Slight Detour: Tervan History Lives On!

Don't panic people!

The sign has not been changed it has been preserved. The other side of the sign says Tervan like it always has.

---Mike Travers

A mild protest arose on Facebook last night. Happily, it ended almost as quickly as it had begun.

Nobody messes with Sandpoint's Tervan.

We thought that very thing had happened when photos were posted on Facebook of the "Tavern/Tervan" sign at the longtime Cedar Street bar, noting that Mike Travers and Ralph Alderman had done some restoration on the sign's letters.

It will probably last another ten years, the post noted.

Well, what wasn't really clear from the pictures and from the comments was if the two Good Samaritans had doctored up the sign so much that they spelled "tavern" correctly on both sides.

Some comments suggested they had, while others still didn't clearly answer the question.

Longtime Sandpointers, me included cuz I've got a story in one of my books about the bar called "Three-Name Lounge," were ready to rage if the good-hearted souls had gone too far in fixing those letters, especially correcting the spelling.

The "Tervan/Tavern" aka Tam-o-Shanter is a Sandpoint fixture. Take that away and we might as well move on cuz our town would no longer be our town.

Happily, the "Tervan" story on Facebook had a good ending, as you can see from Mike's words above.

He wasted no time, letting us potential Facebook rioters know that the Tervan was still there to breathe at least another ten years.

In short, the Tavern got a dress-up, and the Tervan is still wearing its old clothes. Thus, a treasured tidbit of our hometown history has once more been preserved.

Whew! as one Facebook poster commented.

Below the pictures of the bar, you'll read part of a post that I wrote in 2008 about the bar, among other Sandpoint staples.

Taken in 2020, Love Photo

Below: Taken in 2025, photo by Mike Travers

Top photo, taken in 2020, Love Photo

Bottom photo taken in 2025 by Mike Travers

A "Slight Detour" post written to surprise Mary Margaret Cochran back in 2008 after I learned that she had been quietly, almost secretly, reading my daily blog.

Mary Margaret, I'm just wondering how Kate is doing, and does Bart's Border Collie still roll over when Bart tells him to "Make like a Democrat"? Is Adam still an admiring fan of Lee Ioccoca?

I'll never forget when Adam conned me into using a Word Clues word in my column years ago so that he could earn extra credit in Nancy Miller's class.

She had poohpoohed the word, saying nobody ever used it and that if anyone in her English class could find it in print, she'd give them extra points.

Of course, enterprising Adam knew what to do about that. So, he came to Mrs. Love, who wrote for the newspaper, and asked me to find a way to weave "logomachy" into whatever I was talking about in that month's column.

I can't remember the topic, but I do know that I used the word very wisely. Nancy Miller couldn't believe it and Nancy Miller couldn't deny Adam his extra credit.

By the way, I sure didn't get anything out of that deal, except maybe a lot of people grabbing their dictionaries.

And, Mary Margaret, where's that Seinfeld kid named Garrett these days? Last time I heard, he was traveling the world. [This kid, who did come to my house unannounced and at strange hours, is now a physician in Sandpoint]

Please, Mary Margaret, don't tell him where I live. He might get ideas about coming to my house unannounced, and I might have to bribe him to leave by feeding him stale potato chips and Schwan's ice cream bars.

I probably shouldn't mention the Tervan in this note to you, Mary Margaret, but both you and I know how that Three-Name Bar on Cedar Street in Sandpoint got one of its three names.

It was called the Tam-o-Shanter, and apparently, the proprietor figured people needed to know it was a bar.

So, they put up the sign with consideration for drivers going both east and west in those days. Nowadays Cedar Street is still confusing a few folks as one-way thoroughfare.

Once they got both sides of the sign up, they (including Pinky who owned the Chevron station across the street) stood back to look at their work.

Seems some letters got transposed on one side, so they just left 'em there. And we've had the Tam-o-Shanter, the Tavern and the Tervan ever since. I see it's doubling this week as a wake center too.

Well, it should. That bar is hallowed ground in Sandpoint, so hallowed the owner who made the big addition on the motel next door felt the pressure of the local citizenry and abandoned the idea of tearing it down in favor of leaving it there with the motel surrounding it.

Gosh, Mary Margaret, you've got me going. I've got lots of good memories associated with you and your family, and I thank you for reading the blog, even if you're kinda sneaky about doing it. Haven't seen you for a while, so I hope all is well with you.

👍👍👍👍👍👍