Have you ever heard about "the hidden lady" in Missoula, Montana? I had never heard about her before myself.

On Wednesday morning, we were doing a radio show from Paradise Falls restaurant in Missoula, and I mentioned how I would be dropping by the Cranky Sam brewery later in the day.

One of the guests joining us for the radio show started telling me about "the hidden lady." He said Cranky Sam's is a really fancy brew pub in downtown. And then he said there's a really cool story about the hidden lady.

When they were tearing out some of the walls, they ended up unearthing a very old painting of a nude woman. The moment they first spotted it, they knew they had something historic, so they stopped what they were doing and called some experts to the scene.

Mark Thome did a piece for The Missoula Underground titled "Restoring the Hidden Lady of Cranky Sam Public House." According to his research, parts of the block that Cranky Sam's is now located on "were active parts of downtown’s red light district around the turn of the 20th century."

Owners Jennifer and Jed Heggen had not yet even settled on choosing a name for the new establishment when artifacts such as old bottles and glassware with a distinct influence from the Chinese immigrants who frequented the area began turning up under the foundation.  The legend of a local character nicknamed “Cranky Sam” ultimately became the namesake that was adopted as the name of the new enterprise.

Click here for the full story.

By the way, we were at Cranky Sam Public House for the "Get a Brew, Not the Flu" events that Kyle Austin and his crew from Pharm406 are doing all across the state. He'll be coming to a brewery near you for our "Hometown Handshake" as well. Click here for his latest updated event list.

 

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