Locally owned furniture and mattress store. Serving northwest Montana for over 38 years.
What began in 1974 as Tonnar’s Toggery, an apparel store in Hungry Horse, has interestingly evolved over the years to what you see today on Hwy 40 at Gil’s Furniture & Mattress Warehouse in Columbia Falls. Tonnar’s Toggery was built during the boom years in Hungry Horse when the Hungry Horse Dam was being built.
In 1979, Gilbert & Patsy Washburn rented the Tonnar’s Toggery building from Patsy’s mother, Dorothy Fisher. The Washburns, along with their partners Russ & Bobby Walter, then opened the Trapline Lumber Company in the same building. Over time, that business evolved into a lumber yard and second hand store just along highway two between Martin City and Hungry Horse, Montana. After many years, the Walters decided to sell their part of the business to the Washburns and that’s when Gilbert Patsy decided to get out of the lumber business, stick with the second hand furniture, open a new store in Columbia Falls and name it Gil’s Store.
As time moved on and things change, the Washburns began to take on more furniture and mattresses and they out grew their store in Columbia Falls, so they found a large warehouse on Highway 40, west of town, and moved their store to that property.
Business continued to grow, but in 1992, a devastating fire destroyed the Gil’s Store building and all of the contents. Not to be deterred, the Washhburns were re-building that winter, bought the land next door for expansion and completed the store that you see today.
After all these years, there is one thing that hasn’t changed at Gil’s – Good Old Fashioned Customer Service. At Gil’s, the entire staff believes that each customer that comes through the door, is just as important as the last one, and their reputation for quality service and fair prices is well known in the Flathead Valley.
