably priced food for the public to enjoy with their families—this week they hosted a taco bar—and they have a pool table, horseshoes, and kids' games.

Loewan used to play guitar and would love to welcome more local musicians into the Moose’s space. Though the guys from Old Crow Medicine Show aren’t Missoula locals, Via was able to fill the old building with new musical life.

If you have a band, or even just a buddy and an instrument, you, too, could play tunes at the Moose! Stop on into the lodge for more details.